• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924074305354 CORNELL UNWEI'Sni'iimnfllSlli 3 1924 074 305 354 THE SONG LORE OF IRELAND THE SONG LORE OF IRELAND Erin's Story in Music and Verse BY REDFERN MASON NEW YORK WESSELS & BISSELL CO. 1910 COPTRIGHT, 1910 WESSELS & BISSELL CO. September ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL, LONDON (All Rights Reserved.) Ba jig Mtit\}st FOREWORD Erin's bardic poems, ballads and folk-songs carry her story back to the Christian dawn and even earlier. They are history with the added charm of a personal note, a thrill of actuality, not to be found in annals and chronicles. They sing the hopes and fears of the people in epic moments of their national life. When we read the story of Clontarf, we sympathize in a far- off way with the issues there decided. But who among us feeU the loss of Brian as did his friend Mac Liag, the poet? He wrote of the dead monarch as an aide de camp might have written of Washing- ton, as Rudyard Kipling has written of Lord Rob- erts. This poetic narrative of battles fought and won is a golden commentary extending throughout the whole course of Irish history. In many cases the poets were participants of the scenes they de- scribed ; for it was the bard's duty to accompany his prince on the field of battle and incite him to deeds of valor. The songs about Hugh O'Donnell and Patrick Sarsfield were sung by men whose for- tunes were bound up with those of their leaders. Music was made to serve the selfsame end, and the twofold tradition is as vivid as it is intimate. This tradition enables us to appreciate the true inward- ness of Irish history in a way that the tomes of the annalist utterly fail to do. ; vi FOREWORD From the cradle to the grave the Irishman's life is set to music. It begins with the lullabies of infancy keening ends it, when the spirit leaves the body. Work has its songs as well as play; there arc love- songs and dances, and never are the songs so beau- tiful as when the lover is poet. Devqtion turns to song instinctively ; so do joy and sorrow, longing and despair. Nothing so great, nothing so small but the Irishman may put it into verse and enrich it with melody. In telling this story the attempt is made to place in relief everything that throws light on the character of the Gael—his manner of life, his ideals, his attitude toward the supernatural. The spirit in which the task is undertaken is frankly Irish. No writer taking the traditional English view of dominant races and subject peoples could do it justice. For ages Eng- land has tried to make Ireland English—English in custom, English in speech, English in religion. The experiment has lasted seven centuries; yet the Irish are almost as Gaelic to-day as ever. More than that, they have made Irishmen of the invaders them- selves. Norman barons, Elizabethan adventurers, Stuart " Undertakers," Cromwellian Ironsides, all have come under the spell. If it had not been for difference in religion, Iireland would have presented a united front to England, and Erin's right to govern herself could not have been withheld. When, there- fore, reference is made to persecution, the intention is not to establish invidious distinctions, but to draw attention to the alien spirit of English rule. —a FOREWORD vii It was the words of an Irish servant girl that set the writer thinking on this subject. He was a boy then. It was the time of disturbances and coercion acts. He asked the girl what it was the Irish people wanted. " They want to be free," she answered. Every English lad is brought up to believe that Eng- land is the home of liberty and that, where the Union Jack flies, slavery cannot exist. Yet here was an Irish girl, palpably sincere, who said Ireland was not free. Her words lay in the writer's heart, germi- nated and bore fruit in the belief in Ireland for the Irish. There is nothing in this attitude of mind dis- loyal to England's best self ; for true love of father- land cannot rest on the slavery of others. The more the songs of Ireland are understood the story they tell, the conditions which gave them birth, the nature of Gaelic music and the manner of its preservation—the better the Irish genius will be appreciated, and from appreciation springs sym- pathy, which is the mother of helpful kindliness. The plan of the work is simple. In the opening chapter it is shown how music and song formed an organic part of the most ancient Irish civilization— civilization which long antedates the Anglo-Norman invasion of the twelfth century. It is then explained how this tradition was kept alive through long ages by the bards, minstrels and harpers. Chapter three dwells on the extraordinary fact of the preservation of Irish music independent of any written record. The nature of Irish music is the theme of chapter four, and a description follows of the part played by viii FOREWORD song in the daily life of the people. Fairy mythology and spirit lore and the tales of the Red Branch and the Fianna lead naturally to a discussion of the more strictly historic aspect of Irish song. The last four chapters are practically a history in verse and mel- ody of the struggle of the Irish with the stranger from the field of Clontarf to the "Dawning of the Day" of relative freedom. The writer's thanks are due to Dr. Patrick W. Joyce and Dr. Douglas Hyde for their kindly in- terest and the permission to use musical and poetic examples. Obligation to Dr. George Sigerson's " Bards of the Gael and Gall," to the poems of Mr. Arthur Perceval Graves and Mr." William Butler Yeats is also gladly acknowledged. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAOI Foreword v I. The Beginnings 1 II. The Bards and Minstrels .... 14 III. How THE Songs Came Down to Us . 44 IV. The Nature op Irish Music .... 59 V. Songs of Joy and Sorrow .... 83 VI. Songs of Work and Plat 112 VII, Songs of Faerie and the Spirit World 137 VIII. Songs of Pagan Chivalry .... 168 IX. Gael and Gall 189 X. The Curse of Cromwell 226 XI. The Jacobite Illusion 249 XII. The Dawning of the Day .... 290 Musical Illustrations Ex. 1. The Coulin 54 Ex. 2. The Coulin as sung in Clare . 55 Ex. 3. The Coulin Embroidered by Harpers 57 Ex. 4. Major scale of C 60 Ex. 5. Celtic scale 60 Ex. 6. Limerick, air based on five-note scale 60 Ex. 7. The Last Rose 63 Ex. 8. My Love's an Arbutus 65 Ex. 9' MixoLYDiAN scale 68 Ex. 10. Scale of G major 68 Ex. 11. Hypodorian scale 68 Ex. 12. Scale of A minor 68 Ex. 13. O Arranmore 69 10 CONTENTS PAoe Ex. 14. UlLEACAN DUBfl O 70 Ex. IS, Ben Erinn i 71 Ex. 16. Eileen Aroon 75 Ex. 17. Balunderhy 81 Ex. 18. Paisteen Fionn 85 Ex. 19. Nora of the Amber Hair .... 89 Exs. 20, 21 and 22. Lullauies 96, 98 Ex. 23. Keen . 101 Ex. 24. Plow Tune 113 Ex. 25. Smith's Song 117 Ex. 26. Spinning Song 123 Ex. 27. Theme op Scherzo op " Eroica " Sym- phony 127 Ex. 28. Jig. Three Little Drummers . 129 Ex. 29. Kerry Jig. Wink and She will Fol- low You 130 Ex. 80. Clare Reel. Toss the Feathers . 131 Ex. 81. Song of Oonagh 147 Ex. 32. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday . 159 Ex. 83. The Cry op the Banshee . I6I Ex. 34. Lamentation of Deirdre . 173 Ex. 35. Dirge of Ossian 183 Ex. 36. Gathering Sound 190 Ex. 37. EoisiN DUBH 207 Ex. 38. Grania Waile ,. 223 Ex. 39. Lament 237 Ex. 40. Shane O'Dwyer of the Glen . 245 Ex. 41. The Wild Geese 261 Ex. 42. The White Cockade 265 Ex. 48. All the Way). to Galway .... 299 Ex. 44. March of the Irish Volunteers . 302 The Song Lore of Ireland CHAPTER I THE BEGINNINGS Music and poetry were the means by which the an- cient inhabitants of Ireland gave^expression to theif' deepest feelings and reached out toward things be- yond the world of sense. Together they form a tra- dition—a tradition still vital and operative, through which we touch hands with the poets and musicians of a past that antedates the Christian era. The gol- den chain of music-makers unites us with the harpers who sat in their appointed places on the hill of Tara and, with their music, " softened the pillow " of Cor- mac Mac Art, high-king of Erin. That was in the first century after Christ. Bards and minstrels taught their craft to younger men and the successors of Cormac's servitors knelt before St. Patrick, when he came on his apostolic mission. " Never," one of of them exclaimed, " never again shall my harp sing the praises of any God save Patrick's God." And from that time forward they accompanied the saint on his missionary journeys. Bard and minstrel led the rejoicings over the defeat of the Danes at Clon- tarf and mourned the death of Brian and Murcad. The songs of Erin were carried into the Holy Land by Irish harpers ; minstrel heroes penetrated into the camp of the Anglo-Norman invaders and emulated a THE SONG LCMRE OF IRELAND the deeds of Saxon Alfred.

Load more

  360

Copy Link