Ireland - evergreentrad

05 Jul

My Dear Irish Boy

My Connor’s cheeks are as [a] ruddy as morning,
The brightest of pearls but mimic his teeth,
And nature with ringlets his mild brow adorning,
And love’s* Cupid’s bow strings, and roses his breath.
Smiling, beguiling, cheering, endearing,
Together oft over the mountain we strayed,
By each other delighted and fondly united,
And I’d listen all day to my dear Irish boy.

Now the war is all over and my love has not returned,
I’m afraid that some envious plot has been laid,
And that some cruel goddess has him captivated,
And left me to mourn a dear Irish maid.
And smiling, beguiling, cheering, endearing,
And together oft over the mountain we strayed,
By each other delighted and fondly united,
I would listen all day to my dear Irish boy.

*most broadside versions have “his hair” instead of “and love’s”—makes a little more sense to me.

This month I chose a Beaver Island, Michigan version of a song that is often played as an air by instrumentalists: “My Dear Irish Boy.” This version comes from the prolific singer Johnny W. Green of Beaver Island who sang it for Alan Lomax in 1938. The Lomax recording was recently digitized and made available online by the American Folklife Center (along with all the other fascinating recordings made by Lomax in Michigan that year). You can listen to Green himself sing it here.

The recordings made by Lomax in Beaver Island include a wealth of rare Irish songs. They also include chat about local singers, travelling to the “main land” for lumbering and other work and family connections to Ireland (mostly Donegal). It is a collection well worth checking out!

There’s a beautiful video of Clare fiddler Joe Ryan playing the air version of this song here. The air has some extra parts to how Green sang it.

27 May

Molly Bawn (The Irish Girl)

Oh, Molly Bawn is my love’s name, the same I’ll ne’er deny,
She has two red and rosy cheeks, two dark and rolling eyes;
She is the primrose of this country, she is Venus, I declare,
And the brightest star that is in the land is Molly Bawn so fair.

For where my love goes she trips the rose and makes the valleys ring,
And all the little small birds in my love’s praises sing;
The cuckoo and the turtle dove, the nightingale also,
They seem to say, “Let us haste away to wait on Molly-O.”

I wish I was in Ireland sitting on the green grass,
And in my hand a bottle and on my knee a lass;
We’d drink good liquor merrily and pay before we’d go.
I would roll you in my arms, Molly, let the winds blow high or low.
______________________________

An organization in Ireland called the Bird Song Project is celebrating traditional songs about birds with a series of concerts and song sessions this month. I had a look through my to-do list of songs for something fitting and found this one from Minnesota singer Michael C. Dean’s songster The Flying Cloud. It is not a song about birds but, in the process of praising the beauty of “Molly Bawn” it does invoke three species that will be familiar to anyone who loves old songs: the cuckoo, turtle dove and nightingale.

The above song is not related to the other “Molly Bawn” song in which Molly is mistaken for a swan and shot by her deer hunter lover. It shares most of its poetry with versions of the broadside “The Irish Girl,” a ballad with many “floating” lines and images that turn up in other traditional songs (including “I wish my love was a red, red rose” which is missing here).

We don’t know what melody Dean used for this song as The Flying Cloud is text only. I chose to borrow an air from the song “Wee Paddy Molloy” as sung by Brigid Tunney which I think fits quite well.

More info on variants of this song from the Traditional Ballad Index

07 Apr

St. Patrick’s Day

Come all of ye true sons of Erin,
Come listen awhile unto me,
You’ll find I’m a poor worn out creature,
Condoling here under a tree.
While the heart from my bosom was torn,
The truth unto you I’ll declare,
Young James was the flower of this island,
And he’s left me in grief and despair.

When first I beheld that young hero,
The hills and the valleys were green,
And the leaves they were all in full blossom,
Most beautiful there to be seen.
As she sat in her lone shady bower,
Those charming sweet notes she did play,
And the blackbird and thrush joined in chorus,
With her on St. Patrick’s Day.

Now my friends and my parents consulted,
And they found l was so well inclined,
False stories they told to my true love,
To banish me out of his mind.
But all that they said was a folly,
Every morning and evening I’ll pray,
I’m in hopes for to meet him with pleasure,
Once more on St. Patrick’s Day.

Now young James is the flower of this island,
The same I will never deny,
And the beautiful words that he told me,
I’ll never forget ‘til I’ll die.
But now he is crossing the ocean,
Every morning and evening I’ll pray,
I’m in hopes for to meet him with pleasure,
Once more on St. Patrick’s Day.

_____________

The Avalon Penninsula, on the rocky southeast coast of the remote Canadian island of Newfoundland, attracted a high concentration of Irish families as far back as the 1700s. Many Irish Newfoundlanders have roots specifically in the southeast of Ireland and, to this day, local accents are reminiscent of the Waterford Irish accent. (I highly recommend RTÉ’s incredible documentary The Forgotten Irish which includes footage from Avalon communities including several singers and is available free online.)

MacEdward Leach was the first song collector to bring recording equipment to Newfoundland. The recordings he made in small fishing communities are a treasure trove of beautiful songs. The above song was sung for Leach in 1951 by Cyril O’Brien of Trepassey, a small village on the Avalon. You can here the first verse of the Cyril O’Brien recording here (scroll down if you don’t see it right away).

Norah Rendell, Randy Gosa and I arranged an accompanied version of this song for Norah’s new album Spinning Yarns (officially launched this month). We based it on a snippet of Leach’s recording of this song and his transcribed text which, along with hundreds of other gems, is available online through the Memorial University of Newfoundland. The text above is Norah’s adaptation of O’Brien’s version and I made the transcription based on the Leach/O’Brien recording.

FUN ST. PATRICK’S DAY FACT: Due to its highly Irish population, Newfoundland is one of the only places outside of Ireland where St. Patrick’s Day is a public holiday!