"The Moonshiner" is a folk song with unknown origins. In Ireland and America, it is sung with similar lyrics but different melodies. It is catalogued as Roud Folk Song Index No. 4301.
The melody printed in Carl Sandburg's The American Songbag (1927).
The Clancy Brothers were an influential Irish folk music group that developed initially as a part of the American folk music revival. Most popular during the 1960s, they were famed for their Aran jumpers and are widely credited with popularising Irish traditional music in the United States and revitalising it in Ireland, contributing to an Irish folk boom with groups like the Dubliners and the Wolfe Tones.
The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem in the 1960s (left-to-right: Tommy Makem, Paddy Clancy, Tom Clancy and Liam Clancy)
Tommy Makem (group member, 1956–69, 1984–85) playing a bodhrán in 2005, two years before his death
Finbar Furey (backup musician, 1969–70) playing the uilleann pipes in 2012
Robbie O'Connell (group member, 1977–1996) and his cousin, Aoife Clancy, the daughter of Bobby Clancy (group member, 1969–1970, 1977–1998), at the Cape Cod Celtic Festival in 2007