The Songs of Ireland

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17758, 30 January 1926, Page 17

The Songs of Ireland

Beautiful Words and Tunes from the Emerald Isle.

THE death of Frank Lambert, the song writer and composer of “ She is Far From the Land,” brings suddenly to mind the extraordinary popularity of Irish songs all over the English-speaking world, says a W'riter in “ John o’ London’s Weekly.” Were one to make a selection of the most popular tunes of the last half-century in Eng-land,-one would find that, much more than any sort of Proportional Representation might warrant, the bulk of them are Irish. Thus, to mention only a handful, we have. “Killarney,” ‘‘Oft in the Stilly Night,” ‘‘The Minstrel Boy,” ‘‘The Harp That Once Through Tara’s Halls,” ‘‘Come Back to Erin,” ‘‘.Kathleen Mavourneen,” “The Snowy Breasted Pearl,” “Father O’Flynn,” and “The Mountains of Mourne.” “She is Far From the Land,” which Mr Lambert set to such a loyely and poignant tune and which Tom Moore, who wrote the words, almost a century before, put to a beautiful old Irish folksong, is perhaps the Irish song with the most interesting story. Sings Moore in his poem:—

eluding the Oxford Book of English Verse. The first verse of it ruas:— I’m sitting o nthe stile, Mary, I'm sitting on the stile, Mary, On a bright May mornin’ long ago, When first you were my bride; The corn was springin’ fresh and green And the lark sang loud and high— And the red was on your lip, Mary, And the love-light in your eye. This is one of John Mac Cormack’s favourite songs. One must not forget “Come Back to Erin,” surely one of the best-known emigration songs in existence:— Sure when wo lent you to beautiful England, Little we thought of the lone winter days; Little we thought of the hush of the starslifne Over the mountains, the bluffs and the brays. Percy French, artist, poet, dramatist, musician, singer and raconteur, who died only a short time ago, was responsible for a good many of the popular Irish songs of the past twenty years. It was he who wrote: Oh, Mary, this London’s a wonderful sight, Wid the people licre workln’ by day and by night; They don't sow potatoes, nor barley, nor wheat, But there’s gangs o’ them dlggln’ for gold in the street— At least, when I axed them, that’s what I was told. So X just took a hand at this diggln* for ' gold. But for all that I found there, I might as well be Where the Mountains o’ Mourne sweep down to the sea. Another of French’s famous songs was “Phil the Fluter’s Ball”: Wid a toot on the flute and a twiddle on the fiddle—oh, Hoppin* up an’ down like a herrin’ on the griddle—oh. Up, down, hands aroun*, an’ passin’ to the wall, Oh, hadn’t we the gaiety at Phil the Fluter’s ball. Another of these sprightly genre studies is the even more famous “Father O’Flynn” of Alfred Percival Graves: — Oelx! Father O’Flynn, you’ve the w onderful way wid you, All the ould sinners aro wishful to play wid you, All the young childer are wid for to play wid you. You’ve such a way wid you, Father a vick! Fred Weatherly, that still hale and hearty veteran song-writer, took what has been described as the most beautiful folk-tune in the world, the “Londonderry Air,” for his famous “Dann>' Boy.” The tune was discovered in County Derry over a hundred years ago by Petrie, the great antiquary*. It was Joseph Robinson, one of Dub-

Sho Is far from the land where her young’ hero sleeps, An»l lovers are round her, sighing: .But coldly she turns from their gaze, and weeps. For her heart in his grave is lying-.

lie had liv’d for his love, for his country he died, They were all that to life had entwin’d him; Nor soon shall the tears of his country be dried. Nor long’ will his love stay behind him.

The “She” was Sarah Curran, the sweetheart of Robert Emmet, the young Irish Revolutionary who was put to death in 1803, and who some years before had been an undergraduate with Moore at Trinity College, Dublin. Sarah Curran, whom he visited at the peril of his life shortly before his arrest, left Ireland after her lover’s execution and later died of grief. Emmet inspired Moore to write another popular Irish song, “Let Erin Remember ! ” the oHginal tune of which,

“The Red Fox,” once caused him as a youth to exclaim to Moore, who was playing it: “Oh, that I were at the head of twenty thousand men, marching to that air!” Little did either of them realise what the tune was to mean to Emmet or to Ireland.

Perhaps the best, certainly the bestknown, of what might be described as the emigration songs, “The Lament of the Irish Emigrant,” was written by Helen Selina Dufferin, granddaughter of Richard Brinsley Sheridan and mother of the famous diplomat, who wrote “Letters From High Latitudes,” It is to be found in many anthologies, in-

lin’s most distinguished musicians, who, a generation ago, gave us “The Snowy Breasted Pearl” as we now know it. The words are a literal translation from the Irish, the tune is traditional : There’s a colleen fair as May, For a year and for a day I have sought by every way T-fer heart to gain. There’s no art of tongue or eye Fond youths with maidens try, But I’ve tried with many a sigh. And tried In vain. The most popular tune with our boy« in France—“ Tipperary with a little stretch of imagination, be called Irish, too. It certainly derives from an old Irish' air.