The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #67229 Message #1122176
Posted By: Joe Offer
23-Feb-04 - 07:22 PM
Thread Name: Lyr/Chords/Tune: Homes of Donegal (Sean McBride)
Subject: Lyr Add: HOMES OF DONEGAL (Sean McBride)
On this page (click), I found that on his 1986 album, Back to the Centre, Paul Brady recorded both "Holmes of Donegal" and "Homes of Donegal." I found lyrics, chords, and tunes in a Walton book called The Very Best Irish Songs and Ballads, Vol. 3. -Joe Offer-
Homes Of Donegal (Sean McBride)
I've just called in to see you all, I'll only stay a while I want to see how you're getting on, I want to see you smile. I'm happy to be back again, I greet you big and small, For there's no place else on earth just like the homes of Donegal.
I always see the happy faces, smiling at the door, The kettle swinging on the crook, as I step up the floor. And soon the taypot's fillin' up me cup that's far from small, For your hearts are like your mountains, in the homes of Donegal.
To see your homes at parting day of that I never tire, And hear the porridge bubblin' in a big pot on the fire. The lamp alight, the dresser bright, the big clock on the wall, O, a sight serene, celestial scene, in the homes of Donegal.
I long to sit along with you and while away the night, With tales of yore and fairy lore, beside your fires so bright, And then to see prepared for me a shake-down by the wall. There's repose for weary wanderers, in the homes of Donegal.
Outside the night winds shriek and howl, inside there's peace and calm, A picture on the wall up there, our saviour with a lamp, The hope of wandering sheep like me and all who rise and fall. There's a touch of heavenly love around the homes of Donegal.
A tramp I am and a tramp I've been, a tramp I'll always he, Me father tramped, me mother tramped, sure trampin's bred in me. If some there are my ways disdain and won't have me at all, Sure I'll always find a welcome in the homes of Donegal.
The time has come and I must go, I bid you all adieu, The open highway calls me forth to do the things I do. And when I'm trampin' far away I'll hear your voices call, And please God I'll soon return unto the homes of Donegal.
I didn't know "Tramps and Hawkers." I transcribed the tune, and it sounds to me like "Peter Emberlay," "Lakes of Ponchartrain," or "Paddy West" - which, I learned, sound just like "Tramps and Hawkers." The tune is very close to that, but not exactly the same.