Help: The Foggy Dew: Sud el Bar? Huns?

Subject: RE: Help: The Foggy Dew: Sud el Bar? Huns?
From: GUEST,diarmuid oraghallaigh
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 01:22 AM

cathal brugha =(charles burgess) pronounced cahal bruha, city fair means a beautiful city, the hun version is added much later, mostly by northern glasgow celtic fans.

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: GUEST,Mark
Date: 07 Nov 09 - 10:09 AM

Sedd el Bahr (in modern Turkish, Seddülbahir, meaning "Key of the Sea") is a village at Cape Helles on the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey. The village lies east of the cape, on the shore of the Dardanelles. It was the site of V Beach, the landing zone for two Irish battalions, including one from the SS River Clyde, on 25 April 1915 during the Battle of Gallipoli.

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: GUEST,Sarita in County Antrim
Date: 07 Feb 09 - 08:32 AM

Actually, I think it all has alot to do with the first generation of National School trained
children reaching adulthood in the early 1900s across Ireland.

An empowering world of literacy open to so many who had previously had local political information from face to face encounters. Such encounters carry wit them the demands made by the complexities of human encounters and less liable to lead to the kind of rage found on these web pages.

Nothing like reading the propaganda in a written (therefore authoritative) source like the newspapers aka Broadsheets of old in new form, to wind folk up against each other.

LIke this web page really.

We are all still slaves to disembodied misunderstandings and misinformation.

Keith is right actually. The Belfast newspapers of the period leading up to the Home Rule Bill were alot more cosmopolitan and open minded than the shocking and sudden sectarianism found in them afterwards. Go the the Belfast Central Library and have a looksee. This is reinforced by people I have talked to here about their G'parents
experiences too.

Bye the bye, the same are of one opinion across all 'sides' that the sectarianism rampant hereabouts in the young now is far worse than anything they can ever remember even in the worst times of the 'Troubles'. Hey ho.

All the Best.

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: GUEST,Murphy
Date: 22 Sep 08 - 10:25 AM

My previous entry may give the impression that I am at one with Keith from Hererford. He undoutedly has extensive knowledge but his statement on 8.9.08 that he could not detect any anti british feeling shows a lack of understanding of Irish history.

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: GUEST,Murphy
Date: 22 Sep 08 - 09:51 AM

Here is a link to Islandbridge Memorial park in Dublin which commemerates those who died in WW1. For several years this was viewed as a "British" memorial and was largely ignored and certainly not publicised. Attitudes are changing and people are coming to the realisation that these men gave their lives for FREEDOM just as those who foungt in the 1916 rebellion did.

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Sep 08 - 04:37 AM

You don't have to read their minds.
You can read their letters.
Several collections have been published.
I have some from my father's cousin, who died in France.
What would you have done about the invasion of Belgium , France etc.?

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: GUEST,Colm JPK
Date: 21 Sep 08 - 08:03 PM

100,000 Ulster Volunteers threatening sedition against Her Majesty's" government; the Curragh Mutiny.....The British would have backed down from the Home Rule Bill with or without WWI. And who knows, without the war of independence and the civil war there might have been a truly massive civil war and bloodletting throughout the whole 32 counties.

Also, surely the British government must have been worried that massive bloodshed in Ireland, whether through an all-Ireland civil war, or through allout repression of Sinn Fein, would have made them pariah's in the world and would have even more quickly undermined their Empire, abroad, and more tellingly at home, than what happened in fact.

Keith from Hertford seems to be trying to re-write WWI to make his beloved homeland out to be so noble (or its propaganda system so effective). Sorry, it won't work. WWI changed Europe forever, because of the mass slaughter on all sides of ordinary people as sanctioned and promoted by their "betters", and all for reasons which in retrospect seem fairly insignificant. (In contrast to WWII, at the time and much more so in retrospective.)

Democracy, anyone?

By the way, by what capacity to read people's minds does Keith from H. claim to know why anyone fought in WWI or any war?

Colm JPK

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Sep 08 - 05:44 AM

"But the Kaiser would still have had his mad plans."
It's called 'Empire Building'
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Sep 08 - 03:24 AM

Just to clarify your clarification, it was more than a promise of home rule.
The bill had been passed by parliament.
It was a done deal.
No one could stop it becoming law.
And that had NEVER happened before.

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: Thompson
Date: 09 Sep 08 - 06:29 PM

Keith A, Home Rule had been promised at various stages from, I think, 1850, and invariably 'postponed' as the Unionists objected to it. It was a carrot that kept jerking ahead of the Irish donkey.

Teribus, you're actually a little inaccurate about the 1916 Rising. Pearse (not Pearce) and the other leaders were stymied by the treachery of Eoin MacNeill, who (according to Tom Clarke in speaking to his wife before his execution) agreed to sign the Proclamation of Independence, then sneaked off and put an advertisement in the newspapers cancelling the 'exercises' that were in fact to be the Rising.

Thousands who were due to come out then stood down, and many were arrested and interned by the British. So were thousands who had no military involvement, but who then became involved due to the 'university for revolution' that was the internment camps.

Then when the Great War finished and the Irish Volunteers came home, many of these joined the released internees in the War of Independence (or as the British prefer to call it, the 'Anglo-Irish War'!)

However, all this is a long time ago; we've had an independent country since 1923 and an independent republic since 1949 - there's no point in fighting it all over again. I write merely to clarify.

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 09 Sep 08 - 05:24 PM

OK Jim.
Had they only known what the next 4 years would bring.
All the silly songs and hooplah would have ended.

But the Kaiser would still have had his mad plans.

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Sep 08 - 02:47 PM

Keith,
I apologise if my postings sound personalised - it really wasn't my intention.
It's simply that I find myself unable to get my head around the jingoism that sent millions to their deaths (even in retrospect).
I think we locked horns once before over the film about the death of Kipling's son.
For me, Kipling, as somebody who was quite prepared to send British youth to their deaths for an obscure cause, only changing his mind when the consequences of his attitude touched him personally, will forever symbolise the hypocrisy of Imperialist wars.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 09 Sep 08 - 09:07 AM

....and Jim, I specifically said that adventure had nothing to do with it. There have always been lads like your Tommy who join for that, but they are not who we are discussing.

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 09 Sep 08 - 03:54 AM

Jim, I am not a pacifist, but I am not a warmonger either.
Why do you try to personalise it anyway?
It is not about us, but the generation of 1914.
They chose to oppose a cruel invading army that was carving its way through Europe.
You cannot seem to come to terms with that fact.
It may not suit your socioeconomic theories, but that is what happened.

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: GUEST,The Recruiting Sergeant
Date: 08 Sep 08 - 12:23 PM

When I told a young lad in Ireland that he'd "look fine in Khaki", he replied,

"Let English men for England fight,
It's just about time ye started, O..."

Having wished me a "jooly good night", he there and then departed (O)

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Sep 08 - 12:07 PM

Got to Flanders, climb into a trench, get blown to smithereens - great adventure!
Summed up wonderfully for me a few years go on a beermat in a Scottish pub:
"Unemployed - Join The Army"
At the time they forgot to mention the bit about being shipped to Ulster to be slaughtered there - another great adventure.
I assume you would have no problems with having any members of your family being sent on an 'adventure' in Iraq or Afghanistan - sorry, rhetorical question - you wouldn't mind a bit.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 08 Sep 08 - 09:43 AM

Thompson, sorry I overlooked your 6th Sept post.
"The fact that the Irish Volunteers joined the British Army en masse after John Redmond pledged in the House of Commons that they would do so in exhange for the promise of Home Rule ..."

Remember, they already had that promise. The Bill was passed in May.
Redmond just had to agree to postpone it.

The Irish Volunteers (16th Irish Division) have a web site.
http://freespace.virgin.net/sh.k/xvidiv.html

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 08 Sep 08 - 05:11 AM

Extract from my first link.
One of the most sorely tried communities was that of the little village of Tamines, down in what is known as the Borinage, the coal fields near Charleroi. Tamines is a mining village in the Sambre; it is a collection of small cottages sheltering about 5,000 inhabitants, mostly all poor labourers.

The little graveyard in which the church stands bears its mute testimony to the horror of the event. There are hundreds of new-made graves, each with its small wooden cross and its bit of flowers; the crosses are so closely huddled that there is scarcely room to walk between them. The crosses are alike and all bear the same date, the sinister date of August 22, 1914.

Whether their hands were cut off or not, whether they were impaled on bayonets or not, children were shot down, by military order, in cold blood. In the awful crime of the Rock of Bayard, there overlooking the Meuse below Dinant, infants in their mothers' arms were shot down without mercy. The deed, never surpassed in cruelty by any band of savages, is described by the Bishop of Namur himself.

This scene surpasses in horror all others; the fusillade of the Rock Bayard near Dinant. It appears to have been ordered by Colonel Meister. This fusillade made many victims among the nearby parishes, especially those of des Rivages and Neffe. It caused the death of nearly 90 persons, without distinction of age or sex. Among the victims were babies in arms, boys and girls, fathers and mothers of families, even old men.

It was there that 12 children under the age of 6 perished from the fire of the executioners, 6 of them as they lay in their mothers' arms: the child Fievet, 3 weeks old; Maurice Betemps, 11 months old; Nelly Pollet, 11 months old; Gilda Genon, 18 months old; Gilda Marchot, 2 years old; Clara Struvay, 2 years and 6 months.

The pile of bodies comprised also many children from 6 to 14 years. Eight large families have entirely disappeared. Four have but one survivor. Those men that escaped death -and many of whom were riddled with bullets - were obliged to bury in a summary and hasty fashion their fathers, mothers, brothers, or sisters; then after having been relieved of their money and being placed in chains they were sent to Cassel [Prussia].

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 08 Sep 08 - 03:49 AM

Jim, let's leave WW2 to another thread.
Also, we are all aware that WW1 was bad. No need for a long emotive post.
The issue of why men volunteered you left untouched.
Young men like yours, with a yearning for adventure, have always been drawn to the army. Peace or war.
We have to explain why a million or so from these islands volunteered specifically for this war.
They mostly left steady jobs and loving families.
Families and friends and lovers encouraged them. (We don't want to lose you, But we think you ought to go.)
Why?
For adventure?
No. It had to be a cause fervently believed in.

The armies of a brutal, military regime were sweeping through France and the Low Countries with no guaruntee that they would stop at the Channel.
I suggest that alone would have been enough, without the reports of atrocities.

Were there allied atrocities against civillians that were suppressed?
No. The allies were fighting a defensive war against invading armies on their own territory.
German atrocities may have been exagerated, but the happened.
6000 Belgian civillians in the first week.
You can visit the towns and read the names.
http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/germanatrocities_usreport.htm
http://www.historyofwar.org/bookpage/lipkes_rehearsals.html
Why did Irish men volunteer?
No brainer.
Look at the Irish newspapers of 1914.
You will not find a column inch about implied promises of home rule.
Sinn Fein, by its utter failure, showed that there was absolutely no interest in it.
But you will find acres of print about the threat from the evil Hun.

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Sep 08 - 04:38 PM

Keith
"Jim, I was only talking about the beliefs of the men who volunteered for the war."
My very first venture into collecting was in the late sixties when I recorded an old Liverpool docker, Tommy Kenny.
Little more than a child, Tommy had lied about his age, enlisted, and was sent off to the trenches 'somewhere in Europe'.
He had been sold the idea, not out of any sense of 'cause' or 'duty', but purely as an 'adventure that would make a man of him'.
I spent two incredibly harrowing days recording those 'adventures'.
The climax of the 'adventure' was when he burst into tears after describing the men who 'just walked away from the noise'. They made no effort to hide or evade capture; just turned around and walked the other way.
They were rounded up like straying sheep, tried, invariably found guilty, sentenced to death by shooting and locked up to await execution.
If there was a push on, they were taken out of the prison, put in the front line and ordered to fight.
If they survived that, they were then taken out and shot.
Tommy burst into tears when he described the several occasion when he came across notices pinned up naming men he had been fighting next to a day or so previously who had undergone this barbarity.
Of course, he could have stayed at home and waited to be given 'a white feather' - to help his 'beliefs along maybe!
I have to say that Tommy, when I recorded him, regarded the 'Great' war and those who brought it about with as much contempt as I do.
I'm sure those who flocked to The Hitler Youth and the Nazi Party (including the present Pope) did so for a variety of reasons.
Regarding the German atrocities; isn't it always the victor who writes the history books and decides which is an atrocity and which 'necessary' or even 'a glorious victory' - that's why Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are described as such and not what they really were - the wholesale slaughter of non-combatants; and that's why we now have 'special rendition' and 'collateral damage' and (most cynical of all 'friendly fire' instead of torture, 'killing civilians' and killing off your own men.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: Teribus
Date: 07 Sep 08 - 05:53 AM

"Apart from the Easter Week executions one of the factors that led up to Irish independence was Britain's threat to bring in compulsory conscription."

Conscription in Ireland was never considered by the British Government, it was the "rumour" that conscription was going to be introduced that made it a factor. The "rumour" of course was completely unfounded.

Another "rumour" was the ones about "lines of marching men" rallying to the cause that Easter Week in 1916 - There was no-one coming and very little support for Pearce's rising - and Pearce knew that full well, so the "rumour" was spread to hearten those he had gathered.

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 07 Sep 08 - 04:42 AM

Minna, fine post. Thank you.

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 07 Sep 08 - 04:40 AM

Jim, I was only talking about the beliefs of the men who volunteered for the war.
I think that history is on my side about the nature of the kaiser's regime.
Also, German atrocities against the civillian population in Belgium in 1914 are an established historical fact and not just allied propaganda.
But we have been here before, you will not be convinced, and this is a music thread.
It is still a good song.

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: Minna
Date: 07 Sep 08 - 04:07 AM

Hello,

Of course you are right, Jim and Keith. That was careless of me to use the quote like that. My guess is that the article's author just wants to ignore that foggy dew doesn't originate from "Gaelic" poetry (or it might even be that he doesn't know it). I didn't really pay attention to that so than you for pointing it out.

That's a very interesting conversation you are having about WWI. Although I know quite a lot about it, it's rare to hear debates such as this about it. (The situation is very different here because, as you know, Finland didn't really get very involved in the war - in fact the country didn't exist until 1917. And then Finns had their own bloody civil war to fight.) There are a couple of things I'd like to point out which are true about every war. Firstly, people don't become soldiers just for one reason. I'm sure all of the motives mentioned existed. Some probably joined to get Home Rule for Ireland, some felt that they went to fight against an evil state, some might have just needed a job and some money (remember, that WWI was supposed to be a very short war and all over Europe people were celebrating the beginning of it). It's impossible to explain these kind of things with just one theory. Secondly, you were writing about cruelty in wars. There's a lot of (especially recent) research about different wars that has come to the conclusion that "cruel or unusual" methods such as genocide, other killing campaigns and raping are often more or less a standard method of the army using them. It is very often organized and widely spread. Of course afterwards, the army often tries to find some individuals to put the blame on for claiming them to be exceptions and perhaps psychologically sick etc. As everyone knows, winners write the history and they tend to try to justify their deeds by highlighting their opponents' wrongs. Thus, many people haven't heard about what happened in Rome when the US troops arrived there during WWII: many women were raped by the soldiers. And there's the much more widely known fact, that some of the world's first concentration camps were in Finland after our civil war and the one organizing them was the state.

But now I'm going way too far from Ireland and from the subject so I'd better end this message here. I just needed to point out that there are extremely few black-and-white issues in the world, especially in the wars.

Minna

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Sep 08 - 03:40 AM

Keith,
Do you really think that is what WW1 was about? Rather, I would have thought that was what Empire was about
All this is reminiscent of the propaganda posters of the time. Perhaps you would like to tell us of German troops raping women and bayoneting babies?
If anything, the war took place for world financial, political and military dominance, and as with most wars of this type, those who bore the brunt of it had the least to gain by their sacrifice. The murderous cynicism with which it was directed (on all sides) decimated a generation.
I really thought that this was now widely accepted.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: Thompson
Date: 06 Sep 08 - 04:23 PM

The fact that the Irish Volunteers joined the British Army en masse after John Redmond pledged in the House of Commons that they would do so in exhange for the promise of Home Rule suggests that this was their reason, I'd say!

Certainly any I met as old men gave that as their reason, rather than wanting to fight the German Empire, which they didn't see as nastier than the British Empire.

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 06 Sep 08 - 04:13 PM

Piece about German SW Africa

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 06 Sep 08 - 04:00 PM

Jim, everything changed after the Easter rebels were executed.
Before that I see little evidence of anti British feeling in Ireland.

Or in the Empire, whose people, like the Irish, were very willing to fight for Britain.
Things were very different in the German African colonies where harsh rule and genocide were the inflicted on the peoples.

We have the letters of thousands of WW1 soldiers as a historical source to tell us why they volunteered. It was because they believed in the cause.

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Sep 08 - 03:27 PM

Keith:
"The Kaiser presided over a pretty nasty regime."
So did the king - as witnessed by our popularity throughout the Empire. We were still slaughtering our 'colonial brothers' in Kenya and Malaya well after WW2 (The War To End All Wars)
"Would hundreds of thousands have marched off to a foreign war, for an implied promise of something they were not even bothered to vote for?"
You mean like "A land fit for heroes to live in?" - yes, they certainly would/did and they returned from the carnage of the trenches to the the mass unemployment and squalor of the great depression. Many of the men who fought in the trenches were shipped off as Black and Tans and Auxiliaries to suppress the Irish. Apart from the Easter Week executions one of the factors that led up to Irish independence was Britain's threat to bring in compulsory conscription. The recruiting techniques were outlined beautifully in volume one of Lewis Grassic Gibbon's 'The Scots Quair, and in Joan Littlewood's 'Oh What A Lovely War'(among other works).
The majority of the population (women) did not get the vote until 1919 (Catholics in the North of Ireland only received the vote comparatively recently - hence the Civil Rights Movement and the Troubles which broke out in the 70s).
Minna,
The term 'Foggy Dew' occurs in (in fact it gives its name to) an extremely popular English folk-song. The meaning is obscure - there have been rain-forests of paper and oceans of ink used in discussing what it refers to (probably a sexual reference), pretty much without reaching any satisfactory conclusion.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 06 Sep 08 - 03:12 PM

It has the sound of Gaelic poetry, but it is also heard in older English song.
He may still have written the line independently, but it is at least
possible that he just liked the sound of the line in the older song.

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: Minna
Date: 06 Sep 08 - 01:52 PM

Thank you for the information and congratulations, Thompson. Jim, you asked about the meaning of "foggy dew". In the Leitrim Observer article they gave almost exactly the same explanation as Thompson. "It would seem to be merely a Gaelic poetical term..." as the writer puts it.

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 06 Sep 08 - 10:21 AM

Jim, we have the benefit of nearly a hundred years of hindsight.
Did THEY believe in the cause?
That Dublin mob certainly did.

And even from our perspective, The Kaiser presided over a pretty nasty regime. Should they have been allowed to occupy most of the continent?

In the years running up to the war, Sinn Fein went bust lacking any support.
Would hundreds of thousands have marched off to a foreign war, for an implied promise of something they were not even bothered to vote for?

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Sep 08 - 10:06 AM

Keith,
It really boils down to whether you think WW1 was a 'worthy cause' - personally I believe it to have been senseless butchery in support of a cause which amounted to little more than a family squabble between various European Royal families. The Irish were not the only ones 'duped' into participating in the slaughter - and eventually the Russians showed good sense in walking away from it all.
There is a remarkable description in Thomas M Coffey's excellent account of The Easter Rising, 'Agony At Easter', telling how the rebels had to be protected from a mob of screaming women gathered outside the GPO demanding "Why aren't you out there supporting our boys in the trenches".   
Ironically it was British mindless brutality in executing the leaders of the uprising which reversed the situation and made the fight for independence a popular one.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 06 Sep 08 - 09:40 AM

Thanks Minna.
You were quoting the Leitrim Observer writing about Father O'Neil's song.

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: Minna
Date: 06 Sep 08 - 08:42 AM

Hello,

I'm sorry if my message gives the wrong impression. I was only quoting a newspaper article from the 1950s so that was not my opinion. It belongs to the writer of that article.

Minna

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: GUEST,Keith A of Hertford
Date: 06 Sep 08 - 08:13 AM

Minna says that Irishmen were "duped" into serving in WW1
Thompson says they volunteered for " an implied promise of home rule."
I suggest they volunteered for the same reason as English, Scottish, Welsh, Cornish and Empire volunteers. That they believed in the cause. Is it not an insult to brave men to deny that they knew what they were fighting for? Or is there any evidence for that?

Minna says they received little recognition from the british government.
In what way did they receive less than the English, Scottish, Welsh etc. veterans?
(Except that no monument was erected in Dublin after the war, but you can hardly blame British government for that.)

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 05 Sep 08 - 04:29 PM

Thomson,
Thanks for that.
Easter week is one of my interests - but it is good to see it articulated as well as that.
I was really referring to the ambiguity of the of the traditional version - where nobody appears to know the meaning of 'the foggy dew'.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: Thompson
Date: 05 Sep 08 - 01:43 PM

Incidentally, 'down the glen' is old-fashioned but still current slang in Ireland for 'rightly fucked', but this usage comes from a different song, with the line "Down the glen rode Sarsfield's men, and they wore their jackets green". In fact 'jackets green' is also shorthand for the same usage.

For instance:
"How are the Waterford team doing in the final?"
"Jackets green."
"Oh dear."

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: Thompson
Date: 05 Sep 08 - 01:40 PM

The foggy dew just describes a typical early morning in an Irish glen; I remember driving up the mountains to go hillwalking a few years ago and passing Glenasmole just as the sun was warming it - the glen was steaming like a kettle, with clouds of fog boiling up out of it.

A few points: "As down the glen one Easter morn..." - Easter is the time of the Easter Rising, and the armed men in squadrons who passed by in silence were marching to take part in that rising.

On the other hand, I don't know what the Angelus (rung at noon and 6pm) is doing ringing at the time when you'd be heading in to a fair!

If it's ringing over the Liffey, the singer is presumably somewhere on the circle of the river between the Sally Gap in Wicklow and its debouchment into the sea in Dublin city centre.

Better to die 'neath an Irish sky than at Suvla or Sud-al-Bar - this refers to the choice made by Irish Volunteers; the majority joined the British Army to fight in World War I for the implied promise of 'Home Rule'; the others fought the British in Ireland.

(A question slightly clouded by the fact that hundreds of thousands then returned home in 1918 and joined in the War of Independence, rejoining the Irish Volunteers to fight the British, after the suppression of Irish nationalism and the execution of the leaders of the Rising.)

Royal Meath: Meath, the county where Tara is, was the old seat of the High Kings, and an important religious and cultural site. Sign's on it, the Irish government is now driving a motorway through Skryne Valley, where Tara is sited.

Brittania's Huns - the British referred to the Germans as 'Huns'; this is turning their own insult back on them.

Wild Geese - the Catholic aristocracy of Ireland were forced into emigration en masse in the 18th century, where they became mercenaries in the armies of Europe; cf "Was it for this the Wild Geese spread/ a grey wing on every tide?"

Lonely graves by Suvla or the waves of the grey North Sea - the two areas where there were the greatest number of Irish Volunteers (now in the British Army) slaughtered in the Great War. And Ulster Volunteers too, of course.

That 'small nations might be free' - the recruiting catchcry of the British at the start of the war was the brutal treatment of 'small nations' such as Belgium by the Germans (who were indeed brutal) - the point being made here is that Ireland too is a small nation, itself being brutalised by an empire.

Had they died by Pearse's side and fought with Cathal Brugha - Pearse was the leader of the 1916 Rising, and Cathal Brugha the Minister for Defence in the first Dail, if I'm remembering rightly; Brugha was killed fighting for the Republic during the Civil War, which lasted until 1923.

Where the Fenians sleep - a dual reference, to the Fianna, the warrior poets who were under the command of Fionn Mac Cumhaill in the myth, and also to the 19th-century revolutionary group of which Tom Clarke, one of the seven signatories of the 1916 Proclamation of Independence, was a member.

Perfidious Albion - originally 'perfide Albion', perfidious England, in the 17th-century French insult.

The rest is more or less free of metaphor, I think.

I hope this is some help, and expect a bottle of champagne on your graduation, Minna!

I assume you also know the Foggy Dew that starts "As down by the glenside, I met an old woman"

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 05 Sep 08 - 10:15 AM

Minna,
Thanks for your work - I hadn't realised how little I knew about a song I grew up with.
I would appreciate any further information you come up with - (perhaps even the meaning of the term 'foggy dew'!!!).
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: Minna
Date: 05 Sep 08 - 06:00 AM

Hello,

I hope this information will also help someone else. Actually I shouldn't have published any text from the newspapers online but if anyone wants to know something more about those articles, just PM me. I still want to thank everyone who helped me to get information. And if someone has more information about Charles O'Neill (or the song itself) I'd be glad to hear about it.

Minna

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: MartinRyan
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 03:24 PM

Minna

No - I reckon you're completely right!

Good work.

Regards

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: Minna
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 02:58 PM

Hello,

Today I had the chance to check the Irish Newspaper Archives and here's what I found:

1. the earliest completely certain reference to the song was in Meath Chronicle on October 28, 1922. That article doesn't really tell anything about the song but there's a part of the first verse.
2. some older articles mentioned "modern" or "most recent" version of Foggy Dew but I cannot know for sure which version they mean. I found these references from the time period January 3, 1920 - July 15, 1922. There might be more than one "modern" Foggy Dew these articles are refering to.
3. some articles also had some verses or even the whole song but the author wasn't mentioned. (e.g. in November 11, 1954 Leitrim Observer The Foggy Dew was under "Old Songs and Ballads" with no information about the origins.)
4. and finally, what was told about the author:

This is what Leitrim Observer says about the issue on June 8, 1957. ("The Foggy Dew", page 6, I don't know the writer of the article.)
' - - the version of "The Foggy Dew" (the words by Rev. Charles O'Neill, who was a Curate in St. Peter's Church, Belfast, about the time of the Rising). He adapted his verses to the melody of "The Foggy Dew" which was first printed in "Songs of the Irish Harpers," edited and arranged by Charlotte Milligan Fox.'
Then the article continues to tell about the origins of the melody and briefly discusses the meaning of "foggy dew". Later in the article the writer continues:
'When Father O'Neill adapted the air for his stirring song, he had the good fortune to be associated with the late Carl G. Hardebeck, who was then an organist in one of the Belfast churches. Mr. Hardebeck retained the melody as published by Mrs. Fox, but gave it a vigorous setting, so that it sounds quite different than the old folk song. Hardebeck gave militant touch to the accompaniment, which never fails to arouse an Irish audience to a high pitch of enthousiasm. In his lyrics, Father O'Neill stresses the fact that Irishmen who are duped in the service of Britain, receive very little recognition form the British Government after all the tumult and shouting has died down.'
And the article goes on with this analysis until it ends with lyrics to the song.

Reverend T. J. Lavin, Ph.D., M.A. in "Poets of the Easter Week" (page 8) in Irish Independent, April 7, 1969:
'Father Charles O'Neill of Belfast wrote the "Foggy Dew", a song that still stirs nostalgic memories in most of us, for it was sung in thousands of homes throughout the length and breadth of Ireland during the long and dark but glorious nights of the Black and Tan era.' (Lavin also writes about O'Neill: 'Other fine songs he wrote, too, for his sensitive nature was deeply moved by the glorious deed of the dead patriots.')

Especially the writer of the article in Leitrim Observer seems to know what they are talking about. And I think it's likely that the song was written between 1919 and 1921 based on both the references on news about concerts from that time and the couple of mentions that the song was sung during the Anglo-Irish War. What do you think? Am I completely wrong with this interpretation?

Minna

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: Minna
Date: 02 Sep 08 - 02:36 AM

Hello,

Thank you Jim and Martin. I found that newspaper article and read it. I'm also planning to search the Irish Newspaper Archives for older references as soon as I get to the University and have a printer. But if that doesn't help contacting the Irish Traditional Music Archive would be a good place to ask as you suggested, Jim. I think I'll also have to see if I can contact the County Down & Connor Diocesan Archives where the information about Charles is from.

Minna

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: MartinRyan
Date: 01 Sep 08 - 04:35 PM

Refresh

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: GUEST,Martin Ryan
Date: 29 Aug 08 - 01:58 PM

Just back from holidays, Jim! (as a result of which I will miss tomorrow nights session in Miltown, unfortunately).

Earlier in this thread, Big Tim did the sensible thing and checked the parish records! That seemed to confirm the Charles name - and I've stuck to my Freudian analysis of "P O'Neill" ever since! Most of the Web references go round in ever-decreasing circles and contribute nothing to the debate. There is just one (recent) newspaper reference to "Patrick O'Neill" as author. Given that the paper is based in Newry - I'm intrigued.

Regards

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 29 Aug 08 - 06:29 AM

Minna
Sorry - lost the thread- so to speak.
Greaves' ref. to P O'Neill is certainly wrong - it's a sloppily researched book with virtually no references.
Songs of County Down ed. Cathal O'Boyle Pub. Gilbert Dalton, Dublin 1973.
The book gives no more information than you already have.
The two friends I would automatically have gone to for this information, Tom Munnelly and and Frank Harte, are now, sadly no longer with us.
Somebody you could ask is John Moulden, contributor to this forum occasionally, and a mine of information. I might be seeing him tonight, otherwise you could pm him - lovely feller.
Martin Ryan, also a member, is extremely knowledgable, but might be on holiday- try him.
The Irish Traditional Music Archive, 73 Merrion Square, Dublin 2 might have some more information, but you will probably have to write or phone [phone] - or fax [phone]).
In the meantime, I'll keep looking - you've got me quite intrigued myself.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: Minna
Date: 28 Aug 08 - 03:55 PM

refresh

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: Minna
Date: 23 Aug 08 - 01:36 PM

Thanks Susanne. There's at least an edition from 1979. If someone has the book, I'd really appreciate if they could check the references/bibliography if they exist. Where did O'Boyle get that information from?

Subject: RE: The Foggy Dew (NOT Bachelor)
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 20 Aug 08 - 08:21 PM

Some more info, though I doubrt it is very helpful academically:

[19??:] The words of this song were composed by Canon Charles O Neill, who was parish priest of Kilcoo and later of Newcastle. In 1919 he went to Dublin and attended a sitting of the first Dail Eireann (Irish Parliament). He was moved by the number of members whose names were answered during roll call by "faoi ghlas ag na Gaill" (locked up by the foreigners) and resolved to write a song in commemoration of the Easter Rebellion. I have seen his song printed many times but have never seen his name mentioned and I think it is about time he was recognised. The music belongs to an old love song, recorded in 1913 by John McCormack and the original manuscript of the words and music, in the possession of Kathleen Dallat of Ballycastle, names Carl Hardebeck as the arranger. (Cathal O'Boyle, 'Songs of the County Down')

Maybe someone can supply the year of publication for O'Boyle?