Tag Archives: Ireland

13 May

The County Tyrone

My parents oft times told me, they never could control me,
That a weaver they would make me if I’d stay at home,
But I took another notion of a higher promotion,
To try other countries as well as Tyrone.

When I came to Newry, it was there I fell a-courting,
A charming young girl for a wife of-a my own,
But when I came to view her she would not endure me,
For oft times she told me I was married at home.

Continually weaving I spent that whole season,
Oh thinking my true love, she would change her mind,
When at last I contracted, she instantly asked me,
“Kind sir, your character?” from the County Tyrone.

It is for my character you need never ask me,
For married or promised I never was to no’one,
She swore by her conscience that she would run all chances,
And travel along with me to the County Tyrone.

Oh early next morning, as the day was a-dawning,
We took a short ramble down by the mile stone,
A guard did pursue us, but they could not come to us,
I was wishing in my heart I had her in Tyrone.

With great toil and trouble our course we did double,
We met an old man that was walking alone,
He told them where he met us and where they would get us,
And that we were still talking of the County Tyrone

The canal it was near us where vessels were lying,
I jumped onto one and my case I made known,
They threw a plank to us, and on shipboard they drew us,
And told us the vessel was bound for Tyrone.

Now I am landed in my own native country,
And in spite of her parents I’ve got her at home,
Now my song for to finish she’s my love Jenny Innes,
And I’m bold McGuinness from the County Tyrone.

Beaver Island, Michigan singer John W. Green (1871-1964) learned “The County Tyrone” from his uncle (probably Peter O’Donnell, another singer born on the island). Song collector Ivan Walton recalls the night he, his son Lynn, islander Dominick Gallagher and collector Alan Lomax commenced their recording session with Green in August 1938 this way: “Lomax, Dominick Gallagher, Lynn and I and some beer drove out to John Green’s and found him quite talkative. We set up the recording machine and didn’t take it down until about 1 a.m.” My transcription of Green singing “The County Tyrone” for Lomax’s recording machine is above. The recording is accessible here on the loc.gov site.

Green’s is the only version of this song collected in North America. It is known in the north of Ireland and appears in Sam Henry’s Songs of the People as well as in the repertoires of Robert Cinnamond, Joe Holmes, Brian Mullen and others. The sweet melody, internal rhyming and detailed story of a successful elopement make it a song worth singing!

11 May

The Boy of Love

The boy in love without no fear like me some time ago
Like a hero bold through frost and cold to see my love I’d go
But the moon shone bright to give me light along my dreary way,
Until I arrived at my true love’s gate where all my fancy lay.

When I arrive at my true love’s gate, my step being soft and low,
She will arise and let me in, so softly I will go,
Saying, “Will you come to my father’s house?” “No dear, but come to your own,
Come with me, love, to the Parson’s and there we’ll be made one.”

“Oh no, oh no kind sir,” said she, “for prudence would not agree,”
“Well, then, sit down along by my side, for I must talk with thee,
For seven long years I have courted you against your parents’ will,
I was always resolved you would be my bride, but now, pretty girl, farewell.

“My ship lies in the harbor all ready to set sail,
And if the wind is from the East we’ll have a favoring gale,
And when I reach Columbia’s shore it is often I will say,
May the Lord above protect my love where all my fancy lay.

We return again this month to another fine Irish song from the repertoire of Minnesota singer Michael C. Dean. Irish song scholar John Moulden has traced this song, well known today in Ireland as “When a Man’s in Love He Feels No Cold,” back to its original composer: County Antrim schoolmaster Hugh McWilliams. McWilliams included “A Man in Love” in his book Poems and Songs on Various Subjects which was published in 1831 in Antrim.
The song entered folk tradition where, over the next hundred years, it gained some words, lost others and was set to several different melodies. Dean’s “Minnesota version” provides evidence of the furthest distance the song traveled from its source.

Since Dean left us only his text, I based the above melody on the melodies used for two other transatlantic versions collected in Marystown, Newfoundland by Maud Karpeles in 1930 and printed in Folk Songs from Newfoundland.

01 Mar

Nora McShane

I left Balamonoth a long way behind me,
To better my fortune I crossed the deep sea,
But I’m sadly alone, not a creature to mind me,
And, faith, I’m as wretched as wretched can be;
In truth, I think I’m near broken hearted.
To country and home I must return back again,
For I’ve never been happy at all since I parted
From sweet Balamonoth and Nora McShane.

I sigh for the turf fire so cheerfully burning,
Where barefooted I trudged it from toiling afar,
And tossed in the light the thirteen I’d been earning,
And whistled the anthems of Erin go Bragh;
But now far away from my fireside I’m parted,
Away back in dear America over the main,
And may God speed the ship that is sailing tomorrow,
Back to dear old Erin and Nora McShane.

There is something so dear in the cot I was born in,
Though the walls are but mud and the roof is but thatch,
How familiar the grunt of the pigs in the morning,
What pleasure in lifting that auld rusty latch;
It’s true I’d no money, but then I’d no sorrow,
My pockets were light and my head had no pain,
But if I’m living when the sun shines tomorrow,
I’ll go back to ould Erin and Nora McShane.

___________________

Several years ago, Maeve O’Mara and Liam O’Neill, proprietors of Irish on Grand, gave me a copy of a handwritten notebook of old song lyrics that someone from Hugo, Minnesota dropped off at the store. The notebook was made by Sylvester Johnson (whose parents immigrated from Cork) in the late 1800’s. The Johnson Manuscript is a fascinating collection of 27 songs including many 19th century sentimental Irish songs from both sides of Atlantic. There are at least five songs in the manuscript that also appear in Michael Dean’s Flying Cloud including “The Lament of the Irish Emigrant” and “Norah McShane.”

The text of “Norah McShane” was written by English poet Eliza Cook in 1838 when she was 20 years old. Cook was an outspoken advocate for women’s rights and a hero to many working class people in England and America. Several of her poems were widely known and set to music. I have yet to find a source for a melody in any North American source from oral tradition. However, a parody of “Norah McShane” called “Lake Chemo” written by James Wilton Rowe in the 1870s was collected in the woods of Maine by Phillips Barry. Rowe’s melody is a variant of the classic air Thomas Moore used for his “Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms.” The Dean and Johnson versions suggest a longer phrase length than the Rowe parody so I blended Rowe’s melody with other elements of the “Endearing Young Charms” melody to get the melody above. The text is as it appears in Dean.

Woodcut accompanying one of several 19th century broadside printings of Norah MacShane found in the Bodleian Library