Family songs in Ireland, 1935-60

Subject: RE: Family songs in Ireland, 1935-60
From: Thompson
Date: 09 Jan 16 - 12:34 PM

Last Rose of Summer, Snowy-Breasted Pearl; don't forget all the patriotic songs like The Foggy Dew and The Wearing of the Green and All Around My Hat. Where are the lads from?

Subject: RE: Family songs in Ireland, 1935-60
From: Paul Burke
Date: 09 Jan 16 - 12:10 PM

How could I have forgotten my mother singing the Minstrel Boy? I got laughed at because I sang "the foreman's chains could not bring his wild soul under"- I'd never heard of a foeman but I often heard people talking, in less than complimentary terms, about the foreman.

Subject: RE: Family songs in Ireland, 1935-60
From: MartinRyan
Date: 09 Jan 16 - 09:04 AM

Agreed, Noreen - McCormack and Delia Murphy would have been the staple of many a gramophone record (!) collection.

Regards

Subject: RE: Family songs in Ireland, 1935-60
From: Noreen
Date: 09 Jan 16 - 08:54 AM

My daddy (born in Carlow in 1921) loved Count John McCormack
for example The Meeting of the Waters, Down by the Sally Gardens, The Minstrel Boy, Snowy-breasted Pearl, The Last Rose of Summer.

Daddy also loved to sing The Old Bog Road and Oft in the Stilly Night.

Lovely memories- thanks Joe for prompting me to revisit these songs.

Subject: RE: Family songs in Ireland, 1935-60
From: MartinRyan
Date: 09 Jan 16 - 05:19 AM

Check out the Delia Murphy repertoire - hugely popular through the fifties and early sixties in rural Ireland, in particular.

Regards

Subject: RE: Family songs in Ireland, 1935-60
From: Paul Burke
Date: 09 Jan 16 - 05:05 AM

Probably much the same as (some of) my mother's songs, though she was nearly 20 years older, and not Irish (lots of influence from a generation or two before though). She used to sing them in an outrageous cod-Irish accent.

Poor Dog Tray- I used to beg her not to sing the verse where the dog dies.
Mother Machree.
If You're Irish Come Into The Parlour.
Where the Mountains of Mourne Sweep Down to the Sea.
Some farrago about "Her daddy called her Paddy for he hoped she'd be a laddie"
Come Back Paddy Reilly (often substituting Boggart Hole Clough for Ballyjamesduff).
Pride of Petravore.

Dozens of others- she was always singing, everything from the latest pop songs to hymns.

Subject: Family songs in Ireland, 1935-60
From: Joe Offer
Date: 08 Jan 16 - 08:57 PM

I had a little singaround today with two Irish-born Sisters of Mercy, both about 80 years old, and both with dementia. The nursing supervisor wanted them to have some mental stimulation, so I had them teach me songs. One song they remembered that I didn't know was King of the Faeries, and we had a lot of fun with that. Also Rose of Tralee and Galway Bay and Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral (That's an Irish Lullaby). One of the nuns sang Wild Colonial Boy, and the other sang Three Lovely Lasses in Bannion.

They weren't familiar with a lot of the Percy French - Clancy Brothers Irish songs I know, but they did OK on Star of the County Down. Oh, and they liked "Home on the Range" and "Don't Fence Me In," and some hymns I sang with them.

What other songs would young women have sung at home or school in Ireland in the 1940s and 1950s? They left for California in the 1960s.

We had a great time this afternoon, and I hope to do this again soon.

-Joe-