Lyr Add: 'Sweet Omagh Town' - Roisin White

Subject: Lyr Add: 'Sweet Omagh Town' - Roisin White
From: MartinRyan
Date: 10 Jan 12 - 08:23 AM

A quick check shows little trace on the 'cat of this fairly well known song. To hear a rendition by Roisin White, a very fine singer -
Click here

Regards

Subject: Lyr ADD: Sweet Omagh Town
From: GUEST,Donal
Date: 10 Jan 12 - 07:42 PM

These are the lyrics and a note from Paddy Tunney's 'Where Songs Do Thunder.' Appletree Press 1991


OMAGH TOWN

From sweet Dungannon to Ballyshannon
From Cullyhanha to Ol' Arboe,
I've roamed and rambled, caroused and gambled
While songs do thunder an' whiskey flow.
Oh, blithe an' airy I've tramped through Derry
An' to Portaferry in the County Down,
But in all my rakin' an' merry-makin'
My heart was achin' for Omagh Town!

But life grew dreary an' I grown weary
Set sail for Englan' from Derry quay
An' when I landed the fates commanded,         
That I to London should make my way.
'Tis many a gay night from dark till daylight
I passed with people o' high renown
But in all the glamour and uproarious manner
My lip's would stammer, 'Och, Omagh Town!'

Now further goin,' my wild oats sowin'
To New York City I crossed the sea
Where congregations of rich relations
Upon the harbour did welcome me               
In fine apparel, like duke or earl
They soon arrayed me from sole to crown
But with all my grandeur and heaps to squander
My heart would wander to Omagh Town!

When life is over an' I shall hover         
Above the gates where Saint Peter stan's
He'll kindly call me for to install me
Among the saints in the golden lan's.
An' I shall answer, 'I'm sure it's gran', sir
To play a harp an' to wear a crown
But still, bein' humble, I'll never grumbie
If Heaven's as charmin' as Omagh Town!'

It was not until September 1990 that I discovered that the author of Omagh Town was one Michael Hurl,
who was a native of the Newbridge area of south Derry and the townland of Annahorish. His collection
of verse and songs was published by the Irish News in November 1949. The title of the slim volume is
On Lough Neagh's Banks and it contains forty-five poems and songs in all. Needless to say, Omagh Town
is the one with greatest appeal for a traditional singer. Little is known of the poet, for he lived
most of his life in Luton near London where he was employed as a journalist.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: 'Sweet Omagh Town' - Roisin White
From: MartinRyan
Date: 11 Jan 12 - 03:59 AM

Thanks, GUESTDonal - I can cross that off my "to do" list, so!

Regards

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: 'Sweet Omagh Town' - Roisin White
From: GUEST
Date: 31 Jul 23 - 07:58 AM

The lyrics as included in Paddy Tunney's book, and reproduced above, are as written by Hurl (thanks to John Moulden for the original). It's a pity the tendency to put 'Sweet' in front of any Irish place name has gotten to this fine song, and Hurl's very fine lyrics corrupted in later recorded versions. Also interesting (or not) is that Tunney's book title begins with 'Where', rather than 'While' as it uses a line from the song as its title.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: 'Sweet Omagh Town' - Roisin White
From: Reinhard
Date: 31 Jul 23 - 08:16 AM

The tracklist on Roisín White's album "The First of My Rambles" shows the song as "Omagh Town" without any "Sweet" prefix.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: 'Sweet Omagh Town' - Roisin White
From: GUEST
Date: 31 Jul 23 - 08:35 AM

She does unfortunately end every verse with 'Sweet Omagh Town' in the various online videos of her singing it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: 'Sweet Omagh Town' - Roisin White
From: GUEST,Róisín White
Date: 31 Jul 23 - 05:39 PM

Probably the way I learned the song. I was not reading the words as I learned the song from other singers. No book used.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: 'Sweet Omagh Town' - Roisin White
From: GUEST,John Moulden
Date: 03 Aug 23 - 05:17 PM

Had Róisín herself not indicated as much, I was about to say that she sings the song more or less as she heard it from Robert Cinnamond and there should not be any debate over the 'proper words'. Nowithstanding its origin, the authority over the words and air of a song in oral tradition are those of the singer; how else could we have such disparate 'versions'. This is argued as follows in my essay 'About songs and singers' in my website http://moulden.org

<
So, songs change. Above, I’ve described this as being the result of sense being lost. I’m not comfortable with the idea that changes are positive or negative. I don’t think it’s fair to attribute to ignorance, or incompetence, what seems to someone like me, who knows what the song was like in one place, a change, however confused it may seem, in another. If the song has moved to the new community and fixed there, then that’s the way it works in the new place. Besides, if nobody knows how the song was sung before – the song as it’s sung now, is the song. I think that changes to songs most often occur when sense needs to be re-imposed because, due to the song being moved to a new locality, or into a new time frame, meaning has been lost. The song and its community context must be congruent.

That’s really all I know – songs are sung, move from person to person, from one community to another, and they change, the song in one community becomes the song in a different community, the differences between the two do not make one superior. Most interestingly for an obsessional like me, those changes represent differences of mentality – but that’s irrelevant to most other people.>>