THE SHAMROCK; A COLLECTION OF IRISH SONGS, BE.FORZ PUBLISHED MANY THEM :5r.i ICE, Ca KEVER WITH SFWERAL ORIGINALS- EDITED, .^. THE WHOLE AND A COPIOUS HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION, BY MR. WEEKES, ROYAL, DRURY LANE: ; THE THEATRE ANJ) EMIJEtilSHED WITH AN ENGF 'VING Oi HIM IN CHAllAC'i'tiR, TIII3 WORK. irROM A I'ORTIlAIT PAINTED EXTOESStY FOR " Old Eria's Native Shamrock ["—Moure. GLASGOW: ATKINSON & CO.; STIRLING & KENNEY. & H. CONSTABLE, OI 1 VEH & BOYD, EDINBURGH; WHITTAKER, TREACHER, & CO. AND BASIL STEUART, LONDON; CORK, AND BELFAST. 4ND THE BOOKSELLERS OF DUBLIN, M.DCCC.XXX. Glasgow, E Kl)'.i)l & ^oiu Printers, u^ .60. />,; ^^il^ Digitized by the Internet Arciiive in 2010 with funding from National Library of Scotland http://www.archive.org/details/shamrockcollectiOOweek THE SHAMROCK. THE GLEN COLLECTION OF SCOTTISH MUSIC Presented by Lady Dorothea Ruggles- Brise to the National Library of Scotland, Lord in memory of her brother, Major George Stewart Murray, Black Watch, killed in action in France in 1914. Zmh January 1927. ; y/e^H 6 c? THE SHAMROCK; A COLLECTION OF IRISH SONGS, MANY OF XHEM SCARCE, OR NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED BUT IN A SEPARATE STATE J WITH SEVERAL ORIGINALS.- THE WHOLE EDITED, TOitjb 0oU^ antr HluiStrattCon^, AND A COPIOUS HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION, BY MR. WEEKES, OF THE THEATRE ROYAL, DRURY LANE: AND EMBELLISHED WITH AN ENGRAVING OF HIM IN CHARACTER, FROM A PORTRAIT PAINTED EXPRESSLY FOR THIS WORK. " Old Erin's Native Shamrock!"-—Mxwe. ATKINSON & CO., GLASGOW; OLIVER & BOYD, STIRLING & KENNEY,& H. CONSTABLE, EDINBURGH; WHITTAKER, TREACHER, & CO. AND BASIL STEUART, LONDON AND THE BOOKSELLERS OF DUBLIN, CORK, AND BELFAST. M.DCCC.XXX. ^ OF SCOTLAND ^ E. KhuU & Son, Printers, East Clyde Street, Glasgow. — PREFACE. It will scarcely be expected that we should enter into any very laboured disquisition upon the merits of Songs which have been already before the Public for such a length of time, and in such variety of forms. Their merits and defects must by this time be so fully established, that any thing advanced wit a view to influence Public opinion on this head were it desirable—would be vain. It may be observed, however, that to these Songs, which are called, par excellence, Irish—Ireland, in so far as it is a separate countiy, has but slight claims their literary honours or dishonours, therefore, to whatever they may amount, are attributable to various authors of various countries, whose names, from what cause cannot be determined, have, for the most part, been withheld, and must now for ever remain unknown. In listening to Irish music, we are, in general struck with an exquisite melancholy in its character —a melancholy so profound, that the finest feelings of the human heart must, indeed, have been griev- ously wrung, to produce such an inimitable pathos. Thus the glories of the melody of Ireland have been partly traced to calamities which, in their force and VI PREFACE. duration, are unequalled in the history of any other country. It would be hard, indeed, if the miseries of ages were unchequered by a single circumstance upon which the mind might for a moment repose without disgust or terror, and accordingly, Ireland has her National Melody. But this observation refers chiefly, or rather exclusively, to such compositions as are merely musical—-the poetry being, in many cases, sadly deficient. There is, to be sure, latterly, a body of verse, suited to, and connected with, the best Irish melodies, which, for refinement and force of sentiment—brilliancy of imagination and sweetness of numbei's—cannot be excelled by the lyrics of any country ; but these are the exclu- sive property of their distinguished author and his publisher, and not being transferable to a work of this nature, are unattainable to the general reader, and altogether inapplicable to our present under- taking, which merely purposes to be an ampler col- lection of Songs which have been already scattered abroad in numerous publications of a more incom- plete and limited character. "With respect to these Songs which are exclusively sentimental in their nature, it may be inquired why they are so deficient in poetical attraction. The causes are, no doubt, multifarious. As far as Ireland is concerned, the want of a more general and early diffusion of literature has been urged by many, and, perhapS; not wholly without reason. The ballad lore of Scotland, which constitutes such a rich and ample source of intellectual enjoyment, to readers of every grade of understanding and taste, has been I PREFACE. VI mainly accumulated by Ramsay, Ferguson, Tanna- hill. Burns, Hogg, Cunningham, and Motherwell —men who have rendered themselves and their Country illustrious, by composing as well as gather- ing the sweetest effusions of poetic inspiration. But these were all men who in other countries ai'e but seldom found in Parnassian I'anks, nor were any of them, it is believed, exclusively authors by profession. So far, therefore, as the general diffusion of a literary taste may be esteemed a cause of the beauty and variety of Scottish Song, the want of a similar taste in Ireland may be fairly considered as sufficient of itself to stunt the growth of every liberal pursuit. —But who will venture strictly to apply this rea- soning to Ireland. —In some of the southern coun- ties classical literature is successfully taught in the lowest of the schools, and the ancient language of Rome holds, even in the ordinary intercourse of the peasantry, divided empire with the vernacular Irish. From this general and early acquaintance with the language of poetry, joined to a mode of life in a great degree pastoral, it might be supposed that the muses would have, iu these parts, numerous votaries. — But what is the fact? It is that Munster produces con- stantly more than an average crop of very good lawyers and patriots ; but of poets few or none. It may be said, and justly, that these are a kind of loose speculations that lead to nothing; that they are at_variance with each other ; and are calculated rather to obscure than to enlighten the subject. To which I candidly answer, that I am much at a loss, and am unable to arrive at any satisfactory conclu- sion. Vlll PREFACE. There are many excellent things, however, in natixre and philosophy, that cannot be accounted for, any more than the want of an early and original vein of poetry in Ireland. My own opinion is, with regard to the music of Ireland, that the deep and violated passions of a people found an issue in the forms of indignation and complaint, hut these were not the forms of poetry, but of sounds—-sounds perfectly energetic, sweet, and intelligible, but which could not well be seized upon as the instruments of persecution, banish- ment, or death. Gray says, in his beautiful poem, " Chill penury repress'd their noble rage. And froze the genial current of their souls." By which it would appear that Gray (no mean judge of such things) supposed that poverty was of itself sufficient to quench the poetic ardour of a people. But had he lived in some countries, he would have discovered an influence far more destruc- tive than poverty to the aspiring struggles of human genius. And the day is, perhaps, but now advancing, when the genius of Ireland will manifest itself, by productions in the various departments of literature and taste, numerous in proportion to the extent of her population, and excellent in a ratio with that reputation which has been already acquired by some of her distinguished sons. Wherever she has appeared, whether arrayed in a garb of poetry, music, philosophy, or eloquence, she has maintained her claim to the highest consideration in the republic of letters, and in some of these branches, has exhibited a matchless superiority. PREFACE. IX But the intellectual wealth of Ireland is a mine, not only not '^exhausted, but as yet, from various causes, not half explored. I may, therefore, venture to express a hope that the Song of Ireland may yet display the " radiance of her risen day," and bear a proud comparison v^ith the most talented effusions of her more fortunate and happy neighbours. The Comic Songs, it may be presumed, are chiefly of the old English families of the " Joys, the dear joys," and the " Honies," and vrill be found to have produced that effect for which comic songs are mainly estimable—a laugh. And although they were written by persons who for the most part imagined, that to dress a flat contradiction in rhyme was to make a comic Irish song, yet a great ma- jority of them will be found to possess the genuine spirit of an Irish bull ; that is, a contradiction which conveys the meaning of its author as strongly often as the most direct and consistent language, but has mixed through it, and thrown about it such a gar- nish of oddity and humour, and not unfrequently of wit, as seldom fails to excite the risibility or the admiration of the reader. These songs have, for a long period, constituted the principal dish at most convivial meetings, and have been sung at our theatres with the strongest marks of appi'obation, and must always maintain their popularity so long as it may be thought whole- some or agreeable to relax the brow of care or to escape the " stings and arrows of outrageous for- tune," in the occasional sallies of an innocent jocu- larity. Editor. ADVERTISEMENT TO THE READER. This, it is humbly hoped, will be found upon in- spection, to be the most versatile and comprehensive collection of Irish Songs extant : in it may be had most of the songs which are already before the world in small detached publications.