The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #31628   Message #3838863
Posted By: Felipa
14-Feb-17 - 07:46 AM
Thread Name: Origins: Bheir Me O / Eriskay Love Lilt - meaning
Subject: RE: Origins: Bheir Me O / Eriskay Love Lilt
I did a search for Eriskay Love Lilt on Tobar an Dualchais/ Kist of Riches site and came up with some Gaelic language recordings including http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/fullrecord/48944/1 (singer Mòrag Dhonnchaidh aka Marion MacInnes, recorded in Eriskay, 1950)
"This is the original version of the song which Mrs Kennedy Fraser later adapted, and named as the 'Eriskay Love Lilt'. "
Kennedy-Fraser's life span = 1 October 1857 – 22 November 1930, but Mòrag Dhonnchaidh was born 1890, so she may have accurately been able to say that her version was the same as what M K-F would have heard.

More modern recordings (you can find lyrics and translations at Celtic Lyrics corner) Ishbel MacAskill on youtube
Lyrics - see http://www.celticlyricscorner.net/macaskill/gradh.htm
Art Cormack on ITunes
http://www.celticlyricscorner.net/cormack/gradh.htm

Interesting blog, published bilingually http://www.seaboardgaidhlig.com/2016/11/10/2016-an-t-samhain-gradh-geal-mo-chridh-eriskay-love-lilt-am-mod-nov-2016/

There is a different song which the Kist of Riches/Tobar an Dualchais notes say "The air to this song is the same as that of the popularised 'Eriskay Love Lilt'" recorded in the Isle of Lewis in 1964 from singer Jessie MacKenzie
http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/en/fullrecord/58786/6