Irish Middle class songs 1860- 1890

Subject: Irish Middle class songs 1860- 1890
From: GUEST,Anna
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 03:39 PM

Hello!

a)Does anyone know a song about Irish American middle classes? Or what did they listen to late C19th? all sentimental? what about in the 1860s n 70s when sentimental song declined? Did vaudeville comic song appeal to them? or were they trying to get away from that stereotype?

b)what about songs about Irish American domestic servants - have a couple about washerwomen but even though domestic service was largest occupation category of Irish women - I can't seem to find one specific to this job.

if anyone can give me lyrics or help it'd be very much appreciated!

Subject: RE: Irish Middle class songs 1860- 1890
From: GUEST,bazza
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 03:55 PM

Hello Anna,I have a book calledMoores irish melodies full of songs from that era,theres no date on the book but a hand written message with the date 1861,they all seem to be very sentimental

Subject: RE: Irish Middle class songs 1860- 1890
From: Nerd
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 04:18 PM

Liam's Brother sings a number of songs that might fit the bill for you. I remember one called McNally's Row of Flats about tenement life in Brooklyn from an Irish perspective. Also, I think of the song about Miss Fogarty's Christmas Cake in this category. You can find that in the DT.

There have also been recordings of groups doing vaudeville-style material like the Flanagan Brothers, only about 50 years later. They did some traditional songs, but also much sentimental and comic material, so I think all of those things would realistically have been listened to by 19th century Irish-Americans.

Subject: RE: Irish Middle class songs 1860- 1890
From: Nerd
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 04:23 PM

Also look in the DT for Muldoon, the Solid Man, an Irish-American vaudeville song from 1874.

Looking for songs by Edward Harrigan or Harrigan and Hart might help too.

Subject: RE: Irish Middle class songs 1860- 1890
From: Nerd
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 04:30 PM

Check here:

http://www.musicals101.com/lyharrigan.htm

Subject: RE: Irish Middle class songs 1860- 1890
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 04:47 PM

Moore's Irish Melodies are a good bit earlier than that - but they'd have been the kinds of songs that would have been popular in those kinds of households at that time, and well after. And quite right too, there are some great songs in there.

I've got a "new and revised edition" published 1859.

Mind you those aren't about the American Middle Classes, though they'd have been the sort of song they'd have been likely to sing. (Along with songs like Slievenamon and the Rose of Tralee.)

Subject: RE: Irish Middle class songs 1860- 1890
From: Brían
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 05:50 PM

Mick Moloney has a couple of interesting songs on his CD Far from the Shamrock Shore: MOLONEY THE ROLLING MILL MAN and WHEN THE BREAKER STARTS UP FULL TIME. They seem to be more vaudeville than traditional but are quite good.

Brían

Subject: RE: Irish Middle class songs 1860- 1890
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 08:08 PM

The Irish middle class, like that of other groups who "made it," would sing the pop songs of the day (including the minstrel songs).

Perhaps, at ethnic gatherings (more likely political machine, GAR or Confederate picnics, etc. before the turn of the century), they would sing some of the old songs, and those about the old country but composed by middle class American musicians.

The domestic servant stereotype was true of some immigrant women just off the boat, but many worked in the factories and mills. Many went west with their families to homestead, or live in mining company camps, shoot biscuits, work in the dance halls, etc., etc.

Using my grandmother as an example, her father emigrated from Ireland and immediately fought in the Civil War, went west with an Irish wife, mined and ranched, and achieved middle class status, as so many other Irish immigrants did. His daughter, my grandmother, was interested in art and music, discarded the 'faith,' married a Welshman and soon was a member of the Eastern Star. I never heard her sing or play an Irish song, but she loved to play (try to play) Liszt.

Middle class status brings a blending to cultures. It is the next generation that discovers the roots and yowls the songs of the auld sod after a few too many beers.

Subject: RE: Irish Middle class songs 1860- 1890
From: Nerd
Date: 11 Sep 03 - 01:14 PM

Actually, "When the Breaker Starts Up Full Time" was written by a coal miner in Pennsylvania, and collected by George Korson. The original field recording has been issued on CD by Rounder, on "Songs and Ballads of the Anthracite Miners." Mick had never heard the field recording, though, when he recorded the song; he learned it from a singer who had it from Korson's book. It's more of a labroing song than a middle-class song, I would say, and as Brian points out, heavily Vaudeville-influenced.

Q's point is well taken, but it would be wrong to think there is only one model for Irish immigrant home life. It's different, for example, in the urban enclaves in New York and Chicago and Boston, etc. In those communities, you didn't have to blend because other Irish immigrants were becoming middle class all around you at the same time. So you could be middle class and hardly ever hear music other than jigs and reels and hornpipes, and vaudeville, stage-Irish songs. I've talked to various traditional Irish musicians from New York about this. Irish music was all they ever heard in their parents' homes. Add to that the extraordinary success of Capt. O'Neill in Chicago in the nineteenth century, and the massive amount of faux-Irish and Stage-Irish material on the stage at that time, and you'll see there were many upwardly mobile Irish people who maintained a love for Ireland and for music that reminded them of their Irish roots.

So I guess the upshot is, Irish-American is too broad a generalization. The answers to Guest Anna's original questions would depend on who, where, etc.   

Another song that springs to mind is "Kilkelly" by Peter Jones. It's the emigration experience from the perspective of those left behind in ireland. You certainly get the sense that the son is middle-class, as he sends enough money home to maintain his father's rents, etc. It covers the years 1860-1892, exactly the era you're asking about. It's also in the DT.

Subject: RE: Irish Middle class songs 1860- 1890
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Sep 03 - 02:03 PM

Nerd is right, the experiences of those aspiring or attaining middle class status would be quite different depending on environment. Having a western background, most of what I know of the major cities is what I have read, not what was remembered by family members.
I still think that vaudeville-minstrel entertainment would influence what 'middle class' Irish sang and danced to. Everybody went. Certainly by the time ragtime developed, the pop of the day was widespread among all groups.

As Nerd stated, Boston, New York and Philadelphia had large Irish populations with more than usual cohesivness. Political power was much sought, and organizations such as the police were largely Irish (Emerald Society in New York), etc. Reading biographies of the Kennedys, Cohans (active in vaudeville in the 80s) and other Irish families, histories of the political machines, etc., would add insight. The ward hierarchies of the time were structures of strength. Although slandering each other relentlessy, Micks, Jews, Poles and Wops were learning to tolerate each other, work together and play poker together although social integration was yet to come.

The experiences of the early Scotch-Irish in the Appalachians, Ozarks and Piney Woods, because of isolation, were very different.

Subject: RE: Irish Middle class songs 1860- 1890
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Sep 03 - 09:19 PM

Masato has just posted a 19th c. song of song titles ("The Father of All Songs") in thread 62852 with some Irish and pseudo-Irish songs (prob. 1870s-1880s) that may be of interest. Father of All Songs