Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???

Subject: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: Mikey joe
Date: 03 Nov 00 - 11:04 AM

Can anyone tell me who wrote the tune to Raglan Road? I know paddy kavanagh wrote the words. Cheers all

Mj

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: mg
Date: 03 Nov 00 - 11:22 AM

can't tell you. But the way it sounds to me (a beautiful tune) it sounds exactly like the same tune as that silly song about the razor blade was Japanese made and the rope was Belfast linen. So I suspect it is old.

mg

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: Musicman
Date: 03 Nov 00 - 12:08 PM

From an Irish songbook I have:

"Patrick Kavanagh's words set to 'Fainne Geal an Lae'(the dawning of the day)."

no dates given....

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: GUEST,Dave [ Zander ]
Date: 03 Nov 00 - 01:42 PM

It is in fact the traditional air ' Fainne Gael an Lae ' The Dawning of the Day.

Regards, Dave

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Nov 00 - 01:49 PM

Tunes like that typically get written down a long time after they've been made up, and not by the same person.

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Nov 00 - 01:51 PM

But it'd be intersting to know who thought of bringing the tune and the words together.

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: GUEST,Mikey Joe
Date: 03 Nov 00 - 02:45 PM

Good stuff

I agree completely with you guys, and it is the proof I need to settle a bet..

Cheers

Mj

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: mike putt
Date: 03 Nov 00 - 02:50 PM

I have it somewhere that Patrick Kavanagh approached Luke Kelly with the song but I dont know wether the tune was already with it then or if it was Luke put the tune to it

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 03 Nov 00 - 07:37 PM

Both Ewan McVicar and Arthur Johnstone claim it was Luke Kelly who married the tune to the words. Luke's own account seems to contradict this:
[1994:] Luke told the following story in an interview in 1980: 'I was sitting in a pub in Dublin, The Bailey, and as you know in the old days - it's changed a bit now - it was known as a literary pub, an artistic pub. I happened to be sitting there in the same company with Patrick Kavanagh and one or two other poets, and someone asked him to recite a poem, which he did, and then someone asked me to sing a song which I did. Being in the presence of the great man I was very nervous. Then he leaned over to me and said in that sepulchral voice of his - he could hardly get his voice out, he was very old ... it was just the year before he died - and he said 'You should sing my song,' and I said 'What's that, Mr Kavanagh?' and he said 'Raglan Road''. So he gave me permission. I got permission from the man himself.' (Geraghty, Luke Kelly 38f)
If Kavanagh talked of his 'song', it is reasonable to assume it had a tune already. Perhaps it was a different one originally? But wouldn't Luke have mentioned it if he put a different tune to it?

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: GUEST,jaze
Date: 03 Nov 00 - 10:33 PM

Don't know who wrote the tune, but has anyone heard Joan Osborne's version on the Chieftan's "Tears Of Stone"? I've been hooked on that song for weeks now!

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: GUEST,Tom Munnelly
Date: 04 Nov 00 - 07:44 AM

There is a recording of Kavanagh himself singing 'Raglan Road' in the RTE Radio archive. Proof enough that he conceived his verses as a song. The line endings 'at the dawning of the day' are also proof of the air he had in mind. Not much of a singer, but he never claimed to be one. But what a poet.

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: The Shambles
Date: 04 Nov 00 - 10:18 AM

Raglan Road. The words from the DT.

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: The Shambles
Date: 04 Nov 00 - 10:23 AM

The tune of course, is there too.

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar
Date: 04 Nov 00 - 12:47 PM

Great, another bit of the puzzle remade. I cannot even recall who told me that Luke had put the tune to what was certainly presented in the books in them days as a pome rather than as a song.

Andy Hunter also wrote a fine set of words to the same pipe tune, not knowing of Raglan Road at the time.

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Nov 00 - 01:26 PM

So it was Kavanaugh all along...The Mudcat scores once again!

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: GUEST,liam
Date: 01 Mar 03 - 09:56 PM

kavanagh had to have concieved that "raglan road" was to be sung to the tune of dawning of the day. firstly, the rhythym and number of syllables per line are nearly perfectly fitted to fáinne an lae, and kavanagh mentions dawing of the day twice on the poem. there is also evidence that kavanagh sung the song long before luke kelly ever did and reports say that after hearing kelly sing one day, kavanagh asked kelly to sing "my song" (refer to original discussion about on raglan road

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: GUEST,Geordie
Date: 04 Mar 03 - 07:41 AM

I agree about the Joan Osborne version. It is fabulous. Are all of the words original or were some bits and pieces found elsewhere ? I only ask because there is a familiarity about the whole thing. But then it is probably just wonderful songwriting. A grand song indeed.

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: GUEST,Roger Bruce Furst
Date: 04 Sep 04 - 10:46 AM

The Dubliners also used the melody as a backdrop for the recitation of a Patrick Pearse speech which they called "The Rebel"

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: GUEST,BHS
Date: 09 Aug 06 - 05:23 PM

The Following comes from vincent peter's wonderful website

On Raglan Road
The Dawning Of The Day

The confusion caused by the two titles of this song can be traced back to the different previous history of the tune on one hand and the words on the other.

The tune, known as Fainne Gael an Lae, strictly meaning The Bright Ring of Day, probably originates from the seventeenth century blind Sligo harpist Thomas O'Connellan. In 1847 Edward Walsh scored an eighteenth century poem to this air and the song Fainne Gael an Lae, by then translated as The Dawning of the Day, was born. The popularity of this song rocketed when a masterly interpretation by the famous Irish-American tenor John McCormack, of the The Dawning of the Day was used in the 1937 film Wings of the Morning.
O'Connellan's air inspired not only Edward Walsh, but also Thomas Moore, when he sought music for The Minstrel Boy, as well as the author of The Ballad of William Bloat, Raymond Calvert.
In 1909, to make thing even more complicated, Cicely Fox Smith published a poem entitled At the Dawning of the Day. Apart from some phrases this poem has little to do with our subject, although it is not entirely unthinkable that Patrick Kavanagh at least knew this poem.

Most likely with knowledge of Walsh's song The Dawning of the Day and Smith's poem At the Dawning of the Day Patrick Kavanagh wrote a poem entitled Dark Haired Myriam Ran Away. This poem, which was published in 1946, seemingly referred to an unrequited love of Patrick Kavanagh. The words however don't give a clue about her name and like a true gentlemen he never consigned the lady's identity.

Kavanagh's poem led a forlorn existence on dark bookshelves until Patrick Kavanagh and Luke Kelly of The Dubliners, at that time novices in the music scene, treated each other with their talents during a joyful pub session somewhere in the 1960's.
The exact course of this gathering is vague. Some assume that Kavanagh recited his poem Dark Haired Myriam Ran Away and that Kelly set it to O'Connellan's air. Others, among them Luke Kelly himself, state that Kavanagh already had set the poem to the air. Anyway, Patrick was impressed by the musical talents of Luke Kelly and he gave him permission to use the song. For some reasons The Dubliners didn't use the original title of the poem and because there was already a song entitled The Dawning of the Day they came up with On Raglan Road.



hope this answeres the Question

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: An Buachaill Caol Dubh
Date: 10 Aug 06 - 12:11 PM

Can't add much to the above, except that the set of words beginning

"One morning early, as I roved out
By the margin of Lough Leane..."

is a translation/version of the Irish "Fainne Gael an La

"Ar maidin moch do goes a mhath
Ar bruach Lough a Leine

(Sorry, memory fails here)

I don't think this was the set recorded by McCormack, but rather:

"One morning fair, as I walked forth
Where Leane's dark waters flow,
When summer bid the groves be green,
The lamp of light to glow;
As on by bower and town and tower
And wide-spread filds I stray,
I met a maid in the greenwood shade,
At the Dawning of the Day"

In the 1930s and 1940s every schoolchild in the Republic knew the air, at least, and maybe the Irish words. That P.K. intended his words to be sung to this air seems incontestable.

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: GUEST,HSA
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 07:53 AM

"This poem, which was published in 1946, seemingly referred to an unrequited love of Patrick Kavanagh. The words however don't give a clue about her name and like a true gentlemen he never consigned the lady's identity."

The identity of the lady may not be well publicised BUT I did come across this once on my internet travels:

http://www.hoganstand.com/general/identity/extras/gaels/stories/hildaomalley.htm


Helen

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 08:13 AM

This Thread had me reading through some of the other Threads on the subject. The Thread Analysis of Raglan Road is one of Mudcats best, an education.

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 06:51 PM

Nothing unrequited about it.

Kavanagh himself said that the poem was to the air of Fáinne Gheal an Lae.

(Fáinne an Lae, literally the Ring of the Day, means dawn in Irish, referencing the brilliant ring on the horizon that is the precursor of sunrise. Geal (gheal when séibhithe for agreement with the feminine noun fáinne) means bright.

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: IrishDave
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 04:26 PM

The story goes, P Kavanagh was drinking in the Baggot Inn in Dublin and called Luke Kelly over. He began to sing the poem Raglan Road to him in a ditsy, quite non descript Irish air, knowing Kelly was a singer. Kelly returned the next day (yes the next day, everyone famous drank there at the time including Brendan Behan)with the air and fine performance we all know today, and Raglan Road was born. Incidentally, the Brendan Behan poem The Auld Triangle was transformed into an Irish classic exactly the same way, same pub and all.

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 04:36 PM

I was told the lady was Deirdre Manifold.

Kitty

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: IrishDave
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 04:46 PM

I was tolg the lady was Hilda Moriarty.

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 05:44 PM

HSA - my source of information was (of course) Mary O'C, so I just phoned her. She says she heard Luke Kelly sing the song at a midnight matinee session at the Grafton cinema in the late 1950s. She also says that there was a centenary commemoration of Patrick Kavanagh's birth earlier this year at which Deirdre Manifold was a guest of honour. And she has a photo of Deirdre that she brought to the Herga once to show us, and which she'll dig out again to show us again.

Kitty

Subject: The sporting man of Chester Joseph Baker
From: Ljung
Date: 29 Dec 06 - 01:21 AM

Good morning
Can anybody tell me the story of this man.
Happy new year!

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: Peace
Date: 29 Dec 06 - 01:22 AM

What man?

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: GUEST,the twangman
Date: 29 Dec 06 - 10:28 AM

paddy set the words to the tune himself.

check out the following link to rte archive.

http://www.rte.ie/laweb/ll/ll_t03i.html

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: GUEST,Bill H
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 10:58 PM

Ti remember the tune to the song Raglan Road being sung to a song called Faine Gheal an Lae in the late fifties in our wee school in a village called Mullaghduff in Co Donegal The tune was played in both our fife and drum bands as a marching tune called the Dawning of the day, I remeber the tune well as this was first tune I ever learned to play on the tin wihistle.
I hope this is of assistance to you

Regards Bill

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: Jim Lad
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 04:35 AM

Raglan Road was written By Patrick Kavanagh with not only "The Dawning of the Day" in mind but the actual title of the original tune "The Enchanted Way" which he included in the song.
see also

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: Jim Lad
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 04:02 PM

I should have said " Fainne Gael En Lae" or "Along the Enchanted Way" is the original piece.
It's pre- Christian so I very much doubt that you'll ever find an author.

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 04:51 PM

Pre-christian? Not likely. Any evidence?.

Regards.

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: Jim Lad
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 05:16 PM

Sure. Lots of evidence. I also have the three original nails fro the cross and a piece of straw from the manger.

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: GUEST,Martin Ryan
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 07:13 PM

Aaargh Jim Lad, shiver me timbers.

Regards

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 01:30 PM

This is for those who like to fuss over words - if you are annoyed by people fussing over the words of your favourite songs, please skip this.

Okay. I feel that a comment made on another post applies to this song:

I once heard somebody (Clive James, I think) say that this song [Blowin' in the Wind] contains one of the most beautiful lines ever written followed by one of the most crass:

How many miles must the white dove fly, before she sleeps in the sand,
How many time must the cannonballs fly before they're forever banned.


Similarly, I feel that there are some beautiful lines and images in Raglan Road ('And I said,"Let grief be a fallen leaf
At the dawning of the day"')- but there are one or two clunkers, as well:

The Queen of Hearts still making tarts
And I not making hay;
Oh, I loved too much and by such and such
Is happiness thrown away.

"And I not making hay" is strikingly artificial and awkward. As for, "by such and such" - what can I say? Okay, this: forced rhyme and meter. And the homespun idiom ("such and such") is in jarring contrast to the academic syntax.

And what are we to think of the speaker making of himself an "angel" of the "true gods", while his love-object is "of clay" (not terribly flattering to her, in the context). Even though he's lost his wings by the end, there is perhaps an implication that she was not worthy of his angelic attention. Is there any reason to think the speaker is being ironic at his own expense rather than self-aggrandizing at the expense of his love-interest?

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: Jim Lad
Date: 13 Feb 07 - 01:45 AM

I think, I can answer the "Angel" thing for you, Meself. We were always taught that angels were genderless and were always referred to in masculine terms. So they were male just so as you wouldn't call them "It". In north America, the unwashed frequently refer to them as "Females", some of whom apparently float around on clouds, chowing down on cream cheese. The creature made of clay was Himself, Meself.

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 13 Feb 07 - 08:42 AM

Hate to disagreee with you, Jim, because you seem such a fine fellow, but I don't think you're right - take another look (from DT):

My reason must allow. [I take the period there to be an error{?)]
That I had loved, not as I should
A creature made of clay,
When the angel woos the clay, he'll lose
His wings at the dawn of day.


In other words, the speaker ("I") "had loved" the "creature made of clay" (the female love-interest), and he loved her "not as [he] should", but presumably with a too lofty, high-flown, high-falutin', idealistic type of love. (What's "not as [he] should" mean, anyway? That he should have just hauled her into bed? Again, it seems to suggest that she was not worthy of the angelic love he was offering; he was throwing his pearls before swine, so to speak. Somebody tell me I'm wrong here ... )

If the angel WERE the female love-interest, it would be exceedingly clumsy to end up the song referring to her in the male gender.

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: Jim Lad
Date: 14 Feb 07 - 01:00 AM

It's my Catholic up bringing that takes me there, Meself. There is just no way that Mr. Kavanagh (poetic license or none) would ever refer to an Angel in anything but a masculine term. Couldn't happen.
I take the line to mean that for an Angel to stoop down to loving an earthly being such as himself would be grounds for sudden departure from the heavens.
The bestowing of heavenly qualities upon a human being was sacriligeous enough to satisfy even Patrick Kavanagh but to refer to himself as an angel would just make no sense. Trust me on this one. I'm right, once in a while.

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 14 Feb 07 - 01:09 AM

But Jim - he says "I had loved ... /A creature made of clay". In other words he - the speaker, "I" - is the angel, who loved the human (her). If "she" is the angel, then she all of a sudden has to be speaker for the last five lines of the song ...

I know you're right once in while, because I've seen it on other threads. But on this one, well, I'm not so sure ...

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: Jim Lad
Date: 14 Feb 07 - 01:44 AM

Ah! You're getting there now. You're misinterpreting this sentence but worry not. You're on the brink of an epiphany!
"That I had wooed, not as I should, A creature made of clay"
This is to say...
"That I have courted, not a creature made of clay, which is what I should have done"

Clearly, his way is better.
My way is clearer.
Your way is to buy me a pint the first time I'm ever in Pugwash or Tatamagouche!
Now: The next sound you'll hear will be that of the penny dropping.

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: Jim Lad
Date: 14 Feb 07 - 01:49 AM

Now: Go back to the Stan Rogers thing and graciously accept the apology which awaits you there.

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 14 Feb 07 - 01:58 AM

Oh my - now I'm just confused - is that the sound of a penny dropping, or am I losing my marbles? Anyway - okay, I'll start hoarding those falling pennies so I'll be all set to buy you that pint when the time comes -

Yes, that was a gracious apology - although, if I had interpreted that song the way you did, I might well have said the same thing about it and its writer ...

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: Jim Lad
Date: 14 Feb 07 - 02:02 AM

"That I have courted an angel, not a woman"
Come on Meself. You can do this!


Stan may be gone but there are others who do not need to see my ramblings.

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 14 Feb 07 - 02:10 AM

Nope - he's saying he, an angel, courted her AS IF she were an angel too, like him, but now he realizes she's a mere mortal - unlike him! (And he's got his feet on the ground now - lost his wings; he's learned a hard lesson).

Okay, now, out there in BC you're probably just getting your second wind, but it's after 3 in the morning here, so - get thee behind me, Satan, I've got to get some sleep. Maybe I'll see it differently in the morning!

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: Jim Lad
Date: 14 Feb 07 - 02:12 AM

'Night Son!

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: GUEST,Quinny
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 11:30 PM

You'll find just about everything you'll need to know on the RTE (Irish National Broadcaster) website, including an interview with Hilda Moriarty the muse for this poem.
http://www.rte.ie/laweb/ll/ll_t03i.html

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: Jim Lad
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 11:35 PM

Well Meself! Did the Penny drop yet?

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the tune to Raglan Road???
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 20 Feb 07 - 04:01 PM

'Fraid not, Jim ... And if you take a look at the other thread about Raglan Road that's on the go, it seems that there are a few others who haven't heard that particular penny drop - not that that proves anything, mindja ...