To Thread - Forum Home

The Mudcat Café TM
https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=24443
11 messages

Lyr Add: Song from the Backwoods (T. D. Sullivan)

16 Aug 00 - 03:39 PM (#279022)
Subject: Lyr Add:SONG FROM THE BACKWOODS (T. D. Sullivan)^^
From: cleod

Song from the Backwoods
(T.D. Sullivan)

1. Deep in Canadian woods we've met,
From one bright island flown;
Great is the land we tread, but yet
Our hearts are with our own.
And ere we leave this shanty small,
While fades the autumn day,
We'll toast old Ireland! dear old Ireland!
Ireland, boys, hurra!

2. We've heard her faults a hundred times,
The new ones and the old,
In songs and sermons, rants and rhymes,
Enlarged some fifty-fold.
But take them all, the great and small,
And this we've got to say:
Here's dear old Ireland! good old Ireland!
Ireland, boys, hurra!

3. We know that brave and good men tried
To snap her rusty chain,
That patriots suffered, martyrs died,
And all, 'tis said, in vain;
But no, boys, no! a glance will show
How far they've won their way -
Here's good old Ireland! loved old Ireland!
Ireland, boys, hurra!

4. We've seen the wedding and the wake,
The patron and the fair;
The stuff they take, the fun they make,
And the heads they break down there,
With a loud 'hurroo' and a 'pillalu',
And a thundering 'clear the way!'
Here's gay old Ireland! dear old Ireland!
Ireland, boys, hurra!

5. And well we know in the cool grey eves,
When the hard day's work is o'er,
How soft and sweet are the words that greet
The friends who meet once more;
With 'Mary machree!' and 'My Pat! 'tis he!'
And 'My own heart night and day!'
Ah, fond old Ireland!, dear old Ireland!
Ireland, boys, hurra!

6. And happy and bright are the groups that pass
From their peaceful homes, for miles
O'er fields, and roads, and hills, to Mass,
When Sunday morning smiles!
And deep the zeal their true hearts feel
When low they kneel and pray.
O, dear old Ireland! blest old Ireland!
Ireland, boys, hurra!

7. But in Canadian woods we've met,
And we may never see again
The dear old isle where our hearts are set,
And our first fond hopes remain!
But come, fill up another cup,
And with every sup let's say—
Here's loved old Ireland! good old Ireland!
Ireland, boys, hurra!
^^

16 Aug 00 - 03:45 PM (#279024)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Song from the Backwoods
From: Joe Offer

Hi, Cleod - have any background information you can give us about this song? When was it written? Who recorded it?Is a tune available?

If you're posting lyrics that fit within the context of an ongoing discussion, it might be better to post the lyrics in the existing thread, making sure to change the "subject" line of the message to ADD: [song name].
Thanks.
-Joe Offer-

16 Aug 00 - 03:56 PM (#279039)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Song from the Backwoods
From: cleod

Thanks for the advice, Joe, will do just that! :)

I haven't got any background, etc. on this song since the book has just lyrics and nothing else...it's not very helpful, but it is a great song :) so if you could just hum a few bars, I'll fake it on my harmonica ^_^

16 Aug 00 - 03:59 PM (#279041)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Song from the Backwoods
From: Mbo

Nuts! I founf these lyrics in a book of Irish poetry, and had plans to make it a song. D'you mean it's already been done?

16 Aug 00 - 04:15 PM (#279053)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Song from the Backwoods
From: MMario

so - Mbo - you will have an alternate tune that will make it big on the charts, and we will all say - "Hey! We knew him when"

16 Aug 00 - 04:24 PM (#279057)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Song from the Backwoods
From: Mbo

Ha ha! OR "He's not folk! And he's ruining the trad stuff..." ;-o

16 Aug 00 - 04:27 PM (#279059)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Song from the Backwoods
From: cleod

No! I meant that it sounded like it would make a good song...

16 Aug 00 - 04:38 PM (#279063)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Song from the Backwoods
From: Jimmy C

This song is well known in Ireland under various titles " Dear Old Ireland"
Deep in Canadian Woods"
Ireland Boys Hurrah"
and Song from the Backwoods" It was written by T.D. Sullivan. I have the tune in my head and will try to get it onto the thread somehow.

Slainte

16 Aug 00 - 04:45 PM (#279067)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Song from the Backwoods
From: Jimmy C

I forgot to submit this 4th verse which differs slightly from the one posted by Cleod.

We've seen the wedding and the wake
The patron and the fair
And the lithe young frames at the dear old games
In the kindly Irish Air
And the loud "hurroo", we've heard that too
and the thundering "clear the way"
' Here's gay old Ireland! dear old Ireland! Ireland, boys, hurra!

14 Mar 21 - 01:33 PM (#4097615)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Song from the Backwoods
From: Jim Dixon

The lyrics posted at the beginning of this thread appear in

Timothy Daniel O'Sullivan, Dunboy, and Other Poems. (Dublin: John F. Fowler, 1861), page 130, which you can see at the Internet Archive.

Note the author’s name given there is O’Sullivan, not Sullivan—although many later publications refer to him as Sullivan.

Note that although the spelling is “hurra,” the rhyme scheme seems to require the pronunciation “hurray” or “hooray.”

Another copy of the title and lyrics, identical to those above, but with the note: “Air—We’ll never get drunk again.” appears in: Songs of Ireland and Other Lands (New York: D. & J. Sadler & Co., 1847), page 35. No author or editor is named.

Lyrics appear in several later publications.

There is sheet music at Baylor University, with the title OLD IRELAND, BOYS, HURRAH!, words by T[imothy] D[aniel] Sullivan, Esq., music by John Mac Evoy, published by Wm. A. Pond & Co., New York, ©1871. Some minor changes in the words are made, probably to more strictly fit the rhythm of the tune, and a chorus is added:

Hurra! Hurra!
We’ll toast old Ireland, dear old land,
Here’s Ireland, boys, Hurra!

I don’t know whether the tune in the sheet music matches what people actually sing today.

14 Mar 21 - 03:28 PM (#4097627)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Song from the Backwoods (T. D. Sullivan)
From: GUEST,#

https://www.irish-folk-songs.com/ireland-boys-hurrah-lyrics-guitar-chords.html

More song info there.