Lost in the Translation. Please Advise!

Subject: Lost in the Translation. Please Advise!
From: BleedingHeart
Date: 17 Oct 01 - 10:32 PM

Am working on the song "Bantry Girls Lament". Could anyone please explain these references?

1. "Girls from the Bawnoge"

2. "Moneymore" (some sort of holiday? festival?)

3. "Buckeens" (sounds like could be a perjorative name for "the enemy" in the wars of spain)

The full text of the song is the the database (i'm going with version 2 as it is labeled.)

Thanks!

Subject: RE: Lost in the Translation. Please Advise!
From: Wolfgang
Date: 18 Oct 01 - 03:37 AM

the bit below comes from another website on this song and if correct answers two of your questions:

Bá&nó&g is a small town in Cork outside of Bantry. *Mí an Fhomair "month of the harvest" anglicized to "money more" probably a play on words as money would have been more plentiful at harvest time.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Lost in the Translation. Please Advise!
From: Wolfgang
Date: 18 Oct 01 - 03:38 AM

Bánóg is the first word in the cut and paste

Subject: RE: Lost in the Translation. Please Advise!
From: Airto
Date: 18 Oct 01 - 04:55 AM

"Buck" is a term for a laddish young man. "Young buck" or even "young bucko-me-lad" are common enough variants. The 'een' suffix is a diminutive, in this context somewhat pejorative.

I think the narrator of the song is referring to the local lads around Bantry rather than to the Spanish enemy.

Subject: RE: Lost in the Translation. Please Advise!
From: GUEST,Martin Ryan
Date: 18 Oct 01 - 05:14 AM

I'd need to check the details but, off the top of my head... The song is not in fact from Cork. Bantry and Moneymore are townland/village names in Wexford. "bawnoge" may simply refer to a village green.

Regards

Subject: RE: Lost in the Translation. Please Advise!
From: GUEST,Martin Ryan
Date: 18 Oct 01 - 05:17 AM

...and Airto is right about "buckeens"

Regards

Subject: RE: Lost in the Translation. Please Advise!
From: Aidan Crossey
Date: 18 Oct 01 - 06:35 AM

Wolfgang ...

Do you have the address of the site you cut-and-pasted your remark from? Myself and another mudcatter have had some correspondence about this song. Its anti-Spanish sentiments are unusual given that the peninsular wars were effectively England's campaign and the Irish were generally well-disposed to England's opponents ... I speculated that if "Johnny" was pressed into the British Army - or if he joined voluntarily as a mercenary - then the "Bantry Girls" would not be overly interested in the politics, they'd just be pissed off with those, Spanish, English or otherwise, who'd be opposed to their object of desire ...

Subject: RE: Lost in the Translation. Please Advise!
From: Wolfgang
Date: 18 Oct 01 - 06:40 AM

Derrymacash, I took it from here: http://www.jhegarty.com/Johnny/bantry.htm.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Lost in the Translation. Please Advise!
From: GUEST,Martin Ryan
Date: 18 Oct 01 - 08:01 AM

Both the DT version and the one Wolfgang linked to are a bit iffy, to say the least. Did we ever try to set up a complete verson?

Regards

Subject: RE: Lost in the Translation. Please Advise!
From: Aidan Crossey
Date: 18 Oct 01 - 08:08 AM

Wolfgang ...

Many thanks. Was tempted to think from your earlier post that the site you cut info from might have contained some analysis ... but thwarted again in my attempts to get some commentary on the unusual anti-Spanish sentiments.

Subject: RE: Lost in the Translation. Please Advise!
From: GUEST,Martin Ryan
Date: 18 Oct 01 - 08:21 AM

Derrymagash

Let's not over-analyse! A soldier's main objection was to being shot at - no matter who was doing the shooting! The presumption that an Irishman in the British Army was either "pressganged" or doing it for the money is just that - a presumption. Note the "along with the other patriots" line.

Regards

p.s. I've always assumed this song was a monumental piss-take.

Subject: RE: Lost in the Translation. Please Advise!
From: GUEST,Keith A at work
Date: 18 Oct 01 - 08:55 AM

I think that there are few anti Brit Irish songs pre 1916 and the British army was full of Irish volunteers.
Many volunteers of any origin were escaping poverty, but that does not explain the great surge of Irish volunteers who joined after 1914.
Not so dashing,
Keith.

Subject: RE: Lost in the Translation. Please Advise!
From: Aidan Crossey
Date: 18 Oct 01 - 09:29 AM

Martin ... let's not over analyse??? Surely that's one of the points of the Mudcat ... where else are we going to get the opportunity to over indulge our interest in traditional song and music? If we can't do it here, then there's bugger all chance of doing it anywhere. I might as well take a two-pound lump hammer to my PC now ...

(I'm not convinced that the song is a piss-take. I haven't been able to track down anything about its provenance other than some vague reference to the possibility that Arthur Darley may have supplied the air to Delia Murphy for her rendition - which still stands out as a classic version.)

KeithA ... I think you'll find that anti-English sentiment informed a good deal of folk song prior to 1916 (but the campaign in Dublin generated a wave of anti-English sentiment which has persisted). Let's not forget that nationalistic sentiments or references were outlawed for a good deal of the 19th century and therefore patriotic songs were often disguised as romantic songs about Grannuaille, Caitlin NiHoulihan, The Sean Bhean Bhocht, etc ...

Subject: RE: Lost in the Translation. Please Advise!
From: Gary T
Date: 18 Oct 01 - 09:39 AM

I know nothing about this song or the other topics in this thread, but wouldn't this--the great surge of Irish volunteers who joined after 1914--be explained by the onset of World War One, and a desire to help fight the greater enemy (the Axis)? Or am I being too simplistic?

Subject: RE: Lost in the Translation. Please Advise!
From: GUEST,Martin Ryan
Date: 18 Oct 01 - 10:07 AM

Derrymacash

I'm all for discussion and analysis - but am wary of reading things into songs without evidence. Its too easy to be lured into interpretations which suit some later argument or position - just because they DO suit them!

Regards

p.s. I'll post a more complete version of the song later.

Subject: RE: Lost in the Translation. Please Advise!
From: BleedingHeart
Date: 18 Oct 01 - 10:49 AM

uh, guys? thanks for the socio-political analysis... i think!

i disagree with wolfgang that bawnog is a town near bantry - this song is most definitely NOT from cork... so i'm all for thinking it is actually the village green (or some sort of gathering place)

yah, martin, i think you are correct in thinking it is a wexford song - though i'm not sure about Moneymore being a place reference.

and i'll take airto's word for "buckeens" - sounds plausible to me.

thanks all. feel free to talk amongst yourselves...

Subject: RE: Lost in the Translation. Please Advise!
From: GUEST,Martin Ryan
Date: 18 Oct 01 - 12:29 PM

Is there something odd going on with the DT version HERE?

Regards

Subject: Lyr Add: BANTRY GIRL'S LAMENT
From: GUEST,Martin Ryan
Date: 18 Oct 01 - 12:40 PM

This version, found on the web, is pretty well as I know it:

BANTRY GIRL'S LAMENT

Oh who will plough the fields now,
And who will sow the corn,
And who will watch the sheep now,
And keep them neatly shorn.
And the stack that's in the haggard,
Unthreshed it may remain,
Since Johnny, lovely Johnny,
Went to fight the king of Spain.

Oh the girls from the Banóg,
In sorrow may retire,
And the piper and his bellows,
May go home and blow the fire,
Since Johnny, lovely Johnny,
Went sailing o'er the main,
Along with other patriots,
To fight the king of Spain.

The boys will sorely miss him,
When Moneymore comes round,
And grieve that their bould captain,
Is nowhere to be found.
And the peelers must stand idle,
Against their will and grain,
Since the valiant boy who gave them work,
Now peels the king of Spain.

At wakes and hurling matches,
Your likes we'll never see,
'Till you come back again to us,
Mo storeen óg mo chroi.
And won't you trounce the buckeens,
Who show us much disdain,
Because our eyes are not as bright,
As those you meet in Spain.

Oh if cruel fate should not permit,
Our Johnny to return,
His awful loss we Bantry girls,
Will never cease to mourn.
We'll resign ourselves to our sad lot,
And die in grief and pain,
Since Johnny died for Ireland's pride,
In the sunny land of Spain.

Regards

Subject: RE: Lost in the Translation. Please Advise!
From: GUEST,Martin Ryan
Date: 18 Oct 01 - 12:46 PM

Derrymacash

BTW can you tell us any more about the Delia Murphy connection? I haven't heard of Darley.

Regards

Subject: RE: Lost in the Translation. Please Advise!
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 18 Oct 01 - 02:47 PM

Gary, I didn't make my point very well. Derrymcash seemed to be saying that an Irishman would only be serving as a mercenary, unless actually pressed into the British army. I just wanted to say that, apart from those joining for regular meals, the many Irish volunteers in the ranks regarded themselves as patriots like dashing Johnnie in the song. I used 1914 as a clear case of volunteering for a cause rather than to escape poverty
Derrymacash, I hadn't thought of disguised sentiments. Thanks, I'd like to know more of that.
Keith.

Subject: RE: Lost in the Translation. Please Advise!
From: Paul from Hull
Date: 18 Oct 01 - 04:03 PM

Maybe we are getting too analytical....*S*

I think its another song that has been changed much in the oral tradition... often changing to fit 'topical' issues.

Whenever it originated, whether in the Spanish Wars or later - & to be honest, I'd always assumed (maybe wrongly) that the 'King of Spain' referred to Joseph, Napoleons brother, placed on the Spanish Throne, & ruling between 1808 & 1813, the period of the Peninsular War, in which naturally, plenty of Irishmen served in the British Army. I might be wrong, but I dont know of any time prior to that when Irishmen fought actually ON Spanish soil.

Anyway, the song refers to 'Peelers' which MUST be construed as having its 'usual' meaning of a Policeman (after Sir Robert Peel, who founded the 1st Police Force in Britain, in London, in 1829 it seems (just looked it up)) - which is a good while after the periods we've mentioned so far.....

The point I'm making therefore is that maybe its a song thats been changed to suit the 'mood of the times'?

Subject: RE: Lost in the Translation. Please Advise!
From: MartinRyan
Date: 18 Oct 01 - 04:51 PM

Derrymacash

The earliest reference I can turn up for now is in an American book dated 1901.

Regards

Subject: RE: Lost in the Translation. Please Advise!
From: Aidan Crossey
Date: 18 Oct 01 - 06:04 PM

Here are a few references ...

http://www.irishmusicweb.ie/texts/delia.html

http://members.tripod.com/songbook1/bookintro.html

http://members.tripod.com/songbook1/

(These songbook links above are cracking stuff!)

Subject: RE: Lost in the Translation. Please Advise!
From: BleedingHeart
Date: 18 Oct 01 - 09:36 PM

whoa, derrymacash! thanks for the links - that mcdonagh one is a great site!

i'm in your debt.

~bleedingheart

Subject: RE: Lost in the Translation. Please Advise!
From: GUEST,Martin Ryan
Date: 19 Oct 01 - 04:10 AM

Google turns up a number of references to Darley, including a reprint of a book he published with (the better known)P J McCall Click Here . Interestingly, he doesn't get a mention in Fintan Vallely's Companion Guide to Irish Music.

Regards

Subject: RE: Lost in the Translation. Please Advise!
From: Aidan Crossey
Date: 19 Oct 01 - 09:16 AM

I thought people might like that McDonagh link. It stopped me in my tracks when I came across it!

(Check out Arty McGlynn's album "McGlynn's Fancy" for a version of Arthur Darley's Jig.)