Lyr Req: Oro Se Do Bheatha 'Bhaile - Scottish

Subject: Lyr Req: Oro Se Do Bheatha 'Bhaile - Scottish
From: JMB
Date: 23 Feb 18 - 10:41 AM

Hi there. I tried doing a google search for a Scottish Gaelic version of this Irish Gaelic song. Is there one in existence anywhere? Thanks.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Oro Se Do Bheatha 'Bhaile - Scottish
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 24 Feb 18 - 02:23 AM

Why would there be a Scottish version of this old Irish song ?

Dave H

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Oro Se Do Bheatha 'Bhaile - Scottish
From: GUEST,RA
Date: 24 Feb 18 - 06:38 AM

Why? Erm, possibly because of close cultural connections between Gaelic Scotland and Gaelic Ireland?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Oro Se Do Bheatha 'Bhaile - Scottish
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 24 Feb 18 - 08:07 AM

True but this is a welcoming home song, it even mentions the famous female pirate Grainne Mhaol, I'm pretty sure she was Irish.

Dave H

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Oro Se Do Bheatha 'Bhaile - Scottish
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Feb 18 - 08:44 AM

Seems to be a solidly Irish song, though it does have Jacobite connections
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Oro Se Do Bheatha 'Bhaile - Scottish
From: GUEST,RA
Date: 24 Feb 18 - 10:53 AM

From what I can gather, the Grainne Mhaol verse was added to the original song (which mentions Bonnie Prince Charlie) by Padraig Pearse. I think JMB's original query is a valid one... although I don't know of a Scottish version of the song either!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Oro Se Do Bheatha 'Bhaile - Scottish
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Feb 18 - 01:36 PM

Eithne ní Uallachain sang, and recorded, a version I love : Óró

Not a Scottish one though.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Oro Se Do Bheatha 'Bhaile - Scottish
From: keberoxu
Date: 24 Feb 18 - 02:05 PM

I can only offer a negative confirmation, from a book in my collection.

Oro Se Do Bheatha Bhaile (fadas?)
is NOT to be found in
Malcolm MacFarlane (Calum MacPhárlain)'s
Binneas nam Bárd.
A Book in which the Poems, Songs, and Ditties of the Scottish Gaels
are Exhibited along with their Airs.
published in Stirling: Eneas Mackay, 1908.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Oro Se Do Bheatha 'Bhaile - Scottish
From: GUEST,RA
Date: 24 Feb 18 - 04:48 PM

Might be worth doing a search on the Tobar an Dualchais website (sound archive of the School of Scottish Studies)...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Oro Se Do Bheatha 'Bhaile - Scottish
From: The Sandman
Date: 24 Feb 18 - 05:03 PM

interesting what was Pearse up to?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Oro Se Do Bheatha 'Bhaile - Scottish
From: JMB
Date: 26 Feb 18 - 08:20 AM

http://www.tobarandualchais.com/en/fullrecord/47750/1

I found a parody called Lucky Wee Prince Chairlie which mocks Bonnie Prince Chairlie on the site you suggested RA. Thanks for the tip.

I have a background in Scottish Gaelic, but I have learned Irish Gaelic songs before. I just learned the original 1745 Irish lyrics and will be working on the Pearse version shortly.

I have sung songs such as Brid Og Ni' Mhaille and Amhran na bhFiann.

I know that there were some songs that were shared between Scotland and Ireland, and the original version I believe was a Jacobite version showing Irish support of Bonnie Prince Chairlie's campaign in Scotland.

Thank you very much RA for the resource site.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Oro Se Do Bheatha 'Bhaile - Scottish
From: GUEST,Roythepict
Date: 08 Sep 18 - 06:51 PM

The original air of this song was indeed a Scottish Jacobite war song. It was also translated into a French sing of the time as they were allied to Scotland at that time. Pearce reworked the song into original sender do breaths abhaile as a song for the Irish rebellion. The Scottish and French versions predate the Pearce version. I have been unable, so far to find the French version.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Oro Se Do Bheatha 'Bhaile - Scottish
From: GUEST,kenny
Date: 09 Sep 18 - 04:35 AM

So which "Jacobite war song" was it ?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Oro Se Do Bheatha 'Bhaile - Scottish
From: Thompson
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 03:30 AM

Grainne Mhaol wasn't a pirate, that's a myth. She was a merchant - and like every single merchant along every coast in Europe at her time, she did some smuggling.

Pirates were people like the mass murderer Francis Drake, who hijacked foreign ships and sold them and their cargoes for profit.

Bonnie Prince Charlie is a standard among 18th-century Irish songs as well as Scottish. Not a great place to put your hope for freedom - but more of a symbol.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Oro Se Do Bheatha 'Bhaile - Scottish
From: GUEST,Miranda
Date: 27 Dec 18 - 09:29 AM

This was a Jacobite song, albeit it was Irish. Not sure why there would be a Scottish Gaelic translation of the song.
There are many websites offering the original lyrics to the song (all in Irish), though there is just one video of the original on YouTube sung by a guy who studied Old Irish.

Despite the Jacobite movement being largely associated with the Scottish and the song's origins being in Jacobite history, I don't think there is a Scottish Gaelic version and I wasn't able to find one if I recall correctly.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Oro Se Do Bheatha 'Bhaile - Scottish
From: JMB
Date: 28 Dec 18 - 08:13 PM

I actually did find a Scottish Gaelic - Jacobite version a while back. I'll dig it up again and share it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Oro Se Do Bheatha 'Bhaile - Scottish
From: GUEST,ActiusAquila
Date: 14 Feb 19 - 09:11 PM

Darach O Cathain does a good version of this song, but his is kind of different from the Clancy Brother's version (the more well known one)- when Darach last sings the chorus the second line is different.

Darach's Irish but maybe it's that version that's in Scots Gaelic? I don't know either Scots or Irish Gaelic, so I wouldn't know, but I've never really heard any difference in between several different versions of the song, except for Darach's. I myself could never find lyrics for his version, might anybody have lyrics?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Oro Se Do Bheatha 'Bhaile - Scottish
From: GUEST,Miranda
Date: 15 Feb 19 - 07:20 AM

What is it that Darach sings at the end, does anyone know?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Oro Se Do Bheatha 'Bhaile - Scottish
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Feb 19 - 10:44 AM

It translates "I would want more than one hundred milk cows". I don't know who added that. It's a reference to the narrator desiring freedom more than a fat dowry.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Oro Se Do Bheatha 'Bhaile - Scottish
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Aug 24 - 12:59 PM

This Jacobite song, entitled "Seárlas Óg", was collected in Co Tyrone from the brother and sister Ned and Nancy Tracey by several collectors around 1910. A cylinder recording was made in Tyrone by Roger Casement's associate Michael Deegan but seems to have been lost. The tune was noted from the Traceys and arranged by Carl Hardebeck. Several contemporary publications of the words can be seen at https://www3.smo.uhi.ac.uk/oduibhin/bgilmore/furthernotes.htm as can Hardebeck's musical arrangement, and a modern authentic performance by Peadar Mac Gabhann. The song was heard in Tyrone by Roger Casement who drew Pearse's attention to it, and he rewrote the words removing any suggestion of a Scottish or Ulster Gaelic connection. I too wonder whether some version of it was known in Scottish Gaelic, but I have never heard one.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Oro Se Do Bheatha 'Bhaile - Scottish
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar
Date: 19 Aug 24 - 02:24 PM

Well, the tune was used for 'Donald Where's Yer Troosers' - by Andy Stewart, and I as I recall Morris Blythman [Thurso Berwick] wrote the Wee Prince Charlie lyric. Morris used part of a Gaelic Horo older song, which I remember hearing sung in the late 50s, maybe by Kittie and Marietta MacLeod.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Oro Se Do Bheatha 'Bhaile - Scottish
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Aug 24 - 10:19 AM

To my surprise I do see a melodic resemblance between 'Donald Where's Yer Troosers' and 'Séarlas Óg', even though the tempo and whole ambience are miles apart! I found 'Lucky Wee Prince Charlie' on Tobar an Dualchais, and the tune there is exactly the same one as used in Ireland with the de-Jacobitised lyrics. That suggests to me that Blythman may have got it from there, but he was obviously also aware of the Jacobite associations. I would really like to find that Kitty MacLeod Gaelic recording.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Oro Se Do Bheatha 'Bhaile - Scottish
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar
Date: 25 Aug 24 - 09:20 AM

In the 1967 Rebel Ceilidh Songbook Morris Blythman names the tune for his 'Lucky Wee Prince Chairlie' as 'O Ro Se'.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Oro Se Do Bheatha 'Bhaile - Scottish
From: GUEST,Jim McLean
Date: 25 Aug 24 - 03:53 PM

I was in Morris Blythman’s company during the years Lucky Wee Prince Chairlie was popular and worked with him on songs but I never heard him mention any Jacobite connection with his lyrics or that he thought there was a Jacobite connection with Ho Ro .

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Oro Se Do Bheatha 'Bhaile - Scottish
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Aug 24 - 06:29 AM

Thanks for the info. I just surmised that his choice of the Ho Ro tune for his anti-Royalist satire would have extra point if he knew the tune had Jacobite resonances. If he got the tune from Ireland (as looks likely), where such resonances were largely suppressed, he might also have known something of the song in Scottish Gaelic, which is what I'm looking for. But these speculations now appear groundless.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Oro Se Do Bheatha 'Bhaile - Scottish
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Aug 24 - 06:25 PM

The tune sounds to me like the tune of 'What shall we do with the drunken sailor's.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Oro Se Do Bheatha 'Bhaile - Scottish
From: Thompson
Date: 30 Aug 24 - 11:38 AM

The song was heard in Tyrone by Roger Casement who drew Pearse's attention to it
Is there a letter from Casement to Pearse doing so, or how is this known?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Oro Se Do Bheatha 'Bhaile - Scottish
From: Thompson
Date: 30 Aug 24 - 11:43 AM

Edit: went looking myself and found the original song here - look for "Seaghan Mac Cana's publication" to go straight to it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Oro Se Do Bheatha 'Bhaile - Scottish
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar
Date: 31 Aug 24 - 05:43 AM

In 1904 Harry Lauder recorded his Hey Donal! - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4XOiH1FE3k
Source for Andy Stewart's Donald Where's Yer Troosers?
And 'Drunken Sailor' older - 1830 or so.
This is a tune to be chased/traced back further.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Oro Se Do Bheatha 'Bhaile - Scottish
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar
Date: 31 Aug 24 - 03:23 PM

Bayard (1981) thinks that the tune is a simplified version of the Irish hornpipe called "The Groves" (O'Neill's Music of Ireland, Nos. 1598 & 1703), which in turn appears to based on a "simple, fundamental strain" of the Scottish "Johnnie Cope." [From The Fiddler's Companion]

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Oro Se Do Bheatha 'Bhaile - Scottish
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Sep 24 - 07:45 PM

Quote: “‘The song was heard in Tyrone by Roger Casement who drew Pearse's attention to it.’ Is there a letter from Casement to Pearse doing so, or how is this known?”

Recent research as reported in Dúiche Néill — Journal of the O'Neill Country Historical Society, No 26 (2023) pp 174–202.
https://oneillcountryhistoricalsociety.com/publications/

Quote: “found the original song here - look for ‘Seaghan Mac Cana's publication’ to go straight to it.”

This webpage is a supplement to the Dúiche Néill article, and relates to the song as collected in the 1910s in Tyrone, before it was taken up and changed by the Gaelic League.

The likelihood must be that this Gaelic song was not composed in Tyrone but came from Scotland, which is why I'm interested in finding a Gaelic version from Scotland — the words rather than the tune.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Oro Se Do Bheatha 'Bhaile - Scottish
From: Felipa
Date: 02 Sep 24 - 05:46 PM

Why does "Guest" insist the song must have come from Scotland, when we have no evidence of a Scottish version of it. In local folklore, it is said that Bonnie Prince Charlie when on the run travelled to Rathlin Island and then to the north coast of Ireland, where he sheltered in Malinbeg, County Donegal, Ireland and that he later embarked in a French frigate from Poll-an-Uisce, near Glenlough.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Oro Se Do Bheatha 'Bhaile - Scottish
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 03 Sep 24 - 11:31 AM

According to a manuscript I came across in the NLS, "Johnny Cope" in turn was based on a version of "Catherine Ogie". I didn't see the resemblance, and I don't see the resemblance between "Johnny Cope" and "Drunken Sailor"/"Oro Se" either.