[1] The song's narrator recounts how he and his cousin or friend, Arthur McBride, were strolling by the sea when approached by three British Army soldiers: a recruiting sergeant, a corporal, and a little drummer.
The sergeant tries to entice the pair to volunteer with a recruitment bounty and smart uniform, but they refuse the prospect of being sent to fight and die in France.
[13] In 1892 Frederick William Bussell [de] collected "Arthur le Bride" from a mason named Sam Fone, who learned it from his father in Dartmoor in the 1830s.
[11][1] Gould Academy c. 1955 published A Heritage of Songs by Carrie Grover (née Spinney, 1879–1959) from Nova Scotia, including a version of "Arthur McBride" she had learned from her father.
Later recordings include Paddy Reilly (The Town I Loved So Well, 1975); John Kirkpatrick and Sue Harris (Stolen Ground, 1989); Chris Foster (Traces, 1999); Ewan McLennan (Rags & Robes, 2010).
[21]) Brady's acoustic guitar has open G tuning and he combines Irish traditional style with some ornaments, "interplay[ing] between solo melodic moments and brief chordal sections";[22] it is widely considered the song's definitive version.
The 1978 short film Christmas Morning is a music video enactment of Brady's recording, starring Paul Bennett as Arthur McBride and Godfrey Quigley as the recruiting sergeant.