The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #52454   Message #803164
Posted By: Malcolm Douglas
14-Oct-02 - 08:46 PM
Thread Name: Origins: Follow Me Up to Carlow
Subject: RE: Origins: Follow me up to Carlow
As McGrath says, the lyric (I don't know how accurate) in the DT, but the midi file is corrupt and won't play. The tune is the first two parts of Sweets of May; a 6/8 set dance, not a march as sometimes stated, and was posted in this previous thread: TUNE ADD: Follow Me Up To Carlow. So far as I know, the song has never been found in tradition, but was rescued from oblivion by Christy Moore in the 1960s.

Does anybody know if the text was originally set to Sweets of May when it was written (presumably at the turn of the 19th/20th centuries)? Quite a lot of websites out there optimistically state things like melody dates from pre-1500's; but that's normal ignorance; there seems to be no available evidence that it's much older than the lyric.