Origins: Ard Ti Chuain/Quiet Land of Erin

Subject: RE: Origins: Ard Ti Chuain/Quiet Land of Erin
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Jan 14 - 07:03 PM

Some info here (in Irish)
about John McCambridge
and here
about the song.

Subject: RE: Origins: Ard Ti Chuain/Quiet Land of Erin
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Jan 14 - 10:15 AM

To expand slightly on the previous post:
• The song "Áird a' Chumhaing" (one plausible spelling!) was first written down by Robert McAdam about 1830 from John McCambridge. These words were not published until 1940.
• Words for the song were first published in print by Eoin Mac Néill in 1895, from oral versions he obtained. He believed McCambridge was the author of the song, but I don't think the evidence supports this.
• An English translation of Mac Néill's version was made before 1912 by the Celtic scholar Eleanor Hull, but hardly intended for singing (here at pp 208–9)
• Glenariffe tradition attributes the song to one Cormac Ó Néill, a native of Glendun but living in Glenariffe.
• Versions of the song continued to be collected orally and published, up to around 1940.
• John McCambridge was a Protestant (Church of Ireland, not Presbyterian) farmer, a native of Mullarts, born about 1793, who could trace his descent back to settlers from Kintyre in 1625.
• McCambridge lived at Glenarm and ran a tannery in Larne. Died 1873, buried at Layde, where the family tomb has an extensive inscription.

Subject: Ard Ti Chuain
From: keberoxu
Date: 28 Apr 16 - 08:31 PM

Mary O'Hara recorded this air more than once.

"Amhráin Ghrá," a CD anthology released in the past five years and still available online, comes from Gael-Linn records; the songs selected for the CD were all recorded in the past for the Gael-Linn label, and most, though not all, were published on recordings released earlier on the same label.

Gael-Linn published the recording of a live concert which Mary O'Hara presented in the National Gallery, this was I believe in the 1980's, so she was all grown up by then. Two tracks from that recording appear on the "Amhráin Ghrá" album. One of them is "Róisín Dubh," sung without accompaniment. The other is "Ard Tí Chuain," sung with the harp, in the Gaelic of origin.

Ms. O'Hara no longer had, by this time, an unearthly-sounding voice; she sounds like a woman made of flesh and blood, who knows rather a lot about singing a tune like this, which is a rather demanding one, exposing the voice in long-breathed passages. She is very closely miked, as well; the audience must have heard a lot of echo and reverberation sitting there (you can hear the discreet coughs), but both singing voice and harp are clean, clear, and up-front in this production.

Subject: Aird a' Chuain - Eamonn O Faogáin
From: Felipa
Date: 26 Jun 16 - 02:40 PM

Aird a' Chuain sung by the late Eamonn O Faogáin of Belfast / Béal Feirste who died 22 June 2016 after a brief illness

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSnhzI3DWVQ

Subject: RE: Origins: Ardaigh Chuain/Quiet Land of Erin
From: Felipa
Date: 10 Oct 21 - 06:18 PM

I just looked up Ardicoan on logainm.ie and the official Irish spelling for the place is Ardaigh Chuain

see what Guest posted in 2014
The song "Áird a' Chumhaing" (one plausible spelling!) was first written down by Robert McAdam about 1830 from John McCambridge. These words were not published until 1940.
• Words for the song were first published in print by Eoin Mac Néill in 1895, from oral versions he obtained. He believed McCambridge was the author of the song, but I don't think the evidence supports this.

I have found in recent years that texts are no longer attributing the text to McCambridge. The thinking seems to be that it is more likely that McCambridge collected (and perhaps adapted)the lyrics rather than writing the original.

Subject: RE: Origins: Ard Ti Chuain/Quiet Land of Erin
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 16 Nov 21 - 05:25 PM

would anyone have a phonetic pronunciation guide to the gaelic lyrics of this song please

Subject: RE: Origins: Ard Ti Chuain/Quiet Land of Erin
From: Felipa
Date: 27 Nov 21 - 05:54 PM

every time you see "leanndubh" in the chorus, it should be "lionndubh"

leann dubh is black beer, i.e. porter, stout

lionn dubh is depression, melancholy

The pronunciation of leann and lionn is fairly similar, hard to make the distinction. This database can help sometimes
https://www.teanglann.ie/en/fuaim/ but it doesn't have an entry for lionn!

Subject: RE: Origins: Ard Ti Chuain/Quiet Land of Erin
From: Thompson
Date: 28 Nov 21 - 04:59 AM

Or londubh, a blackbird?

Subject: RE: Origins: Aird a' Chuain/Quiet Land of Erin
From: Felipa
Date: 04 Dec 21 - 05:38 PM

from https://antrimhistory.net/long-forgotten-gaelic-songs-of-rathlin-and-the-glens-by-sorcha-nic-lochlainn/

Finally, the most famous song to have been composed in this area is called ‘Aird a’ Chuain’. ‘Aird a’ Chuain’ is a townland about a mile to the west of Cushendun; the placename has been anglicized as Ardicoan. The earliest surviving written copy of the song is to be found in Robert MacAdam’s manuscript which dates from between 1830 and 1850 and the song is about the homesickness and loneliness of a man who emigrated from the area. The following is one of the verses from MacAdam’s manuscript [with the original spelling]:

‘Aird a’ Chuain’

Dam beidhin féin a nAirde-Chuain
If only I were in Ardicoan
A n-aice an tsléibh’ atá i bhfad bhuaim
By yon far-off hill
Gheabhainn ól ann, ceol is imirt
I would get drink there, music and sport
Is chan fhuighinn bás a n-uaigneas
And I wouldn’t die in loneliness.

The song also refers to the tradition of emigrants returning home to die, which was quite a common phenomenon, as most Irish emigrants wanted to die in their homeland:

Dam beidh agam ach coite ‘s ramh
If only I had a boat and an oar
Is gom beidhin ag iomram ar an rámh
And if only I were rowing with the oar
Dúil leis an Rígh is ruigean slán
Hoping to God to reach my destination safely
Is go bhfuighinn-se bás in Éirinn
So that I would die in Ireland.

There is no question about the theme of the song. It is obviously a song about exile and homesickness. There is, however, a question mark over the identity of the person who composed the song. It has been generally assumed that John McCambridge from Cushendall was the composer; the first person to ascribe the song’s authorship to McCambridge was Eoin MacNeill from Glenarm. McCambridge’s name certainly appears at the top of the earliest written copy of the song but recent research has cast some doubt on the assumption that McCambridge was the author.

As mentioned above, Robert MacAdam collected the earliest written version of the song in the nineteenth century and he wrote McCambridge’s name at the top of it. Robert MacAdam was in the habit of writing the name of the informant at the top of each piece of material he collected. So this manuscript does not state for certain that McCambridge was the author of the song; all it means is that McCambridge was Robert MacAdam’s informant for the song. If we look at the manuscript copy of the song ‘Squire Boyd’, we see McCambridge’s name written at the top of it as well. McCambridge certainly did not write ‘Squire Boyd’ — Hugh Boyd was dead long before McCambridge was born — so this suggests that MacAdam collected both songs from McCambridge, and that McCambridge was just the informant and not the author of both these songs.

As well as being collected from John McCambridge, MacAdam’s manuscript copies of the two songs ‘Squire Boyd’ and ‘Aird a’ Chuain` also share another common feature. Both songs contain a series of asterisks within the body of the song-text. What this means is that part of the song was corrupted or garbled — so much so, that the collector was unable to make any sense of it. I would suggest that if McCambridge had composed either of these songs, he would surely have been able to provide the full, uncorrupted text for the collector. It is also worth noting that the song ‘Aird a’ Chuain’ was collected from a number of local native Gaelic speakers in the early twentieth century and none of these people ever said that McCambridge was the author. If he had been the author, local people would surely have remembered that fact. McCambridge only died in 1873, which places him well within the lifetimes of many people who knew the song. It is inconceivable that the identity of an author could have been forgotten so quickly.

There is also some evidence that the song was actually composed about a hundred years before it was ever collected from John McCambridge. One woman in Glenariffe in the early 1920s said that ‘Aird a’ Chuain’ was composed about a man who was forced to flee the country rather than emigrating voluntarily. She said about this man:

Ba lon dubh é, agus b’eigean dó teitheadh as a’ tír

He was a ‘blackbird’ [i.e. a Jacobite], and he had to flee the country.23

‘Lon dubh’ is literally a blackbird, but the interesting thing about this description is that in Gaelic tradition this description ‘lon dubh’ was used to describe a supporter of the Jacobite cause — that is, a supporter of Bonnie Prince Charlie or his father, James, who were the pretenders to the English throne. There is actually a mention of Bonnie Prince Charlie in MacAdam’s manuscript which is the earliest known written version of the song:

S iomdha amharc a bh’agam pféin
Many times I have looked out
Ó Shruan Ghearráin go dtí an Mhaoil
From Garron Point to the Mull of Kintyre
Ar loingeas mór a’ caith ar ghaoith
At a great ship being driven by the wind
Agus cabhlach an Rígh Seorlaidh
And King Charlie’s fleet.

This mention of Bonnie Prince Charlie, together with the use of the description ‘Ion dubh’, means that there is a strong possibility that the song is actually connected with eighteenth-century Jacobitism. The Jacobite movement was active all over Gaelic Ireland and Hector MacDonnell has previously written in The Glynns about the strong Jacobite tradition among his own ancestors in this area.24 So if this evidence is taken into account, it looks as though the song may well have been composed in the mid-eighteenth century, perhaps around the time of the Jacobite rebellion of 1745. This means that John McCambridge could not possibly have composed it. The Jacobite cause had long since been defeated by the time McCambridge was born in 1793.

There is one other important local tradition about the author of the song ‘Aird a’ Chuain’. In local folklore, there is an account of a Cushendun shepherd called Cormac O’Neill having composed the song. He was supposed to have been working in Dieskirt when he composed it and he is reputed to have lived in ‘the house presently owned by Mrs Doran’.25 This information appears in Robert Sharpe and Charles McAllister’s book, A Glimpse at Glenariffe, and I am told that the information was noted down from two of the last Irish speakers in the Glens, Jim Bhriain McAuley and Anna McAllister. Unfortunately, records from this period are very sparse, and I have not been able to find out any more about this Cormac O’Neill but I would suggest that he is quite likely to have been the composer of the song since local knowledge is usually fairly reliable in cases like these.

One final word about ‘Aird a’ Chuain’. It seems to have been a song that everybody in the area knew whether they were singers or not. There is quite a lot of evidence that people who were not singers recited the words as a poem. Sean Mac Maolain, the great Gaelic scholar from Glenariffe, wrote that the Glens people had a particular respect for the song. Even in an area that was once so rich in songs, this song was particularly important to the people. For this reason, ‘Aird a’ Chuain’ lasted right up until the Irish language was lost altogether. Jim Bhriain McAuley, the last native speaker in the Glens, knew the song and recited it for a collector as late as 1981, a couple of years before he died.26 It is clear, therefore, that ‘Aird a’ Chuain’ was a very important part of the culture of this area, and it is still well known in Gaelic-speaking areas throughout Ireland.

Subject: RE: Origins: Ardaigh Chuain/Quiet Land of Erin
From: Felipa
Date: 04 Dec 21 - 05:41 PM

from https://www.donal-kearney.com/blog/airdi-cuan

The townland of Ardicoan is a mile west of Cushendun, rising north from the River Dun to a height of about 500 feet. There is a multiplicity of Gaelic versions of the placename, and an equal multiplicity of interpretations: Airdí Cúing, Ard a’ Chúíng, Aird an Chúmhaing, Ard a’ Chuain, Airdí Chuain, Ard Uí Choinn. The first element, no matter how it is spelt, probably means a height. Dr Pat McKay of the Placenames Project in Queens University Belfast says that there is no authoritative version of the name, but tentatively recommends Ard a’ Chuain – the height of the harbour, or the height of the bay (Cuan in Scottish Gaelic also means the sea). Seán Mac Maoláin argues for Áird a’ Chum[h]aing (= the height of the narrow strip of land) because the townland is well back from the sea, and follows the narrow defile at the head of the glen, reminds us that the noun ‘cúng’ also means a narrow defile between two heights. The townland itself is long and narrow, and there is an Alticoan in the next glen.