The Blackthorn Tree

This is my translation of what was a well-known song in Connacht, an Droighneán Donn:

 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;

it's 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 my love 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.

 

There are very few "ballads" in Irish or even songs where the story is told straight out and the listener knows from the start where they're going and what kind of thing, what kind of experience, they've embarked on. In Irish and Highland song, the story is glimpsed instead from multiple perspectives as the different stanzas unfold, and the "story" or core of the song only gradually crystalizes out of these. The listener or reader must thus bring themselves and their own experience to the song in order to complete it, if they seek to understand it. They are required to be a participant in the experience, rather than a passive consumer. They do not merely “listen to it” but co-recreate it (as it were) each time they hear it, and just as the maker of the song originally moved with each additional verse towards establishing the meaning of their experience, so does the hearer participate with them in that process.

Or so it seems to me.

I translate from Nua-Dhuanare, Cuid a 1, Pádraig De Brún et al, Institiúd Ardléinn  Bhaile Atha Cliath, 1975 (School for Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies). It is a great book.

The song was first printed by Charlotte Brooke, an English clergyman’s daughter in County Cavan, in her groundbreaking Reliques of  Irish Poetry in 1789. James Hardiman from east  Mayo was second on the ground, publishing Irish folk songs in 1831, and he has a version as well. So does Seán Ỏ Dálaigh from Waterford in 1871 in Poets of Poetry of Munster. Douglas Hyde from Roscommon published two versions in Abhráin Grádha Chúige Connacht (Love Songs of Connacht) in 1893: one from Roscommon and on from Beacan, Mayo.

It is not in the big Conamara and west Mayo collections of the early 20^th century (Ỏ Maille or Ceol na n-Oileán, or Ỏ Tiománaidhe), but it is in the Tuam, Galway, area Amhráin Mhuighe Seóla collection from Mrs. Costello. Two further east Galway versions are listed as collected in the 20^th century in Clár Amhrán an Achreidh.

This kind of thing is interesting to people like me, a spoiled librarian with an interest in 18^th and 18^th century Irish literature and learning, but it also demonstrates the fact that many of the “big” songs originated in east Connacht. They are known as Conamara songs mainly because Conamara is really all that was left in mid and late 20^th century.

Do I need to know any of this to appreciate the song? Probably maybe not.

So here is the song, or at least recordings of occasions on which it was once sung:

Shílfeadh aonfhear gur dil dó féin mé nuair a luíonn dom mionn,

Is go dtéann dhá dtrian sios díom nuair a smaoinim ar do chomhrá liom.

Sneachta síobhtha ia é á shíor-chur faoin Shliabh Uí Fhloinn

Is go bhfuil mo ghrá-sa mar bhláth na n-airní atá ar an droighneán donn.

Sliabh Uí Fhloinn is near Castlreagh in County Roscommon.

There are actually not many versions at all that are available to post here. The second one I post because it's from two singers who were from near my mother's family.

Good versions are available online if you go to the TG4 sean nós site and search by song title.

And here below is a love song to a river from mid-west Cork:

(Note that he sings some alternate lines and different words or phrases here and there. Also, where the Blackthorn is a "folk" song in which imagery are direct utterance are key, this is poetry in the idiom of 18th century Munster where the thrust and flow and and interplay of sound patterns is important.) 

A shuairc fhile chneasta de ghairm na hÉigse,
D’eascair den tréanfhuil i mBanba dháil.
Ó chúinne Pharnassus cé gur dheacair é éileamh,
Gur raideadar saor dhuitse aiste na mBárd.
Is suairce liom geallaim ná cantaireacht téada,
Greasa dod shaothar nuair a ghlacaim im’ láimh,
Faoi thuairim do theastais, is do tharrach chun téagair,
Ar mhaithimh do ghaolta is ar Abha an tSuláin.

Foinse na habhann ó measaim nach léir duit,
Seo agat gan bhréagnadh go beachtaithe óm’ láimh,
A scaoileann do ghlaise ó Chuma na nÉag,
Agus tuille dá réir sin ó Chúm Uí Chluamháin.
Ó thuaidh leat gan casadh tré Mhullach na Ré,
Mar a ritheann sruth caol dubh go bun an chlocháin,
Is mar lua na dTrí bPearsain á dtarrac chun aondacht
Nuair a thagaid le chéile sin Abha an tSuláin.

Abha bhuí bheag an ghleanna go feargach fraochmhar,
A ritheann gan staonadh go Beannaibh na Trá,
Sruth Oileán a Mhadra is Carraig Chinnéide,
Is sruthaibh ina n-éamais ná gcuirfinn im’ dhán,
Féach an Abha Gharbh lá clagair is sraonmhar
Ná heasaibh go gléigeal gan casadh ar a sáil,
‘S gur thíos i mbun leacan a chailleann sí tréine,
Nuair a chaitheann sí géilleadh do Abha an tSuláin.

Is mín clochar glasrach fairsingeach féarmhar
Fearannaibh taobhaibh na n-abhann sa ráim,
Fá chrainn dhuille ghlasa gan feacadh gan féige,
Le meas ar a ghéagaibh go gcrapaid ‘na mbarr,
Bíonn faoilinn ann, seabhaic, mionchreabhair ‘s naoscaigh.
Sionnaigh ‘s méith-phoic ‘s lachain le fáil,
‘S gach linn de go barra bíonn torrach le héiscibh,
Leathan-bhric mhéithe ‘gus lathairt bhradán.

Text fron TG4 Sean Nós site. This is a song that probably no one from Castlereagh or even Roscommon has ever sung. It is not known much outside one parish.