MY LAGAN LOVE
words Joseph Campbell (a.k.a Seosamh MacCathmhaoil) 1881-19??,
tune traditional Irish

Here are some notes for the above.

verse 3 is variously either . . .
Her welcome, like her love for me, is from her heart within
Her warm kiss is felicity that knows no taint or sin
When she was only fairy small her gentle mother died
But true love keeps her memory warm by Lagan's silver side

or . . .
Her welcome, like her love for me, is from her heart within
Her warm kiss is felicity that knows no taint or sin
And when I stir, my soot, to go, 'tis leaving love and light
To feel the wind of longing blow from out the dark of night

Notes:
"Lagan" - the Lagan is a river in Northern Ireland which flows through Belfast
"lennan-shee" / "lenanshee" / "leanan si" - "fairy mistress", literally "fairy child"
One version has "leman shee": "leman" - an old word for "lover"; shee - fairy = "fairy lover" (like banshee: bean - woman, shee - fairy)
"shieling" - a shepherd's summer hut, like a barn or a cottage
"soot" - (pron. "suit", the "oo" as in "fool") sweet

The author's name, Seosamh MacCathmhaoil, is a Gaelicisation of Joseph Campbell. There was a fashion for Irish-ising, Scottish-ising and Gaelic-ising everything in the latter 19th and early 20th century among the intelligentsia, to the point of giving pseudo-Gaelic spellings to their names and writing trad. songs into Gaelic! The bits of Gaelic are an affectation rather than something growing out of the song or out of an existing tradition.

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I moved this message here from another thread on the same topic.
-Joe Offer-