Help: So, what's a 'falorie man'?

Subject: RE: Help: So, what's a 'falorie man'?
From: CupOfTea
Date: 18 Mar 17 - 11:55 AM

Wow! Tim Ryan's Pub - that name takes me back, though I was just getting acquainted with trad. music, and Irish in particular, just before that place closed. I hung out more at the Derby & flask, with Dermot Sommerville singing on Tuesdays for years.

Never heard of Jim Corr in the years after, when I got involved with Celtic Ceol, and traditional song and tunes. I wonder what Mike Mazur would make of it - himself a grand storyteller, he tends to remember such things.

Having never heard this term, or the songs about him, I'm fascinated to see where else this thread goes.

Joanne in Cleveland, right next to yesterday's parade route.

Subject: RE: Help: So, what's a 'falorie man'?
From: GUEST,Rusty McShackelford
Date: 16 Mar 17 - 08:16 PM

I'm from the Cleveland, Ohio area - ironically speaking - and I'm also looking for history to the song "Wee Filloori Man". My version was first heard from an Irish folk singer named Jim Corr, on an album called "The Parting Glass" published by a local bar [from way back in the day] called Tim Ryan's Pub. Local artists came together, had a few Guiness' and/or Jamesons, and belted out a few tracks to commemorate the old songs! (I wish I had been around for the experience! Lol.)

How many lyrical versions of "Wee Filloori/Falorie Man" are there out there, does anyone speculate? I, myself, only know one such version - is there an objective way to determine what the definitive "traditional" set of this song is? Is it even possible?

Subject: RE: Help: So, what's a 'falorie man'?
From: GUEST,Naomi
Date: 06 Aug 10 - 10:02 PM

I've been told, though it was many years ago and by a second generation Irish-American, that the "filloori man" was a traveling man who told stories, often through song, and in this way the news of the Ireland was passed among villages and rural areas where no one was literate. Children learned the stories in song and rhyme.

The song Seanain was looking for, the one the Irish Brigade (of Ohio, not the other) recorded goes something like this: (It's one of my favorites they did.)

Chorus:
"I am the wee filloori man,
Listen to the drum.
Through the dusty bluebells
To the rattle of a gun.
I'll tell me ma when I go home,
I'll go home if I can.
It's one more time to hear the rhyme,
Wee filloori man.

Verses:
"Wind That Shakes the Barley's" just an old time fiddle tune
You change the rhyme to suit the time and teach the kids the tune
And change the words to nursery rhymes and teach them what was done
It's Derry's Walls, Kick the Pope, and Ring the Rosie Round"

"Watch them change to grown-up games, all the girls and boys
It's through the dusty bluebells and dance just one more toy (??)
And hopscotch on the pavement and Knock Your Neighbor Down
They sing a song of children and Ring the Rosie Round"

"Play an old time fiddle tune and watch the girls dance by
They sing a song of sixpence, a pocketful of rye,
And Sunday morning praying can't compete with the fiddle tune
It's more than string and wax, we fly you to the moon.

Subject: RE: Help: So, what's a 'falorie man'?
From: GUEST,Doug Johnson
Date: 25 Mar 09 - 10:49 AM

My mother (born in Vancouver BC, Scottish parents) would occasionally bring up "Im a wee melodie man". This had been a family game at the dinner table, quite beyond silly, as older relatives would roll their eyes and mumble. The idea was to sing the song and then imitate the playing of a particular insrument, everyone taking their turn. Not sure of details, as the telling of the story was usually drowned out by a chorus of "not that again"...

So is this a lonely invention in Canada to rember the old days, a simple family tradition, or does go back across back to Oban?

d

Subject: RE: Help: So, what's a 'falorie man'?
From: Gurney
Date: 30 Jul 08 - 09:42 PM

Yeah, Megan, Paul sometimes leaves me speechless, too.

Subject: RE: Help: So, what's a 'falorie man'?
From: Megan L
Date: 30 Jul 08 - 04:04 AM

Subject: RE: Help: So, what's a 'falorie man'?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 30 Jul 08 - 03:50 AM

"Phallorum" is genitive plural of "phallus", and the combination with "wee" thus inescapable.

On the other hand, it could be a Port Manteau word compounded from "phallus" and "ora" (nom. pl.of Latin "oris", mouth, face; opening, entrance; talk, speak, say): one who talks cock.

Subject: RE: Help: So, what's a 'falorie man'?
From: Gurney
Date: 29 Jul 08 - 05:53 PM

Toujours, Le Tenebreux. As Michael Flanders once said.

Another sidelight: Fallowe used to mean 'to turn pale or yellow' as to complexion, so maybe it could mean small sickly looking man?

Subject: RE: Help: So, what's a 'falorie man'?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 06:30 AM

Guest, That was funny, the singer was David Hammond.

Subject: RE: Help: So, what's a 'falorie man'?
From: vectis
Date: 27 Jan 08 - 07:50 PM

Are you sure he's not a wee indian man cooking falouries?
A deep fried treat a bit like a pakora.

Subject: RE: Help: So, what's a 'falorie man'?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 27 Jan 08 - 04:47 AM

speaking from experience - if you don't cut down on the falories, you're not wee any anymore.

Subject: RE: Help: So, what's a 'falorie man'?
From: LeTenebreux
Date: 26 Jan 08 - 05:58 PM

falorie is a portmanteau word used by nutritionists. It means "fat calorie".

Subject: RE: Help: So, what's a 'falorie man'?
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Jan 08 - 07:44 PM

This is a Wee Falorie Man. I love this song. Mischievious and loveable, yes.

Mike


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8l-TYqkp8i4

Subject: RE: So, what's a 'falorie man'?
From: Jimmy C
Date: 19 Mar 06 - 10:33 PM

Sorry the above should read

Falorie or Falorey means = " Loveable, mischievous person, implies harmlessness.

from Bernard Share's Dictionary of Irish Slang .

Not to be confused with Falairy: which means "Unpleasant"(as in taste?.

Subject: RE: So, what's a 'falorie man'?
From: Jimmy C
Date: 19 Mar 06 - 10:29 PM

Falorie or Falorey means = " Loveable, mischievour person, implies harmlessness.

from Bernard Share's Dictionary of Irish Slang

Subject: RE: So, what's a 'falorie man'?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 19 Mar 06 - 05:19 PM

It sounds a bit feeble
as though he was having a wee and it fell o'er his shoes
no doubt, in the years before he was nominated as a conservative party candidate for Glasgow South, he could have cleared his brogues and sproran with gallant flick of his manhood, but now those days are passed and he's a wee falorie man, and he drips his way through life sadly...
even his old friends don't go near the wee falorie man, in case his wee fell o'er any one of them.

Subject: RE: So, what's a 'falorie man'?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 19 Mar 06 - 02:52 PM

That verse is from David Hammonds version of this childrens song,
and another goes,

I am the wee falorie man

a rattlin roving Irishman

I can do all that ever you can

for I am the wee falorie man.

Subject: RE: So, what's a 'falorie man'?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 19 Mar 06 - 02:45 PM

It is not unusual for someone in Ireland to conjure up a word to describe a person with peculiar ways,
    "i am a good ould working man

      each day I carry my wee tin can

      A large penny bap and a clipe of ham

      for I am a good oul workin`man."

I remember an old, long dead friend who always referred to the Joker in the pack of cards as "the wee falorie man".

The word has more of a northern ring to it.

Subject: RE: Help: So, what's a 'falorie man'?
From: MartinRyan
Date: 19 Mar 06 - 01:44 PM

davy Hammond, in the sleeve notes to his recording of the song, says:

"The word "falorie" is not of Gaelic origin, but probably derives from the English word "forlorn" which in rural Ulster is pronounced "fa-loorn" and is associated not only with loneliness but with mystery".

Taking this along with John Moulden's comments quoted above, I think we can agree on "origin uncertain"!

Regards

Subject: RE: Help: So, what's a 'falorie man'?
From: Bud Savoie
Date: 18 Mar 00 - 12:26 PM

The reason given for the advice "Maids, When You're Young Never Wed an Old Man" is that "He has no faloorum, He's lost his ding doorum." This hint of the tawdry meaning of the word, together with the admission by the falorie man that he has a sister Mary Ann who spends her free time out looking for a man, leads me to suspect that Mary Ann might be none other than the now-unmasked-to-be-no-better-than-she-should-be Molly Malone, whose night job was discussed on a previous thread. What does that make her brother, the falorie man--her business manager? What manner of family is this?

Subject: RE: Help: So, what's a 'falorie man'?
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 17 Mar 00 - 03:19 PM

This has been most helpful. Unfortunately, no school today- an evil leprechaun caused a snow stoppage! This means I'll be teaching until June 20, in teacher workshops until... the 23d, which is the day I wanna be on the road for Old Songs! Maybe I can swing a professional day!

Subject: RE: Help: So, what's a 'falorie man'?
From: Alice
Date: 16 Mar 00 - 08:18 PM

Thank you, Philippa. Here is a link to that thread. Wee Falorie Man

Animaterra, did that thread come up when you chose the title for this thread? When I start a new thread, all the previous threads that already have the words in the title show up on the new thread start page.

alice

Subject: RE: Help: So, what's a 'falorie man'?
From: GUEST,Philippa
Date: 16 Mar 00 - 02:14 PM

Exactly a year ago, John Moulden wrote on the Wee Falorie Man thread: "This is a bit of a mystery - sometimes it's the wee melodie man, polony (a kind of sausage and the origin of baloney) man, the Gable Oary Man and the Holy Gabriel Man - look at a dictionary of children's singing games especially Lady A B Gomme: The traditional games of England, Scotland and Ireland (still in print I think from Dover Publications) for gable oary man."

Subject: RE: Help: So, what's a 'falorie man'?
From: Alice
Date: 16 Mar 00 - 12:25 PM

Animaterra, I remember a discussion here long ago in which I was communicating with someone here about Davy Hammond who recorded I Am A Wee Falorie Man back in the '50's. When you do a web search on dogpile.com, most of the sites that come up are about his recording. One mentions that he traveled around Ireland looking for songs relating to different kinds of work (can't trust everything you read on the internet, of course). David Hammond was from Northern Ireland.

alice

Subject: RE: Help: So, what's a 'falorie man'?
From: Hyperabid
Date: 16 Mar 00 - 12:18 PM

Oops!

Caught me... Dinnae hae a Celtic bone in his bod the we Sassenach!

Subject: RE: Help: So, what's a 'falorie man'?
From: Alice
Date: 16 Mar 00 - 12:13 PM

Hyp, it is from an Irish song.

Subject: RE: Help: So, what's a 'falorie man'?
From: Hyperabid
Date: 16 Mar 00 - 11:18 AM

Sorry Animaterra

The link is to the Scottish National Dictionary Organisation which I believe has an Email facility for schools. I think the word sounds pretty Burnsian hence the redirect.

Regards.

Hyp

Subject: RE: Help: So, what's a 'falorie man'?
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 16 Mar 00 - 11:12 AM

Hyper, your link led me to a "Scotland" page with a bunch of gobbldey-gook- I'm at work on my Mac (doing research for school, doncha know ) (BG ;-)) so maybe it would work at home on my PC??

Subject: RE: Help: So, what's a 'falorie man'?
From: Hyperabid
Date: 16 Mar 00 - 08:50 AM

Pass

You might want to try:-

The Sottish National Dictionary Association

Regards

Hyp

Subject: So, what's a 'falorie man'?
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 16 Mar 00 - 08:21 AM

I started This amazing thread http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=19270&messages=27 to define a phrase in the song "The wee falorie man," but I still don't know what is a falorie man! Anyone?