Lyr Req: Gary Owen (not the old one)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Gary Owen (not the old one)
From: gnu
Date: 10 Dec 09 - 10:26 AM

Too PC.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Gary Owen (not the old one)
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 10 Dec 09 - 12:05 PM

I suspect that the tune may have been that of an Irish he said/she said song called Brian Ogh and Mollie Bawn

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Gary Owen (not the old one)
From: GUEST,ga38k
Date: 30 Sep 12 - 01:11 AM

I,ve been looking for the words to Garry Owen from they died with their boots on for the long time. Thanks. Also the book and the movie Son Of The Morning Star are Well worth time.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Gary Owen (not the old one)
From: Lighter
Date: 31 Mar 15 - 09:38 AM

The song in "They Died with their Boots On" combines some of the earlier lyrics with (mostly) an abridged version of the Irish nationalist call to arms written by the Irish poet Robert Dwyer Joyce (1830-1882).


Joyce's complete text, from Richard Nagle's "Popular Poets and Poetry of Ireland" (1887):

They say a dead man tells no tales,
That silence o'er his tomb prevails,
However blow blind Fortune's gales,
In peace or battle gory;

But we can give that phrase the lie,
For dead men's voices fill the sky,
And float from Limerick's towers on high,
O'er Garryowen and glory!

O mighty dead! O unforgot!
O heroes of the glorious lot!
Your deeds they sanctify each spot,
Your names each legend hoary!

From charnel crypts of mouldered bones,
From fosses, walls, and graven stones,
Your voices sound in thunder tones,
O'er Garryowen in glory!

Thy name, great names, great battles won,
Great deeds by Irish heroes done,
They cry, "Unite! Be one! Be one!"
From ancient graves and gory.

They bid us, brothers, all prepare
For th' hour when we can do and dare,
When Freedom's shout shall rend the air,
O'er Garryowen in glory!

And we can dare, and we can do,
United men and brothers true,
Their gallant footsteps to pursue,
And change our country's story;

To emulate their high renown,
To strike our false oppressors down,
And stir the old triumphant town,
With Garryowen in glory!

And when that mighty day comes round,
We still shall hear their voices sound,
Our tramp shall roll along the ground,
And shake the mountains hoary.

We'll raise the Sunburst as of yore,
And Limerick's streets and Shannon's shore
Shall echo to our shout once more,
Of Garryowen in glory!


These words are sung early in the film. They're slightly different from those of the original song:

Instead of water we'll drink ale,
And pay no reckoning on the nail,
No man for debt shall go to jail,
From Garryowen in glory! Hail!

Then follows the usual chorus of "Our hearts so stout have got us fame, etc." again with an added "Hail!" The "Hails" disappear in the later scenes.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Gary Owen (not the old one)
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 14 Sep 15 - 02:44 PM

Scott, it's funny that you mentioned that you heard this song at Camp Hinds! I have recently received my Eagle Scout, and my troop always went to Hinds.

Strangely, I did not hear this song there, but rather at Camp Wah-Tut-Ca when I was staff there.

Great song, though!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Gary Owen (not the old one)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 16 Sep 15 - 01:47 PM

A somewhat older copy of R. D. Joyce's GARRYOWEN can be found in The Wearing of the Green Songbook (Boston: Patrick Donohoe, 1869), page 189. The words are exactly as Lighter posted them.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Gary Owen (not the old one)
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Oct 22 - 12:01 PM

Thanks for the "movie version" words

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Gary Owen (not the old one)
From: An Buachaill Caol Dubh
Date: 13 Oct 22 - 01:54 PM

"No man for debt shall go to jail
While he can Garryowen hail"

are the words sung in the Errol Flynn film by "Queen's Own", a Hollywood caricature of an English "toff" ( complete with monocle), who nevertheless has one of the best lines in the whole screenplay. On Custer trying to get him to take a dispatch back to Fort Lincoln, since it's "an American fight" coming up, the character replies,

"The only real Americans are out there wearing war paint and feathers".

Incidentally, the set of words beginning "we may rove through the World..." mentioned above are by Thomas Moore.

ABCD

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Gary Owen (not the old one)
From: meself
Date: 13 Oct 22 - 02:35 PM

I might have missed it, skimming through this thread, but: what are the origins of the song given at the beginning?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Gary Owen (not the old one)
From: Lighter
Date: 13 Oct 22 - 07:30 PM

As I noted some years back on another thread:

Concerning the original lyrics, the best source appears to be Maurice Lenihan's "Limerick; Its History and Antiquities" (Dublin, 1866). Lenihan writes that around the year 1800, a gang of hell-raisers "made a noise in the old town; and the parish of St. John in particular rang with the echoes of their wild revelry, while they caused their own names and fame to be wedded to verse to the immortal air of 'Garryowen,' - and air which is heard with rapturous emotion by the Limerick man in whatever clime he may be placed, or under whatever circumstances its fond familiar tones may strike upon his ear. ...The words to which this air has been wedded contain allusions not only to the state of society as is existed in Garryowen in these days, but to certain local worthies, and principally the late John O'Connell, Esq., the proprietor of the Garryowen Brewery, who was deservedly much esteemed."

To this account, Thomas Toomey and Henry Greensmyth's "An Antique and Storied Land: a History of the Parish of Donoughmore, Knockea, Roxborough and its Environs in County Limerick" (1991) adds that

"Johnny Connell, whose family owned Garryowen brewery, ...was... mentioned by the Bard of Thomond [Michael Hogan] as being the leader of a gang of early 19th century bucks in [Hogan's poem] 'Drunken Thady and the Bishop's Lady.' He was buried by candlelight in Donoughmore Graveyard after his death in 1853."

Lenihan gives,

"THE ORIGINAL SONG OF GARRYOWEN...

Let Bacchus' sons be not dismayed,
But join with me each jovial blade;
Come, booze, and sing, and lend your aid
To help with me the chorus :—

Instead of spa we'll drink brown ale,
And pay the reckoning on the nail,
No man for debt shall go to, jail
From Garryowen in glory

We are the boys that take delight in
Smashing the Limerick lamps when lighting,
Through the streets like sporters fighting
And tearing all before us.
Instead, &c.

We'll break windows, we'll break doors,
The watch knock down by threes and fours, -
Then let the doctors work their cures,
And tinker up our bruises.
Instead, the.

We'll beat the bailiffs, out of fun,
We'll make the mayor and sheriffs run ;
We are the boys no man dares dun,
If he regards a whole skin.
Instead, &c.

Our hearts so stout have got us fame,
For soon 'tis known from whence we came;
Where'er we go they dread the name
Of Garryowen in glory.
Instead, &c.

Johnny Connell's tall and straight;
And in his limbs he is complete;
He'll pitch a bar of any weight
From Garryowen to Thomond-gate.
Instead, &c.

Garryowen is gone to wreck
Since Johnny Connell went to Cork ;
Though Harry O'Brien leapt over the dock
In spite of judge and jury.
Instead, &c.

Lenihan's note informs us that, "Garryowen signifies 'John's Garden' - a suburb of Limerick in St. John's parish, in which in these times there was a public garden which the citizens were accustomed to frequent in great numbers.... The 'Nail' here mentioned is a sort of low pillar still extent in the Town-Hall, upon which payments used to be made in former times."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Gary Owen (not the old one)
From: meself
Date: 13 Oct 22 - 10:49 PM

This thread is about - or it was originally about! - one that starts:

Chorus:
Gary Owen, Gary Owen, Gary Owen
In the valley of Montana all alone
There are better days to be