| "Hay and Hell and Booligal" | |
|---|---|
| by Banjo Paterson | |
| Written | 1896 |
| First published in | The Bulletin |
| Country | Australia |
| Language | English |
| Publication date | 25 April 1896 |
| Full text | |
 Hay and Hell and Booligal at Wikisource | |
Hay and Hell and Booligal is an 1896 poem by the Australian bush poet A. B. 'Banjo' Paterson who wrote the poem while working as a solicitor with the firm of Street & Paterson in Sydney.[1] It was first published in The Bulletin on 25 April 1896.[2] The poem was later included in Paterson's collection Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses, first published in 1902.[3]
The phrase "Hay and Hell and Booligal" and its more common variant "Hay, Hell and Booligal" is used figuratively in the Australian vernacular "to designate a place of the greatest imaginable discomfort".[4] The phrase was popularised by Paterson's poem, but the expression pre-dates his work.
Hay is a town in south-western New South Wales on the Murrumbidgee River. Booligal is a town on the Lachlan River, 76 kilometres (47 miles) north of Hay by road. The road connecting the two townships (nowadays a section of the Cobb Highway) crosses a flat expanse of country known as the One Tree Plain. In the earlier expression "Hay, Hell and Booligal", and also Paterson's adaptation of the phrase, "Hell" corresponds to the One Tree Plain, on the stock route between Hay and Booligal.[5]
- ^ Ladd, Mike. "Hay, Hell and Booligal". Headspace. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on 21 October 2008. Retrieved 1 October 2008.
- ^ The Bulletin, 25 April 1896, Vol. 17 No. 845, page 9.
- ^ Paterson, Andrew Barton 'Banjo'. Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved 2 October 2008.
- ^ Moore, Bruce (editor), Australian National Dictionary (2nd edition; 2016) (ISBN 978-0-19-555026-9).
- ^ Pierce, Peter (general editor), The Oxford Literary Guide to Australia, Oxford University Press, 1987, page 47; see also Dempsey, E. J., 'Hay But No Hell: Exploding a Libel', Evening News (Sydney), 28 June 1922, page 13.