The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #61242   Message #3799022
Posted By: Felipa
04-Jul-16 - 04:50 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: pipe song/groovers song 'My Home?'
Subject: Mo Dhachaidh and related songs
I was looking to see if the English language version, My Ain Hoose, lyrics are on Mudcat. Although I didnt find them, there is a 2010 message from Guest, Isabelle on the Scottish Wedding Songs discussion thread: "Apparently it's a very old air appearing in Patrick MacDonald's Collection of Highland Aire 1784. Malcolm Macfarlane wrote new lyrics in Gaelic, which were later translated by Alexander Stewart into "My ain Hoose", which is in various collections (incl. the Scottish Orpheus vol. 3)."
Scottish Gaelic wedding songs thread

Also on Mudcat you can find Irish language words to Mo Dhachaidh. Mo Theaghlach isnt a direct translation but is in the same vein. And in that thread there is another set of Irish language lyrics with the same chorus so presumably set to the same air.

Ballad song index http://www.fresnostate.edu/folklore/ballads/RcMDMAH.html also attributes Mo Dhachaidh to Malcolm MacFarlane,
DESCRIPTION: Gaelic. Our house by the ferry is surrounded with flowers and birds, protected by the hill from snow. My wife is "the star o' my hame ... the bairnies are singin'" We don't need riches.
AUTHOR: Malcolm MacFarlane [of Paisley (1853-1931)]
EARLIEST DATE: c.1908 (Moffat)
KEYWORDS: foreignlanguage lyric nonballad home wife
FOUND IN: Canada(Mar)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
ADDITIONAL:
Alfred Moffat, The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Highlands, pp. 48-49 in the soft-cover edition printed c.1960, pp. 92-93 in the hard-cover edition printed c.1908
RECORDINGS:
Malcolm Angus McLeod, "Mo Dhachaidh" (on NovaScotia1)
NOTES: The description is based on Moffat's translation by Alexander Stewart.

some sheet music at www.ceolsean.net/content/B2B/Book05/Book05%2021.pdf

Scots version by Alexander Stewart of Polmont begins "Cheerily, coothily, canty and free / Oh this is the hour o' sweet solace tae me; / When weary wi' workin' oot ow'r the green lea / I toddle wi' glee tae my ain hoose."