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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: MartinRyan Date: 18 Feb 09 - 02:39 PM Terry We're talking about tradition - not print. That's the point. I assume nobody believes that "Limerick" was produced from "Liverpool" post Doerflinger . In that case, what we're saying is that in the late 19C., both songs existed in oral tradition - and neither were well-known! Whichever direction the transfer happened in, it's unusual. Can anyone think of another such example? Regards |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: GUEST,MV Date: 18 Feb 09 - 02:29 PM If you date the link from the 1840s/1850s the Liverpool singer of the song would surely know it was based on an Irish song of his or his father's generation. Would the Liverpool sailor have passed on the song without revealing it's roots? Would he have known it's roots? How well known was the Limerick song? If anyone can date the Limerick song to the 1840s/1850s period or before then that would make me start thinking that the Limerick song came before the Liverpool song. MV |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: Terry McDonald Date: 18 Feb 09 - 02:17 PM Until someone produces evidence of the Leaving of Limerick being mentioned or collected in Ireland before 1885, any suggestion that Leaving of Liverpool is based upon it seems like wishful thinking to me. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: MartinRyan Date: 18 Feb 09 - 02:13 PM In a way, of course, what's most interesting is that they BOTH survived - each by its own slender, traditional thread. Regards |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: GUEST,MV Date: 18 Feb 09 - 02:07 PM Sorry blank post above. It's quite possible that Irish settlers in Liverpool introduced the song to the city. The considerable numbers of Irish people living here in the 1840s and after would facilitate the link. However if Limerick was not a port on the coast I would be more convinced by the Limerick first case. The port link could take the song the other way. MV |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: GUEST,MV Date: 18 Feb 09 - 02:00 PM |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: GUEST,George Henderson Date: 18 Feb 09 - 10:56 AM Yes. And right underneath the Devils Bit there is a village called Killea. The Killea singers circle meets on the second Monday of every month (October to May) in Sullivans pub. And a great session it is too. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: MartinRyan Date: 18 Feb 09 - 10:50 AM Yes - both spellings seem to have been used. Gabbett's Grove is in Corbally, now a suburb of Limerick city. Regards p.s. IIRC, the Devil's Bit is a feature in a mountain range in Tipperary! |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: Fred McCormick Date: 18 Feb 09 - 10:42 AM Actually spelt Gabbett's, it seems to have been somewhere pretty close to Limerick. But look what I turned up by googling Gabbett. From http://www.freewebs.com/vitaphone1/victor2.html . Victor 20713 was a 78 RPM record with a tune called Gabbett's Grove on one side and Devil's Bit on the other. Played by the P. J. McNamara Quartet. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: MartinRyan Date: 18 Feb 09 - 10:24 AM Click here then scroll to the bottom of the page for Gabbet's Grove, in Limerick. Gabbet was a 19 C. landowner in that area, it seems. Regards |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: MartinRyan Date: 18 Feb 09 - 10:19 AM Thomondgate is an area in Limerick city. I've never heard of Gabbet's Grove - but will see what I can find. Regards |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: Fred McCormick Date: 18 Feb 09 - 10:19 AM Martin. Thanks for the link, and the corrected spelling. No wonder I couldn't find it. I downloaded all the songs when the site was first put up and would encourage others to do the same in cas eit ever vanishes altogether. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: Fred McCormick Date: 18 Feb 09 - 10:17 AM Martin. Yes. I was thinking of Co. Limerick, but the city would have been English speaking long before most of the rural parts of the county. I've just googled Assembly Mall Limerick, and it turns out to be a thoroughfare in that city. Does anybody know whether the other places mentioned are in Limerick City also? |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: MartinRyan Date: 18 Feb 09 - 10:12 AM Fred Click here for the Donagh McDonagh (note spelling!) site. Regards |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: Fred McCormick Date: 18 Feb 09 - 10:09 AM I don't know when Irish died out in Limerick but I imagine it was fairly early. Certainly I'd expect well before 1885, which is when Dick Maitland first heard "Liverpool". I'd be almost certain that "Limerick" isn't a translation from the Irish. In fact very few Gaelic songs made it into the Anglo-Irish folk tradition. Plus there aren't all that many emigration songs in Irish anyway. In fact the vast bulk of emigration songs postdate the famine of the mid 1840s and are in English. It's likely therfore that Limerick was written some time from the mid nineteenth century on. The reason why I think Limerick-Liverpool is more likely than Liverpool-Limerick is simply tht it would reflect the pattern of emigration. At that time, emigration was very much a one way ticket and you didn't get much in the way of returnees. Hence a song written in Limerick had more chance of being turned up in Liverpool than a song written in Liverpool would have had of finding its way to Limerick. On the other hand, the way that sailors kicked about the world, you would never know for certain. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: MartinRyan Date: 18 Feb 09 - 09:49 AM George To me, there's nothing in either the words or the tune to suggest an Irish-language song origin. Limerick city, at least, would have been mostly English-speaking throughout the 19C. Fred's additional verse is very interesting. "Gabbet's Grove" sounds like a name that will have disappeared by now. Wonder when? Regards |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: GUEST,George Henderson Date: 18 Feb 09 - 09:37 AM Fred. Thanks for the extra verses. But I am not so sure that the Limerick song is older. It does not appear to be a translation from Irish (Gaelic) and I am not sure when Limerick was "converted" from Irish language to the English Language but I have doubts that it was older than the dates for Liverpool mentioned above. Martin, would English have been used in Limerick at that time or sooner? |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: MartinRyan Date: 18 Feb 09 - 09:25 AM MV The clip is too short to be helpful, alright - but there's no doubt about the similarity when you hear the full version. Regards |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: Fred McCormick Date: 18 Feb 09 - 09:24 AM MV."Maybe Leaving Of Liverpool and Leaving Of Limerick were created independent of each other?" No. One was definitely created from the other and gut feeling tells me "Limerick" is the older of the two. Incidentaaly, the two tunes are so close that I was listening to it on the radio once and somebody walking past said, "That's The Leaving of Liverpool". Here's another, slightly longer text, which was sent to the RTÉ broadcaster Donagh McDonough in the 1950s. McDonough used to get people to send the texts of ballads to him, and he would then get singers to put airs to them and broadcast the results over the radio. His son, Martin McDonough (I think) posted the collection on the Internet some years, and it included some rare and invaluable material. Unfortunately, I've just been to look for the site now and it seems to have disappeared. If anyone has an extant website address, do please post it. The Leaving of Limerick As I roved out one evening down by the Assembly Mall I heard two lovers talking as me and my love passed on; The words that passed between them they were but very few: "It isn't the leaving of Limerick that grieves me, But my darling when I think of you!" "In the morning when I'm going I'll wave my lily-white hand, I'll wave it all over my shoulder, and adieu to Limerick Strand; And farewell to the girls of Thomond Gate, 'tis to them I bed adieu; It isn't the leaving of Limerick that grieves me, But my darling when I think of you!" "when I think of the pleasant days we spent in search of treasure trove And the hours we spent in courting away in Gabbet's Grove; I did not then deceive you when I vowed I would be true; It isn't the leaving of Limerick that grieves me, But my darling when I think of you!" "And now that we must be parted 'tis hard to understand Why I must go broken hearted away from Limerick strand; Though, My fond love, I must leave , you know my heart it is true; It isn't the leaving of Limerick that grieves me, But my darling when I think of you!" |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: GUEST,MV Date: 18 Feb 09 - 09:07 AM Thanks Martin for the clip of Leaving Of Limerick. The clip doesn't include the chorus so I don't if it sounds like Leaving Of Liverpool when it gets to the chorus. The melody in the clip I heard didn't sound to me like Leaving Of Liverpool. The leaving theme in both songs may well go way back there may be other leaving songs we have lost over time. Maybe Leaving Of Liverpool and Leaving Of Limerick were created independent of each other? MV |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: GUEST,George Henderson Date: 18 Feb 09 - 06:49 AM Of course Dick Maitland Heard a Liverpool man singing it. And there is no doubt that Doerflinger collected it. And we must thank them both for allowing us the opportunity to sing it now. However, The Leaving of Limerick is also a very fine song. Deirdre Scanlan got it from the singing of Nora Butler and I asked Tom Munnelly for his thoughts on it. He was not definitive but he felt that the Leaving of Limerick was the older song. He did not research it, as far as I am aware, and this is only conjecture. But who cares, they are both very good songs and both should be sung. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: dick greenhaus Date: 17 Feb 09 - 12:22 PM The first--and prolly the last word on the subject: "Dick Maitland, who sang "The Leaving of Liverpool" learned it about 1885, when he was bosun of the American ship "General Knox". '"I was on deck one night"', he said, '"when I heard a Liverpool man singing it in the fo'c'sle...Yessir, that song hit the spot'"! |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego Date: 17 Feb 09 - 11:25 AM I first heard the song from the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, circa 1963. At least two references I recall credited authorship to Ewan McColl as if it were a composition of his and not older material possibly reworked. It appears now to be a much older song, at least in some form. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: MartinRyan Date: 17 Feb 09 - 06:11 AM I see Nora Butler's CD on sale HERE , with a (very) short sample of The Leaving of Limerick Regards |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: Fred McCormick Date: 17 Feb 09 - 05:11 AM I've come to this thread late as usual, so apologies if someone has mentioned this already. However, Ciarain MacMathuna, the former RTÉ radio presenter collected it from a Limerick woman, I think in the 1950s. Certainly, I recall MacMathuna broadcasting it on a midweek programme he used to compere, as far back as the mid 1970s. I have only heard the singer's name on whistly medium wave radio, but it would have been Una Tuohy, or some such variation, and she came from Co. Limerick. A posthumous CD of her was published by her family and/or friends. Anyone who wants to follow this up could contact the Irish Traditional Music Archive http://www.itma.ie/ . "I'd normally be quite dubious about claims for an Irish antecedent for a song like The Leaving of Liverpool (mainly on the grounds that people are always saying things like that, but rarely seem able to back it up), but, according to Dan Milner, the suggestion came from Tom Munnelly, who I'd expect to be reliable on that sort of thing. I've never seen or heard The Leaving of Limerick, though. Is anyone able to quote it? Any reference to a traditional source would be useful, too; revival recordings may be of little help unless they provide substantive information. I know that Deirdre Scanlan, for example, has recorded a song of that title; but does she say anything about it?" |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: Barry Finn Date: 16 Feb 09 - 06:15 PM Who'd of thunk? Barry |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: dick greenhaus Date: 16 Feb 09 - 05:12 PM That's a lot of debate about a song with a single source. |
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Subject: Lyr Add: THE LEAVING OF LIVERPOOL (Doerflinger) From: Barry Finn Date: 16 Feb 09 - 05:08 PM From "Shanteymen & Shantyboys" by William Main Doerflinger. (Snips) "The first (song)is a sailor's farewell to Liverpool". Thousands of Yankee shellbacks knew Liverpool well. Many of the Famous American clippers, too, were familiar sights in the Mersey, among the three-skysail-yarder 'David Crockett' of New York, the merchant ship mentioned in this song. "It was in 1863 that she first arrived in the port (Liverpool) while under the command of Captain John A Burgess of Massachusetts, her skipper for many yrs. In 1874, on what was to have been his last voyage before retiring from sea, Captain Burgess was lost overboard in a storm in the South Atlantic." Dick Maitland, who sang "The Leaving of Liverpool," learned it about 1885, when he was bosun of the American ship "General Knox". "I was on deck one night", he said, "when I heard a Liverpool man singing it in the fo'c'sle...Yessir, that song hit the spot"! Seeing as this is a one-source song "that's how it was sung" anything else is a change through the folk process, maybe but in 'Rise Up Singing' they at least should have repeat the printed source rather than what I suspect change the words deliberately to their own flowing tastes. If Dick heard this coming from the fo'c'sle then it came from a crew member, as passengers weren't even allowed in the fo'c'sle. I've heard Dan Milner sing this many times, his is much like Lou Killen (except I can understand Dan better than Lou). I see no reason to believe this is a song of emigration & as Doeflinger says himself it's a "sailor's farewell".
I put Doerflinger's text here because there's been such wild speculation over the song, it's origin and words. Sing it as you will but here's how it is. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: PoppaGator Date: 16 Feb 09 - 03:27 PM I was glad to see this verse (above): I've shipped in a Yankee clipper ship, Davy Crockett is her name. Captain Burgess he is tough, me lads, And the mate he's just the same. In several sources, including Rise Up Singing, this verse ends on a glaringly non-rhyming word, which I've never liked very much. Like Little Robyn and probably many others, I knew Dylan's "Farewell" before I ever heard the original "Leaving of Liverpool." I like Bob's verses, but I prefer singing and playing the chorus of the older song, especially for the line that contains the title. I get the feeling, however, that that very line gives the melody an element of momentum that encourages the singer(s) to speed up the rendition, perhaps to the detriment of the song's intended meaning/feeling. In the Dylan song, "It's not the lea-ea-vin'/ that's a-grievin' me" is more readily sung in a less rowdy, more contemplative manner than the original title-line. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: wyrdolafr Date: 16 Feb 09 - 01:21 PM Terry McDonald wrote: "There is nothing in the lyrics to the 'standard' version of the Leaving of Liverpool' to suggest emigration. It's his second voyage, he expects to come home, he's clearly a member of the crew and he's going to California, not the usual east coast ports such as New York or Boston where British and Irish emigrants arrived." I agree completely. I don't understand why there's actually any debate to it. Aside from the words themselves, it's not exactly an unlikely context or setting given Liverpool's importance as a port during the 19th C. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: goatfell Date: 16 Feb 09 - 12:58 PM here in Ayrshire they line dance to this how ? |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: Terry McDonald Date: 16 Feb 09 - 12:53 PM There is nothing in the lyrics to the 'standard' version of the Leaving of Liverpool' to suggest emigration. It's his second voyage, he expects to come home, he's clearly a member of the crew and he's going to California, not the usual east coast ports such as New York or Boston where British and Irish emigrants arrived. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: GUEST,MV Date: 16 Feb 09 - 12:29 PM A leaving song would be appealing in Ireland in the 19th Century. I have a feeling that in the same way as Irish groups and singers adopted the Liverpool song in the 20th Century maybe it was adopted in the same way in 19th Century Ireland. A case of history repeating itself? MV |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: Jim McLean Date: 16 Feb 09 - 07:39 AM PAT CLANCY: You want to know where Dylan got his stuff? There was a little folk club here in London, down in the basement [The Troubadour]; we sang in it one night... Anyway, Al Grossman [Dylan's manager] paid somebody [Anthea Joseph]and gave them a tape-recorder, and every folk-singer that went up there was taped, and Bob Dylan got all those tapes... LIAM CLANCY: Yes, and the tune of "Farewell"... because whoever was singing harmony was closer to the mike than the guy singing melody, and when Dylan wrote his version, he wrote it to the harmony not the melody line... |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: GUEST,MartinRyan Date: 16 Feb 09 - 06:06 AM It's as good a guess as any - in the absence of evidence! My own instinct, as noted earlier in the thread, is the reverse. Regards |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: GUEST Date: 16 Feb 09 - 06:00 AM Okay I'll take a guess at which version came first. I would suggest that the Liverpool version came before the Limerick version because the Limerick version reads to me like a more polite remake of the Liverpool version. MV |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: GUEST,MV Date: 16 Feb 09 - 05:48 AM It's clear from the lyrics in the version most people know that the singer is a Liverpool based sailor and there's no connection to emigration. The sailor has a fondness for parts of Liverpool that you wouldn't expect from someone recently arrived from Ireland before going on to America. There doesn't seem to be any evidence to determine which came first Leaving Of Liverpool or Leaving Of Limerick. I consider this song a Liverpool sea shanty rather than an Irish folk song. A lot of people seem to think this is an Irish folk song about emigration and this might have come about as a result of it being played by Irish folk groups and singers. MV |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: GUEST,Toenails John Date: 13 Nov 04 - 02:20 PM I would agree with the leaving of Limerick theory, here's why. I was told years ago that the leaving of liverpool was an Irish song. During our mass emigration to the UK and the states there were a few passages that a person could travel, one such route was to the states, via the port of Liverpool, where some emigrants jumped ship to make a go of life there, only to rejoin another ship later for the onward journey, having to leave again, whatever he has made his in liverpool, ie a relationship, while having no personal attachment to the actual town. "It's not the leaving of liverpool that grieves me, but my darling when i think of you" This theory has always held it's own for me, but i don't know if it is a 100%fact I once heard a different version called The leaving of everything and all I love?? anyone know about that version or was it just somebody trying to be original (unsucsessfully!!) |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: GEST Date: 12 Nov 04 - 03:41 PM Some facts from Ships of the World: An Historical Encyclopedia, Houghton Mifflin: David Crockett Clipper (3m). L/B/D: 218.8 × 41 × 27 (66.7m × 12.5m × 8.2m). Tons: 1,679 bm. Hull: wood. Built: Greenman & Co., Mystic, Conn.; 1853. Named for the celebrated American frontiersman and built for Handy & Everett's transatlantic packet trade between New York and Liverpool, the clipper David Crockett combined large carrying capacity with good speed and was regarded by some as "almost perfect." As it happened, she made only a few voyages on the transatlantic run before entering the Cape Horn run between New York and San Francisco under the house flag of Lawrence Giles and Company. In this hard trade, David Crockett proved one of the most successful clippers ever launched. Having cost $93,000 to build, by the time she quit the Cape Horn trade in 1883, after twenty-five passages from New York to San Francisco, she had earned a net profit of $500,000, and there is no record of any loss to her insurers for any cause. Sold first to Thomas Dunhams Nephew & Company and then to S. W. Carey, she was rerigged as a bark for service in the Atlantic. In 1890, after nearly four decades under sail, she was sold to Peter Wright & Son, of Philadelphia, and cut down for use as a coal barge "to any port where there is water enough to float her." With leg-of-mutton sails set from stump masts, in this ignominious work she ended her days around the turn of the century. Her figurehead, which was displayed only when in port, survives in the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. Howe & Matthews, American Clipper Ships. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: Gareth Date: 11 Feb 04 - 04:53 PM Guest Satchel - If LR can confirm the name and existance, well find. However I respectfully refer to my orginal post :- "The only hard and fast rule on ships names was only one name per port of registry thus we could have the "Davey Crocket" of New York, and the "Davey Crocket" of say Mobile. Scond fact. In the days when I had a free run of the Lloyds of London libuary and records section have now long gone. I am working from memory but the commercial life of a wooden hull was not that long. The 'Perils of the Sea', decay, wear and tear, and commercial reality saw to that. It is very possible that here were more than one "Davey Crocket" on the transatlantic run." Gareth |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 11 Feb 04 - 02:09 PM Just another song for which the only secure datum is time of publication. So far everything else is anecdotal. Interesting nevertheless. Doerflinger's informant also may have modified a song to his taste and changed names or added the Burgess-David Crockett lines- this could have no bearing on the date and place of origin of the song. The Mystic Museum has the name Davy Crockett for the ship; it was not a commissioned US naval vessel and at the time it was built Crockett already was in folk history and penny dreadfuls as Davy. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: MartinRyan Date: 11 Feb 04 - 01:17 PM It seems to me that we don't have any real evidence as to the order in which the two songs developed - nor any real idea of the time of origin. My own instinct, for what it's worth, is that the Limerick one may well precede the Liverpool one. It just seems more likely that an emigrant song got slightly roughed up by sailors than that a sailors song was made so gentle! but it IS speculation. Regards |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: bfolkemer Date: 11 Feb 04 - 12:56 PM All, Thanks for this discussion and the text of "Leaving of LImerick." Martin, please rest assured that I will not try to put it into the "strait jacket" of the tune I have for "Leaving of Liverpool." However, I'm eager to hear/see the music for "Leaving of Limerick." I have the capablility of turning an ABC file into a MIDI file, or converting written music into a MIDI file. If I can somehow get a recording, sheet music or an ABC from one of you, l will do that. Il probably need some help in putting it up on this site, but I'm sure I can learn to do that too. Regards, Beth |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: GUEST,satchel Date: 08 Feb 04 - 07:03 PM Dan Milner's (Liam's Brother) and guest-Dolphin's comments are the only ones that aren't based on pure speculation. Gareth, a self-proclaimed nautical historian, should keep his day job--please. Even a cursory search of Lloyd's registries wouold show that there was only one ship David (not "Davey," --he was in Congress, after all) Crockett, and the one built in Mystic, CT did indeed have a Captain John Burgess. Doerflinger collected the lovely song, it does not, when sung by someone who cares, sound like a rugby song, and yes, the folk process has been hard at work with this puppy for most of the 20th century. There are plentiful sources to document this song completely, in all of its permutations--please stop guessing--this is how rumors get started. Oh, and while you're at it, don't bother to even read this post, because Milner and Dolphin are the only ones worth listening to. --Cheers! |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: Gareth Date: 08 Feb 04 - 06:56 PM Mmmm ! - My orginal thoughts were that the "Leaving of Limerick" was a subtle varient of the " L of L'pool" Given these words I fear I was wrong. But I will stand o my original comments regarding both Limerick and Liverpool being the gateway to the New World. Gareth |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: Malcolm Douglas Date: 08 Feb 04 - 06:55 PM Thanks, Martin. Do we have an earliest date for that? Leaving of Liverpool is, according to Doerflinger's source, at least as old as c.1885, so we ought to try to make sure that the relationship (unlikely, perhaps, but you never know) isn't in the other direction. I notice that Limerick is now marked for harvesting. Might I just echo Martin's concern about it? As it happens, the midi file attached to the DT entry for Liverpool is very slow, but it wouldn't be appropriate to imply, as midi links in the DT often, by omitting all source information, do, that the tunes are interchangeable. We would do well to pull together a bit more information -and, if possible, a transcription of the tune- before closing the page on this one. I notice, incidentally, that the DT file acknowledges neither Doerflinger nor Maitland, though it does mention recordings made by several well-known revival performers. It would be good to have the source information in the next update. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: MartinRyan Date: 08 Feb 04 - 05:37 PM Eileen O'Brien would quite likely be the connction to Deirdre Scanlon, OK RTegards |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: GUEST,An Púca Date: 08 Feb 04 - 09:24 AM That's the way (Martin's text) Nora Butler sings the Leaving of Limerick so I'd say Liam's brother is right. Some Aussies around the site might have a recording of Nora singing it on a CD related to a tour of Australia by musicians and singers also including Séamus Connolly and Eileen O'Brien. One I heard in a friend's house over there a few years ago and I don't think there was any commercial release other than sales at concerts. I haven't seen it in Ireland. Nicky and Anne McAuliffe were also on that tour (a lot of fiddling talent on one jumbo jet) as well as Donie Nolan and Willie Fogarty as far as I can remember. Just in case people want to track down the recording from participants. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: MartinRyan Date: 08 Feb 04 - 05:33 AM Here's a quick transcription of Deirdre's version: ^^ As I roved out one evening, down by the Assembly Mall I heard two lovers speaking as me and my love passed on And the words that passed between them, they were but very few Its not the leaving of Limerick that grieves me, but my darling, leaving you In the morning when I am going, I will take you by the lily white hand And I'll wave it oer my shoulder saying adieu to the Limerick strand So farewell to the boys of Thomond Gate, It's to them I'll bid Adieu Its not etc. And now that we must be parted, I know you will understand Why I must go broken hearted, far away from my native land Though my fond love I must leave you, you know my heart is true Its not etc. The tune is recognisably related to The Leaving of Liverpool but very slow ( three minutes for three unaccompanied verses)and wistful. Beautifully sung by Deirdre. I have slightly mixed feelings about printing the above words. It has always been my attitude that if someone asks me for a song - they get it, no question. That's how I was treated and that's how the whole thing works. But the thought of someone taking these words and trying to hammer it into the inflexible strait jacket of the typical way in which the Leaving of Liverpool is usually belted out...... Regards |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool From: Shanghaiceltic Date: 04 Feb 04 - 11:51 PM I have a referance to this as ' An English ballad popular also in Ireland' Here is an intersting link to leaving Liverpool in 1848. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~dadds/leavingofliverpool.html |
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