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How Yeats borrowed an old song when writing The Salley Gardens
How robbery and rebellion make Whiskey in the Jar a classic Irish song
Why the Irish love song Raglan Road was written
How the Irish Rover lyrics use exaggeration for comic effect
The Wild Rover – an Irish drinking song or an English temperance song?
Spancil Hill - the personal tragedy behind the classic Irish song
Why so many cities claim the Irish song I’ll Tell Me Ma
Why the Parting Glass is Irish music’s favourite song of farewell
Danny Boy - the story behind the classic Irish song

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How Yeats borrowed an old song when writing The Salley Gardens

The Irish love song Down by the Salley Gardens sounds like it has come straight out of the folk music tradition but in fact it was written by the classically educated poet W B Yeats.

The song is a tale of unrequited love in which the young man pursues a girl he meets while out walking. He manages to establish a relationship with her temporarily but then he loses her because he ignores her pleas to “take love slowly”.

He effectively frightens her away and is left to regret his haste and his foolishness.

Yeats originally wrote the lyrics in the late 1880s and they weren’t put to music until 1909 when the composer Herbert Hughes added them to the tune of the Irish folk song, The Maids of Mourne.

This gave the words a new lease of life as the song became an instant hit and is still popular today. It has been performed by artists all over the world, even in Asian countries like South Korea which have no direct cultural connection with Ireland.

It was perhaps ironic that Yeats poem should have found greater fame as a song because it was based on an Irish traditional air that he heard an old woman singing in county Sligo in Ireland. Yeats was very young at the time and could only remember a few lines.

He was also unable to recall the name of the original song but research has shown that it was almost certainly the old Irish folk tune, The Rambling Boys of Pleasure. It refers to the Salley Gardens and has two lines which are virtually identical to the Yeats version.

She said to take love easy as the leaves grow on the tree
But I was young and foolish and with her did not agree.

Yeats acknowledged his debt to this song by originally calling his poem, An Old Song Re-sung, when it was first published in 1889.

However, once it was put to music and started to become popular it quickly became known as Down By the Salley Gardens and the original title is now largely forgotten.

Incidentally, salley comes from a Gaelic word meaning willow. Willow branches were used to thatch roofs so many villages kept small plantations of willow trees which were known as salley gardens.

The Salley Gardens often became popular as a meeting place for lovers.

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How robbery and rebellion make Whiskey in the Jar a classic Irish song

When a country is occupied by a foreign power as Ireland was for several hundred years then music is often used as a way of poking fun at the establishment.

This is a large part of the appeal of that hugely popular Irish song, Whiskey in the Jar, which has been recorded by folk and rock bands alike, including Metallica.

Whiskey in the Jar features love, robbery and betrayal, and is set to a rollicking, irresistible tune, so it’s not hard to see why it has become so popular, not only in Ireland but across the world – particularly in America.

Whiskey in the Jar tells the story of a highwayman who stalks the Cork and Kerry mountains in Ireland. He is bold enough, or reckless enough, to rob Captain Farrell, an officer in the British army. The British had occupied and controlled Ireland for centuries and were resented by many Irish people who staged numerous rebellions.

Anyone who dared to rob a British army officer would be very popular with the local people and be looked upon as a sort of Robin Hood character.

The highwayman counts out the money and then gives it for safe keeping to Jenny – his wife or maybe his lover. Jenny promises that she will never deceive him but she proves to be false.

When the highwayman goes to rest after his exploits, Jenny puts water into his gunpowder, rendering his pistol ineffective. She is setting him up to be captured.

The next morning as the highwayman ventures out again, he finds himself ambushed by Captain Farrell and his footmen.

He tries to shoot at them but his pistol won’t work because the powder is wet. He reaches for his sabre but the deceitful Jenny has already taken it from him.

Rendered defenceless, he is captured and taken prisoner.

While in jail, he curses his deceitful Jenny but doesn’t linger in despair for long. Soon he is looking to the future and considering whether his brother could come and help him.

He hopes that his brother will be able to help him escape from jail and return to the highwayman lifestyle.

Whiskey in the Jar is one of the most widely recorded Irish folk songs and has even crossed over to appeal to rock audiences following recordings by Thin Lizzy and Metallica.

A sense of rebellion has always appealed to young rock fans and that may be part of the appeal of Whiskey in the Jar, in which the highwayman dares to challenge the establishment.

But there are also the universal themes of love and betrayal which have added to the appeal and helped to make Whiskey in the Jar a classic Irish folk song.

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Why the Irish love song Raglan Road was written

The classic Irish song Raglan Road is one of the greatest love poems of the last century – yet it was a throwaway jibe about cabbages and turnips that led to it being written.

The song began life as a poem by the great Irish writer Patrick Kavanagh. He was the self-styled peasant poet because he often wrote about country and farming matters, even to the point of referring to vegetables.

In the early 1940s, Kavanagh fell in love with a beautiful young medical student called Hilda Moriarty. He first saw her on Raglan Road in Dublin, the street that was eventually to give the song its name.

From the outset, Kavanagh sensed that the relationship would fail and cause him hearthache. Nevertheless, he couldn’t stop himself from rushing headlong in as lovers will.

Kavanagh summed up the dilemma with the words: I saw the danger and still I passed along the enchanted way.”

He managed to begin a relationship with Moriarty and they shared some time together in the early 1940s. It couldn’t last however and ended after only a few months.

More than 40 years later, Moriarty was interviewed by Irish television about her relationship with Kavanagh. She said the main reason they broke up was because of the age gap between them. She was only 22 at the time and Kavanagh was more than 40.

She felt it was too wide a gap to breach.

Kavanagh didn’t walk away entirely empty-handed, however. Shortly before they separated, they had a discussion about poetry.

Moriarty had read some of his poems and wasn’t particularly impressed. She didn’t like the agricultural themes and teased him for writing about turnips, cabbages and potatoes. She urged him to write about something else that would be of wider interest.

Kavanagh said that he would. The relationship ended before he could keep his promise, but he delivered soon afterwards. He wrote a poem about the break-up called Dark Haired Miriam Ran Away.

Miriam was just a pseudonym to protect Hilda Moriarty’s identity.

Later Kavanagh set the poem to an old Irish melody called Dawning of the Day and it became a favourite song among folk artists, first in Ireland and then across the world.

The original title was forgotten and it became known as Raglan Road, taken from the opening line of the song and describing where the couple first met.

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How the Irish Rover lyrics use exaggeration for comic effect

Irish music often uses exaggeration for comic effect but nowhere is it done on such a grand scale as in the song, The Irish Rover.

The lyric dates from the early 1800s and tells the story of an impossibly large sailing ship and its even more improbable cargo.

In fact, the only thing that seems ordinary and believable about the Irish Rover is that it set sail in 1806 from Cork with a cargo of bricks to be use to help build the Grand City Hall in New York.

After that, things start to get out of hand. For example, we’re told that the ship has 27 masts. To accommodate that much sail power, a ship would have to be something like 200 yards long.

Remember, this is a song from early 19th century when even large commercial sailing ships would only have 3 masts. Contemporary audiences would immediately be alerted that this was a joke and not meant to be taken seriously.

The audience would then be ready for the even wilder exaggerations that were about to come in relation to the cargo aboard the Irish Rover.

We were told earlier that it had a cargo of bricks but that is then forgotten as we hear that it has everything from “one million bags of the best Sligo rags” together with “three million sides of old blind horses’ hides and four million barrels of bones”.

It’s the livestock that is really impressive. The Rover has “five million hogs and six million dogs”. In keeping with the stereotype of the Irish and drinking there are seven million barrels of porter, but at least that is useful.

We’re finally told it has 8 million bales of old nanny goat’s tails!

Most of the cargo is of course pointless and the fact that there is so much of it lends a comic effect that has delighted audiences for the last 200 hundred years.

The lyrics build and build getting more and more ridiculous until they reach a climax with the sinking of the ship after a mast breaks. Even then, it can’t go quietly. It has to turn around nine times first before it disappears, leaving the singer as the only survivor to tell the tale.

The comedy works because the exaggerations are so outrageous and feature such improbable products that we know they are not to be taken seriously. Instead, we can enjoy the fact that we are a part of an “in joke” as the exaggerations become wilder and wilder.

This is a technique used extensively in Irish music of the 19th century.

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The Wild Rover – an Irish drinking song or an English temperance song?

When most people think of the Irish folk song, the Wild Rover, they immediately think of fun, laughter and above all, drinking.

However, this may not be the correct way to interpret the song. It may, in fact, be a temperance song designed to warn against the damage that can be done by alcohol.

The Wild Rover is arguably the most widely performed Irish song ever and yet its exact origins are unknown. In fact, it may not even be Irish and could have originated in England or Scotland.

The song has been popular since at least the early 19th century and although it seemed to fall out of favour in the first half of the 20th century, it made a storming comeback in the folk revival in the 1960s.

Folk clubs and Irish music centres were springing up all over the English speaking world in those days and soon every singer was adding it to his repertoire.

The Wild Rover tells the story of a dissolute young man who drinks his way through life spending all his money on whiskey and beer. To amuse himself, he goes to an alehouse and asks for credit. The landlady refuses saying she can get that kind of business any day.

However, he then takes bright sovereigns from his pocket making “the landlady’s eyes open with delight”. In the final verse, however, he says he’ll reform like the prodigal son of the bible. Are we to believe him?

For many people, the Wild Rover is the stereotypical Irish drinking song.

In this interpretation, the Wild Rover’s promise to reform in the final verse isn’t taken seriously. To others though, it was written as temperance song with its origins in Scotland or England. The lyrics in the final verse certainly give some credence to this where the singer promises to give up dissolute lifestyle.

“I’ll go back to my parents confess what I’ve done,
And I’ll ask them to pardon their prodigal son.
And if they caress me as oft times before
Then I never will play the Wild Rover no more.”

The lyrics to the Wild Rover are sufficiently general to allow it to be seen as a good time drinking song or as a temperance song. Most people, however, continue to see it as a harmless good time song to be enjoyed as part of general sing song on a night out.

As such, its popularity shows no sign of waning.

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Spancil Hill - the personal tragedy behind the classic Irish song

It’s often the case that great songs are written by people at a time when they are experiencing great personal tragedy in their lives.

The classic Irish ballad, Spancil Hill, is a perfect example of this. It was a written by a young man called Michal Considine at a time when he knew he didn’t have long to live. He wanted the song to be a memorial to him and a celebration of the people he had loved in his life.

Michael Considine who was born around 1850 near Spancil Hill, which lies between Ennis and Tulla in County Clare in Ireland.

Like millions of others, Considine was forced to leave his homeland because of the potato famine which devastated Ireland in the mid-nineteenth century. He went to Boston in 1870 but only stayed for a few years before moving to California.

It’s thought his plan was to earn enough money to be able to bring his true love over to America to join him. Her name was Mary MacNamara. Considine refers to her in the song as “Mac the ranger’s daughter and the pride of Spancil Hill”.

As the song became popular over the years, the name became changed to Mag or Nell “the farmer’s daughter”.

When Considine was about 23, however, he fell ill and realised he hadn’t long to live. He wrote Spancil Hill so it could be sent home to express his feelings to all who knew him, especially, of course, his beloved Mac.

The lyric tells how he was dreaming one night when he “stepped on board a vision” which took him all the way to Spancil Hill back in Ireland.

Spancil Hill was the scene of a horse fair every year and Considine arrives the day before it’s about to take place. Once there he sees the familiar faces and sights of his youth. All the people named in the song are thought to be real people rather than fictional characters.

The most emotional reunion is with Mac, his “first and only love.” She throws her arms around him and he dreams that he kisses her “as in the days of yore”. The joy is short lived, however, as very soon the cock crows and he awakes from his reverie. Once awake, he is no longer in Spancil Hill but back in the real world, thousands of miles away in California.

Considine died shortly after writing the song and sadly was never reunited with his beloved Mary MacNamara. She remained true to his memory and never married.

For some people Spancil Hill is a little too sentimental but for others it is a perfect expression of love and devotion. Few people now know of the personal tragedy behind it but the moving lyrics and the beautiful melody mean this classic Irish song remains popular throughout the world.

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Why so many cities claim the Irish song I’ll Tell Me Ma

The Irish song I’ll Tell Me Ma has become well known in folk music circles across the world.

It is such a popular song that cities all over the Ireland and even some in England and Scotland claim it as their own. It can evoke a lot of civic pride among folk music communities.

Most versions refer to girl at the centre of the song as the Belle of Belfast City, but this may just be because the ‘belle of Belfast’ has a nice ring to it. Singers from Dublin insist it should be Belle of Dublin City. Galway also stakes a claim.

The Serbian folk group the Orthodox Celts even sing Belle of Belgrade City – but that perhaps is going too far.

Such civic pride is understandable but in a way it is missing the point. Folk songs by their very nature, especially ones as good as I’ll Tell Me Ma, move from city to city and get modified along the way to suit local needs.

A hundred years later, it is impossible to say where it originally came from and everywhere can stake a claim.

The book, The Traditional Games of England, Scotland and Wales by Alice B Gomme published in 1984, shows there were versions of a similar song throughout the UK in the 19th century, although it usually went under the name of The Wind.

Again, the name of the town tended to change to suit the location in question, but there was also a version in which the belle came from the Golden City, which also has a good ring to it and nicely dodges the question of origin.

Gomme’s book was primarily concerned with children’s games. In some areas, the game that accompanied The Wind, or I’ll Tell Me Ma, involved children standing in a circle while they sang the song.

At the start of the game there would be a girl in the centre of the circle. When the chorus got to the line asking about who is being courted, the girl gives the name of one of the boys standing in the circle.

The boy then moves into the centre of the circle and must in turn name a girl when the question comes round in the next chorus.

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Why the Parting Glass is Irish music’s favourite song of farewell

Irish music is littered with songs of farewell but few have endured and become so popular across the world as the Parting Glass.

Hundreds of years of emigration meant that Irish people got used to being separated from their families and their loved ones. Their response to separations that they could not avoid was to remain as positive as possible and this quality is exemplified perfectly in the Parting Glass.

It creates the same feeling as Shakespeare’s “parting is such sweet sorrow”. It may make you cry, but in a way that is moving and life-affirming.

The opening verse makes it clear that this is a person who is comfortable with himself.

He seems to have had a happy go lucky approach to life. It doesn’t sound like he ever had very much money but what he had he spent in “good company”.

It doesn’t sound like he’s the kind of person who ever did much wrong but, in any case, whatever harm he may have done, it was only to himself.

As for mistakes, he may have made several but he can’t remember them. It’s like an Irish forerunner to Edith Piaf’s great song, Je ne regret rien – No Regrets.

Any mistakes he may have made, through want of wit or whatever, no longer matter. He can’t even remember them. All that matters is the here and now, the impending departure and the need to be at peace with friends.

This is a popular man who is welcome wherever he goes. All the friends he has ever had are sorry when he leaves them; his many sweethearts always wished he could stay at least another day to stay.

But something is happening that is beyond his control. His comrades may stay but he must leave. He will do so with the kind of warmth and quiet dignity that we suspect has accompanied him all his life. The Parting Glass comes with a toast which is used as a refrain at the end of each verse: “I gently rise and I softly call, Goodnight and joy be with you all.”

The Parting Glass has been Ireland’s favourite farewell song for at least 200 years and was often used by the Irish folk group, the Clancy Brothers, as the final song at their concerts.

Its popularity is based on its positive approach to life that enables the singer to stay positive even when he must leave the people he loves the most. Its life-affirming qualities mean that the Parting Glass is likely to remain one of Irish music’s standard songs for many years to come.

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Danny Boy - the story behind the classic Irish song

Danny Boy is one of the most famous and popular Irish songs of all time yet few of its fans know how it came to be written.

It’s a fascinating story which involved the melody having to cross the Atlantic from Ireland to America and then back again to England before the song was finished.

The lyric was written by an Englishman named Fred Weatherly, a lawyer who wrote songs in his spare time. He was very popular in his day and wrote about 1500 songs during his career including Roses from Picardy.

In 1910, he wrote a song called Danny Boy which he had high hopes for but which unfortunately turned out to be a complete flop. Weatherly realised that although the lyrics were very good, the melody wasn’t strong enough.

He looked everywhere to try to find another tune but nothing seemed suitable. Eventually, he gave up and concentrated on his other songs.

Meanwhile, his brother and his sister-in-law Margaret Weatherly emigrated from England to the United States and settled in Colorado.

One day in 1913, Margaret came across a group of Irish immigrant workers entertaining themselves by playing music from their homeland. She was enchanted by it and asked what it was called.

They replied that it was called the Londonderry Air and was an old harp tune from Northern Ireland.

Margaret asked if they would play it again a few times so that she could write it down. She thought it might be of interest to her brother-in-law Fred as she knew he was always looking for good melodies to help with his song writing.

Little did she know the impact it would have.

As soon as Fred played the first few bars of Margaret’s transcript he knew he had something special on his hands. He also realised very quickly that the lyric he had written three years earlier called Danny Boy would fit the new tune perfectly. He hardly had to make any changes.

Fred published the tune in 1913 and it caught on immediately.

It was picked up by most of the major artists of the day including the famous Irish tenor, John McCormack. He was one of the first big name performers to record and it was an instant success.

It remained popular throughout the rest of the twentieth century and was recorded by several of the top performers of every generation including people like Bing Crosby, Judy Garland and Elvis Presley.

Danny Boy is one of the most recorded songs of all time yet without that chance meeting between Margaret Weatherly and those Irish workers in Colorado, it might never have come to people’s attention at all.

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