The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #159372   Message #3789677
Posted By: keberoxu
10-May-16 - 07:39 PM
Thread Name: 'All the dear Spinning Eileens' (Irish harpists)
Subject: RE: 'All the dear Spinning Eileens' (Irish harpists)
Starting on March 26, 2016, several posts of mine introduced a compact disc anthology of songs in Gaelic sung by Irish artists, all of whom happened to be women. I have disclosed much of what is in the sleeve notes -- actually a small booklet -- of the compact disc jewelbox, issued by the Gael Linn label.

There is one of the eight artists one this album about whom Gael Linn left some facts out.
The first three songs on "Amhráin Ghrá" are:
An Draighnean Donn;
Seoithin Seotho (or seo - h - o)
Eibhlin A Ruin
sung by Máire Ní Scolaí, elsewhere spelled Ní Scolaidhe.

Contrary to what is true of the other seven artists, Ní Scolaí did not record those three songs around 1971, when Gael-Linn issued a long-playing album, "Máire Ní Scolaí," nor were these songs recorded in the 1960's when the Gael Linn booklet says (which is true for several of the other artists). In fact, although Gael Linn did indeed release that long-playing vinyl album in Ní Scolaí's lifetime (she died in the 1980's, well into her seventies by then), the fact is that Ní Scolaí recorded these three songs -- and, most probably, all of the twenty-one songs on the Gael Linn vinyl LP -- for companies other than Gael Linn.

The 1971 release on Gael Linn record label was in fact a re-issue, it seems to me, of recordings which Ní Scolaí had made in the 1940's and 1950's, some as 78 RPM vinyl for HMV, and some at RTÉ, presumably on radio rather than television. "Eibhlín a Rún" was definitely recorded for HMV and issued as a 78, although I have yet to discover the year/date of the recording.