An Old Style

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 above) by the old style of singing that could

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 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 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, His singing is far from dull and lethargic--just the opposite. There's incredible art and passion in this song. (Words and translation are at the bottom of this page.) Sinead O'Connor recorded a translation of this song, as did Dead Can Dance.

Here are the words to the song Taim Sinte ar do Thuama above. No one could say they, at least, are not heartfelt and effective. 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' to 'annsa'.)

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

So, 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. Daidhi 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, 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 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 librartaian, 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. Waterford, now....That's singing--and a matter for another day.