More of the Same, but Different

Something to pass the time until Thursday....This was the first post on this blog, but few people saw it, I think.

Iarla O Lionaird is a singer from Baile Mhuirne (Cuil Ao section of it) who first came to notice as a child as a member of Cor Chuil Ao. In the video at the top, he is profiled by TG4, and then sings a 'vision' song associated with the area. (It's titled Aisling Gheal (A Bright Vision) here, but is "Aislinn an Oigfhir" (The Young Man's Vision")  in the Freeman collection of 1914.) The video on the bottom is the song as he sang it with Cor Chuil Ao thirty years ago, along with pretty pictures of Ireland.

If you're not interested in views of the man walking around his house, I'd choose the video on the bottom. Not that it's not a very nice house....

Iarla O Lionaird, by the way, is the person who sings Casadh an tSugain in the movie Brooklyn, and his singing is influenced (deeply influenced in the song posted here) by the old style of singing that could be found in parts of west Munster in the early 20th century; in Musgrai and in Uibh Rathach, to be specific (Muskerry West barony and Ivreagh barony ('Ring of Kerry'). I'll let Sean O Riada describe it.

"Perhaps the most obvious feature of the West Munster style is its development of rhythmic variation. Where rhythmic variation occurs in other regions, it usually consists in lengthening or shortening a note or group of notes and in retarding or quickening the temp of a phrase or group of phrases; also in changing the accentuation or altering the rhythmic relationship  of the notes. In West Munster, however, rhythmic variation  is extended by means of a glottal stop , or click. The voice is shut off, as it were, in the middle of a phrase , or even at the end of a phrase."

"Apart from the glottal stop, two other methods of variation are employed, involving dynamics and tone production....The singer may draw special attention to a phrase, or even a single note, by singing it softer or louder than the surrounding notes.  And he may draw  special attention to a note or group of notes by producing the tone in a particularly nasal fashion." (O Riada goes on to comment that nasalization is used in other areas, but that it tends to be overused there, so that the more sparse use in West Munster is more effective.)

(The quote is from Our Musical Heritage by Sean O Riada, published by the Dolmen Press in 1982. The book is based on a radio series O Riada did in 1962. It's a brief but very perceptive and informative consideration of Irish traditional music.)

The old style is not as pronounced today among other current singers from Musgrai, and there aren't any current singers from Uibh Rathach, so the only really good other recorded examples of it are from the early and mid-20th century. O Riada's radio series included wonderful examples from an old Musgrai man, Padraig O Tuama, but since I don't have those recordings in a form that can be uploaded, I'll use an example from an Uibh Rathach singer, Padraig O Ceallaigh from Ballinskelligs. He's the man on the left in the photograph above (Kevin Danaher, a Limerick folklore collector, is on the right.)

The link below will take you to a recording of him, since Blogger refuses to cooperate in bringing a sound file here. You'll need to fight your way back to this blog after.

As you'll see, there are a few other song fragments recorded from Padraig O Ceallaigh on the Doegen Records site. Doegen was a German pioneer of language recording who was employed by the Irish government to make recordings of old Irish speakers in 1928. The recordings pretty much then disappeared until the Royal Irish Academy a few years ago digitalized them and created a site.

http://www.doegen.ie/ga/LA_1072d2

The style was probably used only by some singers even then, because all the singers recorded in the 1950s and featured on a recent cd of Uibh Rathach singers use another style that sounds to me like what A. M. Freeman referred to in the 1920s  as a style in parts of Munster: "a uniformly dull, nasal, lethargic delivery."

A recently published book--Gaelic Grace Notes--edited by Seamus O Cathain of UCD, provides other recordings from Padraig O Ceallaigh. Norwegian Ole Sandvik collected the songs in Ireland in 1927. His collection was unknown until just recently, when O Cathain discovered it in a Norwegian archive. The book prints the songs and includes some recordings Sandvik made.

Diarmuid O Suilleabhain from Baile Mhuirne passed away in an automobile accident a number of years ago, There's incredible art and passion in this song. 

Sinead O'Connor recorded a translation of this song, as did Dead Can Dance.

Here are the words to the song. Diarmuid O Suilleabhain sings a different version, but because I'm lazy and overworked, I'll translate what I have in front of me now. This translation is quick, literal and forgettable.

Táim sínte ar do thuama agus gheobhair ann de shíor mé.

Dá mbeadh barra do dhá láimh agam, ní scarfainn leat choíche.

A phlúirín is an tsearc, sé ann domsa luí leat.

Mar tá boladh fuar na cré uait, dath na gréine is na gaoithe.

I'm stretched out on your grave, and it's there I'm always found.

If I could touch your hands to me, I'd never part from you.

Oh my flower and my love, I want to lie there with you,

(The line above is confused in the original. I've amended 'ann domsa' to 'annsa liom'.)

and there's the cold scent of earth on you, and you burnt by sun and wind.

Is nuair is dóigh le mo mhuintir go mbímse ar mo leabaigh.

Is ar do thuama sea a bhím sínte ó oíche go maidin.

Ag cur síos ar mo chruatan is ag cruaghol go daingean.

Sí mo chailín chiúin, stuama do ghluais liom ina leanbh.

When my people think that I am in my bed,

it's on your tomb I am, from night until morning,

telling you of my hardship and weeping bitterly,

and she's my gentle wise girl who was along with me since I was a child.

Is tá na sagairt is na bráithre gach lá liomsa i bhfearg.

D'fhonn a bheith i ngrá leat a stórmhnaoi is tú marbh.

Dhéanfainn foithnín ón ngaoth duit, is díon díot ón bhfearthainn.

Agus brón ar mo chroíse tú a bheith thíos ins an talamh.

The priests and brothers are angry at me each day

since I am in love with you, and you dead.

I'd make a shelter from the wind for you, and shelter from rain,

and it's my heart's sorrow that you're down in the earth.

Is an gcuimhin leatsa an oíche úd a bhíosa agus tusa.

Fé bhun an chrann draighnigh, is bhí an oíche ag cur cuisne.

Céad moladh le hÍosa nár dheineamar an milleadh.

Is go bhfuil an choróin Mhaighdein mar chrann soilse inár gcoinne.

And do you remember that night when you and I were

under the blackthorn tree, and frost in the night?

A hundred thanks to Christ that I didn't take you then,

that your maiden's crown is a tree of light out before us. 

Is tabhair mo mhallacht dod' mháithrín is ní áirímse d'athair.

Is a maireann de do chairde gach lá faid a mhaireann.

Nár lig dom tú a phósadh is tú beo agam i do bheathaigh

Mar nach n-iarrfainn mar spré leat ach luí leat sa leabaigh.

Take my curse to your mother, and, without doubt, to your father,

and to all of your kin, each day that they live;

that they didn't allow me to marry you when you were alive,

and I'd ask no dowry with you but to lie beside you in bed.

Is tá brón ar mo chroíse atá líonta le grá dhuit.

Is an lionndubh taobh thíos dó atá chomh dubh leis na háirne.

Sara dtiocfaidh aon ní orm is go gcloífidh an bás mé

Ó béad-sa i mo shí gaoithe romhat thíos ar na bántaibh.

There's sorrow on my heart that's so full of love for you,

and a melancholy in my center, black as the sloe berry.

Before I will finish, when death shoves me down,

I'll be a whirlwind out before you down in the fallow fields/meadows.



Another song: Nell Ni Chroinin from Ballangeary, south of Baile Mhuirne (Ballyvourney), singing a song about Baile Mhuirne, where her mother (I think) is from. There is no Irish in Ballangeary today.

Here is Freeman's description of two singers from whom he recorded songs in Baile Mhuirne. He's at a harvest celebration in about 1914.

"....a small pure and slightly nasal sound comes from his lips, and wanders a few notes up and down the scale. Is he trying his voice? or is he searching for the right pitch for his song? or has he forgotten the tune? He stops dead. Then, as suddenly, he goes on again. More notes are given out, just as casually, but perhaps he sings a longer group this time. Another inexplicable pause, another start, and you realize that  these unemphasized and uncoordinated  scraps were not preliminaries, but part of the song. He is well into his first verse and is approaching the second half of the tune. He begins to lay stress on certain notes, to pronounce some words as if he enjoyed them, to impart more rhythm to his singing. He takes a deep breath, the music rises to a high, prolonged note; his eyes flash; he swells on the note with consummate art, concludes it with a clear, rapid flourish, descends again, and lets the last line of the verse escape from him as accidentally as the beginning."

And the second singer:

"In place of the one long note and turn, contrasting sharply with the negligent beginning and ending, we are now listening to a melody equally defined in all its parts.  There are a good many lengthened notes, but these occur at different points in the various verses, wherever the singer feels inclined to give emphasis to the words. Turns and runs are introduced, but never on the long notes; they are used to ornament the melody and seem to fulfill the function of secondary emphasis....He has a style for each type of song.....In...(his) first (song), notice the crowd of pauses and ornament; in the second, the grace note with the slur up to the high, lengthened note; in the third, the utter simplicity and regularity of his singing."

The descriptions are from Freeman's 1914 collection of folk songs from Baile Mhuirne, published in the Journal of the (English) Folk Song Society in 1920. I photocopied the whole thing years ago, but it's now available as three pdf files on-line from the Irish Traditional Music Archive site. The songs (all in Irish) are written in an orthography based on the Musgrai pronunciation, an orthography that became the Litriu Shimpli of O Cuiv. This is great, if you want to know about Musgrai pronunciation (literal English translations are supplied too), but an obstacle to people who aren't used to that pronunciation.

The following singer on the TG4 program below is a grand-daughter of the Elizabeth Cronin (See below). She sings a well-known Musgrai song from the early 19th century composed by poet Maire Bhui Ni Laoire.

So, altogether great singing, but I'm not going to trade in my Connacht colors yet.

The Freeman collection, and the Irish songs published in The Songs of Elizabeth Cronin, Irish Traditional Singer (ed. Daibhi O Croinin, Four Courts Press, 2000), as well as in Proinsias O Ceallaigh's Amhrain o Mhuscraighe in the journal Bealoideas (don't have the issue number in front of me), and the songs in various issues of the mid-20th century Irish Folk Song Society journal, all show that the tradition of songs composed by poets had ousted simple folk songs from the repertoire of County Cork singers.

This was probably because the cultivated poetic tradition was stronger in Cork than anywhere else in Ireland, and because the poet's songs are often impressive, especially the aislinn (vision) songs. By the early and mid-19th century, though--the period in which many of the  songs later collected were composed--the most popular songs were on the line of: 'I wandered out and met this girl, and here are the clever things I said to her.' The songs aren't heartfelt or effective, in most cases.

As we move away from Cork into Kerry and Waterford, the proportion of actual folk songs in the early 20th century repertoire increases.

(Being a spoiled librarian, I will interject that very little collection was ever done in what remained of Irish-speaking Limerick. There are songs in Memories of My Youth by Kevin Danaher (another Kevin Danaher, not the one in the photograph above) published in Bealoideas and referring to the northwest of the county in the early 20th century. There are more in Binneas Thar Meon, songs collected by Liam De Noraidh in east Munster in the mid-20th century (Comhairle Bhealoideas, 1994). Most of the songs in the De Noraidh collection are from Waterford and Tipperary, but there are a few from far southeastern Limerick--Kilbeheny, to be specific, in the mountains above Mitchelstown, Cork.

Limerick Irish was interesting. The east of the county was strongly "Deisi", transforming gradually west to a Mac Gearailt lordship type of Irish best known today from the Dingle peninsula. Very little survives. If anyone is interested, I'll tell what I know about it.....

But back to song. Clare singing was very different and distinctive, judging from 19th century comments on it, and on the bits that survived into the late 20th century to be recorded--maybe faster and less obviously ornamented, as Donegal also is/was. Micho Russell is an example. (That's Iarla O Lionaird to the left.)

















(To clarify; there are a lot of song words from Clare, but I don't know if the recordings themselves survive in what was the Folklore Commission, or only transcriptions.)
And Waterford, now....Great singing there, and some great songs, and a matter for another day.

So, if you were to be stranded on a desert island with only one sean-nos tradition, which would it be, and why?

I should caution you that my uncle works for the Clinton campaign, so an incorrect answer from anyone here will lead to an immediate barrage of savage rebuttals from off-duty staffers there.

Songs from Connacht

Roisin Elsafty from Carna sings Roisin Dubh, accompanied by Ronan Browne on pipes and Siobhan Armstrong on traditional Irish wire-strung harp. It doesn't get any better than this....

’S nach fada an réim a lig mé léi ó inné go inniu,
’Siúl sléibhte i mo chadhan aonraic, ní raibh aon neach liom,
Loch Éirne, chaith mé de léim í, cé go mba ard a bhí an tsruth,
Ó tá m’anam gléigheal ligthe go léig a’m le mo Róisín Dubh.

’S a Róisín, ná bíodh brón ort ná cás anois,
Tá do dheartháir insan nGearmáin, tá a thriall thar muir, 
Tiocfaidh do phardún ón bPápa, is ón Róimh uilig, 
’S ó ná spáráil fíon Spáinneach ar mo Róisín Dubh.

’S dhá mbeadh seisreach a’m nach deas a threabhfainn in aghaidh an chnoic,
Dhéanfainn seanmóir ar an altóir mar a hordaíodh dhom,
Thabharfainn póg nó dhó don chailín a lig a hógh liom,
Óra, dhéanfainn cleas deas ar chúl an easa le mo Róisín Dubh


Sean Nos singing

The United Nations sometimes designates intangible treasures of world cultural heritage, like, for example, sutartine singing in Lithuania and the Eternech procession. I don't know what practical effect that has on anything, but it does draw some attention to the traditions in question.
If I could nominate some cultural treasures, the Connacht Irish-language song tradition would be among them, as well as east Galway fiddle and flute music, old-style Musgrai and Uibh Rathach songs in Irish, uillean pipes, all Scottish Gaelic song, Breton dancing and twenty more. 

But the Connacht song tradition is a treasure.

Today at the turn of the 21st century, it's associated with Conamara, but most of the songs weren't originally made there at all. In the early 20th century, east Galway and west Mayo were well-known sources of songs. Earlier still, east Mayo, Roscommon and Leitrim were sources. (Many of the songs collected by O Loinsigh for Edward Bunting about 1800 were from east Mayo and Leitrim, and some well-known songs were originally associated with Roscommon.) But as Irish-speaking communities in most of the province were absorbed into the new world of agricultural estates, bullocks and money, song died with language. In Conamara (the heavily-populated coastal areas west of Galway town where even into the early 1960s, many people could not speak English effectively), these songs and the performance of the them retained its function and remained a meaningful part of life.

Their poetry is distinguished by a lyric passion, a restrained laconic eloquence and devastatingly beautiful and effective imagery. Indeed, in the late Middle Ages, Connacht was known for poetry and music ("Is binn an Connachtach oirfideach, clu na ndamh", according to the proverb. Or in the 'dark side' version: ("Is cainnteach Connachtach, conablach clamhach gan chain."), and what remains of Irish-speaking Connacht still is.

A map of places where most people spoke Irish about the end of the 19th century.

The music is as passionate as flamenco, though maybe not obviously so. No Connacht man or woman is likely to take a rose between the teeth or stamp around like a randy cockerel--never mind Michael Flateley.  Passion in these songs is expressed through the use of ornamentation and variation to focus attention on certain points of the performance. Musical and lyrical tension build in each turn of the tune, in each stanza of the words, and through the performance as a whole, to be released in a few notes or even in one; in an image or phrase. This is not something that will grab a person by the throat or bang them over the head. Anyone not paying attention or distracted will miss it altogether. One needs to be quiet enough inside so as to be able to hear the music, to follow it. It would be impossible to really hear a song while eating a burger.

This is an individual art. Each performance, though obviously founded on a deep individual interaction with tradition as received by the singer, is unique in many ways. It is a remaking, a reformulation, expressing a specific time, place and person. Even an individual singer may (or used to) vary their songs in substantial ways, and songs live only in the moment, in performance. Recording--whether filmed or notated--freezes them, creating a text that is maybe a useful, even beautiful, artifact for those times we're not listening to a person, but which is not 'Donal Og', or whatever song is in question.

In a way, the whole corpus of songs that is known in a community is one thing, a single work of art. Songs exist in relation to one another; not only in verses which may float between songs or be adapted into new contexts, but also in music. Some commentators complain that today, songs are on the way to becoming pre-packaged lifeless objects, obtained 'ornamentation included'; that they are merely repeated rather than recreated. Such commentators state that the songs are becoming something for the stage and for competitions. I wouldn't know--I'm a terrible musician--but if true, it would be like freezing a rose; the flower looks good, but it's finished. It can only stay frozen and preserved, or die.

This isn't a totally new thing. Terminal stages of the sean nos tradition in some other Irish areas demonstrated this breakdown, and some collectors in the 1940s and 1950s (Seamus Ennis in southeastern Conamara, and the person who collected songs in Arainn that were released on a Folkways record) found that for particular singers, well-known published song texts had superseded local texts. 

Partly this was just respect for books. Partly it's based on the assumption that there exists an original text of a song that's more correct--'better'--than any others. To argue that there is not is not thus to claim that no first performance of a specific song occurred--it clearly did. But a song was adapted from models that already existed in the local tradition, and once performed, it entered the tradition and began to interact with other songs, and to change.

Before this runs down into total incoherence, the songs:
                                
Dónal Óg

Maire Ni Eanai from Carna sings Donal Og (Young Donal), a song well-known in Connacht and Munster. The video is from the TG4 Sean Nos Archive, and originally appeared in a TV program Fonnadoiri na hAirde (Singers from Ard). (Ard is an area in Carna parish.)

Well, I spent a half-hour trying to get the video to come here, but you will need to go to the link below. I hate Blogger, (and Google, and Amazon and Wal-Mart and Exxon, etc., for good measure.)

http://old.tg4.ie/en/programmes/archive/maire-ni-eanai/donal-og.html

Maire Ni hEanai doesn't sing all the verses of the version I've translated below, which is very complete. The text of the Irish original is in Nua-Dhuanaire, Cuid I, edited by Padraig de Brun, Breandan O Buachalla and Tomas O Concheannain, and published by Institiud Ardleinn Bhaile Atha Cliath (Dublin Institute for Higher Studies), in 1975. That is a great anthology of modern (circa 1500 - 1900) Irish poetry and songs. There are also volumes II and III,  just as good.

My love’s hair is the color of the blackberries,

the color of blackthorn fruit on a fine sunny day,
the color of blackest bilberry that’s on the mountain,
black hair and a shining white body.

My heart is as black as the blackthorn fruit,

black as the black coal that’s burnt in the forge,
black as the track of shoes on white hall floors,
and there’s a great melancholy behind my laugh.

Oh Dónal Óg, you’d be better off with me

than with a proud demanding noblewoman;
I’d milk the cow for you and I’d churn the butter,
and if you were in danger, I’d strike a blow for you.

Late last night the dog was speaking about you,

the snipe was speaking of you deep in the marsh,
that you’re a lonely wanderer through the wood,
and may you have no mate forever until you take me!

You promised something to me, but you lied to me,

that you’d be waiting there at the sheep-pen for me;
I whistled and I called out twelve times for you,
but there was nothing there for me but the lambs bleating.

You promised me something that wasn’t easy to do;

golden ships under silver masts,
twelve market towns,
and a fine white palace beside the sea.


Your love was only like a drift of bright snow,
like a sandbar in the middle of the sea,
like a wind  running over the top of the gardens,
like the torrent of a stream after a rainy day.

My mother told me not to speak to you,

not on any day of the week or on Sunday;
it's a poor time she chose to give me a warning--
like a wall around a garden after it's been plundered.

I denounce love--alas for she who gave it

to yon mother’s son who never understood it;
he left my heart black in the center of chest,
and I can’t see him in the village or any place at all.

Below, a young woman from Ballinrobe sings the song, Donal Og.

http://old.tg4.ie/en/programmes/archive/traolach-o-conghaile/an-draighnean-donn.html

                    An Droighnean Donn

If you go to the link above, you will be able to hear Traolach O Conghaile sing a well-known Connacht song, An Draighnean Donn (The Blackthorn Tree). This comes from the TG4 Sean Nos archive too, and dates to 2014. The archive says the singer is from Mayo, and he pronounces some words in a Mayo/north Conamara way, but I don't know any thing else about him, except that he now lives in south Conamara and is a great singer

(The version translated is not the version he sings, but that's available, in the original, on the Archive site.) I translate from Nua-Dhuanaire I.

Shilfeadh aomfhear gur dil do fein me nuair a luionn do'm mionn
a's go dteann dha dtrian sios diom nuair a smaoinim ar do chomhra liom;
sneachta siobhtha a's e a shiorchur faoi Shliabh Ui Fhloinn
a's go bhfuil mo ghra-sa mar bhlath na n-airni ar an droighheann donn.

Shil me fein nach ag ceasacht spre orm a rachadh gra mo chroi,
a's nach bhfuigfeadh se ina dhiadh me mar gheall ar mhaoin;
fa-raor gear nach bhfuilim fein a's an fear a chraigh mo chroi
a ngleanntan sleibhe i bhfad o einneach a's an an drucht 'na lui,

Ta feirin le me cheadshearc i mo phoca thios
a's fearaibh Eireann, ni leigheasfaidis mo bhron, fa-raor.
nuair a smaoinimse ar a chursai a's ar a chul brea donn,
bim ag gearghol os iseal a's og osnail go trom.....

Every man thinks that it's him I’m in love with, when he begins to swear oaths,

and two-thirds of them drop away from me, when I remember your words;

the snow blows in drifts in the endless storm on Sliabh Ui Fhloinn;
my love’s hair is the color of the sloes that grow on the blackthorn tree

I never thought that my dearest love would haggle over my dowry
or that he would desert me afterwards, over a matter of wealth;
its my desperate despair that I’m not with the man who so troubled my heart in a little mountain glen far away from them all, with the dew coming down.

I have a present from my first love down in my pocket
and all the men of Ireland couldn’t cure my sorrow, alas;
when I remember your ways and your lovely brown hair,
I spend a while weeping softly and a while sighing heavily.

I wish I had a present on the fair day from my handsome lad,
and sweet conversation after, with the flower of the men:
it's my desperate despair that we’re not there with a priest in front of us,
to join our lives together, before he leaves and goes away.

 No matter what they think of it, I’ll praise my dearest love;
no matter what they think of it, I’ll sit down by his side;
no matter what they think of it, a thousand arrows through his heart;
and oh shining star before the people, it's you who’s troubled my heart.

Oh dear God, what will I do if you should leave me?
I don’t know the way to your house, your fire or to your hearth.
My mother is frantic, my father’s in the grave,
my people are enraged with me, and my love’s far away.

There's a darkness on my eyes and I didn't sleep a wink,

thinking about you, my first love, though the night is long.

The way that you denied me in front of the world,
and oh, fragrant branch, why would you bear false witness to me?

Its a foolish man who’d be scrambling up a wall that’s high,
when there’s a low wall beside it, on which he could put his hand;
though the rowan tree is tall, its crop it is sour,
while blackberries and strawberries grow on a low little branch.

I send you two hundred farewells, my thousand love,

the gossipers have poisoned your mind against me.
I have no little boat to send after your ship
the sea’s rolling high in front of me and I don’t know how to swim.

Take my blessing to that village there west among the trees,
towards the village to which I’m wandering, both early and late;
there’s many a wet muddy road and a twisting path
stretching between me and the village where my sweetheart dwells.   


Here is Traolach singing another song

   

Here below is my translation of a well-known song collected by Douglas Hyde in the late 19th century in Roscommon. The original text is from Nua-Dhuanaire, Cuid III, ed. by O Concheannain, Tomas; Institiud Ardleinn Bhaile Atha Cliath, 1978.  

                           

  

                       Mo bhrón ar an bhFairrge

  

          I wish sorrow to the sea, for she is so wide,

          and there she is flowing between my love and I.

          I was left in this village, lamenting and sorrowing,

         with no hope of ever crossing over those waves.

          

          It's my sorrow that I and my dearest love are not

          in the province of Leinster or in the County Clare.

         My grief that I and my dearest love are not on board

          of a ship traveling off to America!

 

         It was a bed of rushes that was under me last night, 

         I tossed it out when the day’s heat had come;

         my own love came up to my side,

         shoulder to shoulder and mouth to mouth.  

Below, Darach O Cathain sings Oro 'Se do Bheatha Abhaile. Any occasion is better for a bit of Darach O Cathain,  a singer from the Conamara islands whose family moved to the Meath "Gaeltacht colony" when he was young. He went to work in England as a young man, like most, and would be completely forgotten today (except to his family of course), only that Sean O Riada brought him to attention. There was one record.

And now for something completely different....

Two Breton musicians play for a dance. The tune is for a lariden-gavotten from the villages between the towns of Pontivy and Baud. The bombarde is a shawn that takes a lot of wind to make any sort of noise on. (I know; I tried once, and failed). The traditional Breton bagpipe is shrill, but the sound of the two instruments together carries for miles--good for the traditional outdoor dances..

The next poem was spoken by a woman hoping that her true love would return from sea before she was forced to marry against her will. It’s from a collection of songs written down from county Mayo Irish immigrants to the U.S. in the early twentieth century, and published in the journal Bealoideas; specifically Amhrain o Iorrus, ed. Micheal O Gallchobhair, Number.10, I think. At any rate, the collection runs from page 210 to 284, and I will note the correct particulars when I locate that stray piece of paper.

He arrived just in time, according to the story.

 

    

            Eala Gheal ar Bhruach na Tuinne

Bright swan by the waves’ edge,
I love a black haired man!
I would that he knew the tale of my trouble;
I pray he’s well!

Aren’t I just like a nut on the branch

without any other nuts around me?

You’d only need a gentle breeze to come

to tremble it and to knock that nut down.

I’ll reward you, southern wind,

if only you’ll shift around to the north,

hoping that the man who’s out at sea

will sail into the bay tonight.

Aren’t I like a curragh swept from wave to wave?

Aren’t I like a ship whose sails have been broken?

Aren’t I like an apple tree that’s lost its blossom?

But I’m still here, despite all of them against me.

Better than Fantastic

Ta Me I Mo Shui is one of the great love songs. It's very simple, and became known after the group Clannad recorded an effective version in the 1970s.

I translate here from Dha Cead de Cheoltaibh Ulaidh, ("200 Ulster Songs") a 1934 collection edited by E. O Muirgheasa and published by An Oifig Dhiolta Foilseachain Rialtais (Government Publications Office).  O Muirgheasa says that he got versions in Crossmaglen, south Armagh county, and in 'Donegal', but did not specify where in the large county of Donegal. The song doesn't show up in any other early collections, Ulster or otherwise.

It is in Ceolta Theilinn, a collection by Padraig Mac Seain published by the Institute of Irish Studies at Queen's University, Belfast in 1972. He mentions that he recorded the song in Rann na Feirste in the north of Donegal, but that the version from Teelin, his native place, is better. I'm taking the Irish words from his book, in tribute to the Teelin that was, a treasure house of song and story and music and humanity.

O Muirgheasa points out that the first verse is the same as the first verse of Mala an tSleibhe Ruaidh (The Brow of the Red Mountain) in Abhrain Gradh Cuige Chonnacht/Love Songs of Connacht. It's the sixth song in that collection, and Douglas Hyde obtained the relevant verse from an old woman in county Sligo.

(O Muirgheasa, of course, did not actually say from 'Donegal,' at all, but from 'Tir Chonaill,' (The Country of Conal), which is the usual Irish name of county Donegal. 'Donegal' is only a town in the far south of the county, but when the English government instituted counties, they usually named them after a principal town, or even after a totally non-principal one like Maigh Eo in the far south of county Mayo.

The only exceptions I can think of are Ciarrai (Kerry), an ancient people; Fer Manach (Fermanagh ), a people; Tir Eoin (Tyrone), Country of Eoin; and Mi (Meath) and Westmeath, which was actually an ancient province ('Middle'), though county Mi (Meath) was mostly not a part of that province.

(Laois) Leix and Ui bhFailghe (Offaly) are what the first Irish independent government in the 1920s substituted for 'Queen's and King's Counties. They actually each include a lot more than the ancient kingdoms of Laois and Ui bhFailghe did, but that's that.

Beneath is a recording of the song by the great Cor Taobh an Leithid, a choir from Gweedore.

I am awake since the moon rose last night,
I’m here, kindling the fire restlessly and feeding it desperately.
The folk of the house are all stretched out and I’m here alone;
the cocks are crowing and all the world’s asleep, but for me.

Ta me imo shuidhe o d'éirigh an ghealach areir,
ag cur teineadh sios, faraor, a's ag fadadh go gear.
Ta bunadh an toighe ina lighe, a's ta mise liom fhein,
ta na coiligh ag glaoch a's ta an tir ina gcodladh, ach me.

Your mouth, your face, are my soul’s desire,
your shining blue eyes for which I’ve abandoned pleasure and rest.
In sorrow after you, I can’t see to walk the road,
and, oh, friend of my heart, the mountains stand between you and I.

Mo sheacht n-anam deag do bheal, do mhalaidh a's do ghruaid,
do shuil ghorm ghle fa's threig mise ateas a's suairc;
le cumhaidh  mhor i do dheidh, ni leir dhom an bealach a shiul,
's a charaid mo chleibh, ta na sleibhte idir me a's tu.

 Learned folk say that love is a mortal sickness:
I didn’t believe them, until it tore my own heart inside.
A desperate disease, it's my sorrow that I didn’t escape it:
it sends a sharp arrow, a hundred arrows through the center of my heart.

Deir lucht an leinn gur claoite an galar an grash'
nior adhmhaigh me e, go raibh se i ndeidh mo chroidhe a chra,
Aicic ro-ghear, faraor, nar sheachnaigh me i;
cuireann se arraing a's cead, mo leir, frid ceart-lar mo chroidhe.

I met an elvish woman down at the hollow by the ford:
I asked her was there anything that would loose the fetters of love.
She said quietly, in a gentle fair voice,
“When once it goes into the heart, never, never will it loose its grasp.”

Casadh bean sidhe dom thios ag Lios Bheal an Atha'
d'fhiafraigh me di, an scaipfeadh glais ar bith gradh;
Duirt si go os-iseal i mbriathairibh soineannta samh;
"Nuair a theid se fa an chroidhe, ni scaoilfear as e go brach."

Note that some words must be written in the 'old' spelling to reflect actual Donegal pronunciation:
suidhe/sui, fadadh/fadu, croidhe/croi, luighe/lui, cumhaidh/cumha, etc,

There are thousands of great lyrical Irish and Scottish Gaelic folk songs of love. There are maybe one or two, if that, made in English in Ireland.

That's because language shift doesn't happen on a whim. Irish (and Scottish Highland) individuals and communities shifted from Irish to English because they were caught up in An Droch-Shaol--The Hard Times, or literally, The Evil World--the meat grinder of agricultural intensification and commodification of the 19th century when hundreds of thousands lost their farms and had to compete  for laboring jobs on the remaining big farms.

Mostly, they starved instead. After the Famine, in particular, and then the 1880s, parents stopped speaking Irish to their children because they knew that the children needed every advantage they could get, to compete in the new English-speaking economy. A lot of other things were tossed overboard in the rush to the lifeboats, including a lot of what makes life meaningful.

So here we are with some stuff from the most remote communities in the West, the ones that were so poor that English was no advantage--and beside, who was going to teach it to them?

And for a taste of beautiful Donegal Irish, here's a link to a Radio na Gaeltachta interview of five-year old Huidi Mac Garbheith. He starts by giving his ancestors for 9 generations (on his father's side), talking about his family (his mother is from west Montana), his pets (cats and goats), his first memories etc. Later on, he tells a ladder story and sings Oro 'Se do Bheatha Abhaile. At 8 minutes, he discusses the Titanic.

It's great!

http://www.rte.ie/radio/utils/radioplayer/rteradioweb.html#!rii=b17%5F20648016%5F1748%5F12%2D09%2D2014%5F


 And here is a woman from South Uist (Scottish Gaelic).

Ceolas is a summer music and dance program in South Uist with a Gaelic focus.

Scottish Gaelic is easy! for Irish speakers, once you know some prominent words that differ. South Uist Gaelic is very clear, I think, and doesn't have the weird (to an Irish-speaker) phonology that some other Scottish dialects have.

Words to look out for:

Tha mi - Ta Me
Trang - Gnothach, Curamach, Broidiul, etc....(Busy)
Deiseal - Ready
Luchd teagaisg - Teachers
Tighinn - Teacht
Cuideachd - Freisin, Leis, Fosta
Fiosrachadh - Eolas
Sia Miosan  - Six Months
As Abhaist - Ordinarily
Na h-Oileanaich - the Students
Bidh - Bionn, Beidh
Tachairt - Happening, Occuring
Talla - Halla
Etc.