The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #63785 Message #1039063
Posted By: Malcolm Douglas
21-Oct-03 - 01:50 PM
Thread Name: Origins: Red River Valley, Gaelic?
Subject: RE: Origins: Red Riv Valley, Gaelic?
Given the form of the song, it would be surprising if parts of it were not reminiscent of other songs to be found in Ireland (or any English-speaking country); that doesn't really get us anywhere. Neither, I think, does immediately starting to talk about Ireland whenever Gaelic is mentioned; the question here relates, it would appear, to Scottish Gaelic, and the suggestion would be that there might be some Scottish ancestry involved.
It must be remarked that many people have a tendency to assume that verses in Gaelic "must" be older than verses in English. This is not necessarily the case. There is a long tradition of translating English-language songs into Gaelic as well as the reverse, so linguistic evidence alone tells us little.
Sandberg's comments on original authorship (see above) seem to have been dismissed in a paper, 'The Red River Valley Re-Examined', in Western Folklore, 23, 163 (referred to by Edith Fowke in The Penguin Book of Canadian Folk Songs and probably elsewhere). The DT repeats the attribution to James Kerrigen (as do a number of other websites) but it would appear that he simply adapted an existing song.
Nor does an examination of the tune help a great deal. It is widely known and has been much-parodied (I think that I heard it as a Rugby song long ago); on the whole, and without going into it in any depth, it strikes me as a fairly typical nineteenth century parlour ballad. My suspicion would be that the Gaelic chorus is a later addition, but it would help to know what the words are; that might help to indicate whether it is a translation of part of the song, or whether it has been added from somewhere else. Bear in mind that this song has been widely found in tradition, but never, so far as I know, with any Gaelic in it.