Tune Req: Bheadh Buachaillin Deas ag Sile

Subject: Bheadh Buachaillin Deas ag Sile
From: Áine
Date: 17 Oct 00 - 10:30 AM

I just got the new Solas CD, The Hour Before Dawn, which includes this song. Although the song is traditional, the arrangement is very modern (although wonderful). Does anyone know of a recording of this song with a more traditional arrangement?

Buíochas, Áine

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Bheadh Buachaillin Deas ag Sile
From: GUEST,Angun
Date: 17 Oct 00 - 03:25 PM

Hi Áine, I think Reeltime has recorded this on their CD "Live it up", Green Linnet, (Called "Síle") and I belive I've heard a recording of this song with Seosamhín Ní Bheaglaoich as well. I've not heard Solas version of this, so I can't tell if it's more traditional arrangement...Is the new Solas CD good ?

All the best, Angun

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Bheadh Buachaillin Deas ag Sile
From: Áine
Date: 17 Oct 00 - 03:33 PM

Thanks, Angun! And I'd recommend the new Solas CD, definitely. Of course, I do miss Karan, but Deirdre has a lovely voice and fits in with the style of the band wonderfully.

-- Áine

Subject: Lyr add: bheadh buachaillín deas ag síle
From: ciarili
Date: 29 May 02 - 09:40 PM

Bheadh Buachaillín Deas ag Síle
fr the singing of Seosaimhín Ní Bheaglaoich, this song is popular in Corca Dhuibhne

Bheadh Buachaillín Deas ag Síle dá bpósfadh sí mé mar fhear
Mharóinn an breac ar an taoide is coinín ar an ndumhaigh chomh maith
Ní iarrfainn léi capall ná caoire, airgead buí ná geal
Mar go mb'fhearr liomsa agam mar mhnaoi í, ná aon iníon rí dar mhair

Tá máthair gan taise ag Síle, is ní bhraitheann sí a croí rómhaith
Tá sparán mór fada aici líonta ag lorg talamh gan cíos le fear
Chuma léi ard é nó íseal, ba chuma léi buí nó geal
Ó ba chuma léi cam é nó díreach ach bheith aige caoire is ba

Ní mar sin mar mheasann mo Shíle, b'fhearr léi mise ná míle fear
Mar is meidhreach is ea sheinnfinn ar phíob di, is is greanta do rincfinn dreas
Chuirfinnse i dtalamh na síolta, is bhainfinn arís thar n-ais
Nuair a thiocfainnse abhaile ní bhruíonfainn ach ag reacaireacht grinn lem shearc

Tá mo mhargadh socair le Síle, is ní bhrisfeadh Éire ar fad
Gan spleáchas dá máthair ná muintir, rachaidh sí chun cinn gan stad
Pósfam sa chathair an mhí seo is an sagart a dhíol go maith
Is ní dóichí go bhfanfam sa tír seo, ach ag reachtaireacht síos amach

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Bheadh Buachaillin Deas ag Sile
From: GUEST,Philippa
Date: 05 Nov 02 - 10:47 AM

I heard this song recently at the seán-nós competitions at Oireactas na Gaeilge and it was sung to the tune of "With Kitty I'll go for a ramble",the words of which you can find in the Digital Tradition archives at Mudcat. I don't think the music is anywhere at Mudcat??

With Kitty ... is also an Irish song. Jean Ritchie heard a bilingual rendition in Irish Gaelic and English during a field trip to Ireland, but she just sings the verses in English (translations of the Irish verses apparently, and at least one of the Irish verses also appears in the song Tuirse mo chroí. That verse isn't in the (faulty) DT transcription however ... I did put it in the Kitty's rambles thread

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Bheadh Buachaillin Deas ag Sile
From: GUEST,Philippa
Date: 08 Nov 02 - 08:06 PM

Published under the title of "Síle" in Micheál Bowles' "Claisceadal 1". Dún Laoghaire, Co. Dublin: Glendale Press, 1985.
Bowles gives notation for the same tune I discussed above, so I will eventually get someone to put the abc and/or midi on Mudcat.

Subject: RE: lyr add: Bheadh Buachaillin Deas ag Sile
From: GUEST,Philippa
Date: 08 Nov 02 - 09:14 PM

The lyrics of Síle in Mícheál Bowles, "Claisceadal 1" (1985) are quite similar to those given by Ciarili, so I will give Bowles' translation to English and just the third, and more different, verse in Irish

Wouldn't Sheila have a nice young fellow
If she chose me for a spouse?
I'd kill the trout on the billow for her,
and the rabbit in the dunes as well.
I'd not ask with her either a horse or sheep
Nor gold or silver coin,
But I'd sooner have her as a wife
Than the daughter of any king that ever lived.


Sheila has an insensitive mother
Who ignores a heart being devastated.
With her long well-filled purseIt is all the same if he's yellow or speckled [Bowles has 'buí nó breac'; 'geal' means 'bright' or 'white']
all the same if he's hunchbacked or straight
As long as he has sheep and cattle.

Ní mar sin, mar mheasaim, do Shíle,
Ba mhaith léi scafaire glan.
A bheadh búclach, bachallach, cíortha,
Nú beadh meirgeach, buí nó salach;
Ná beadh achrannach, aithiseach, nimhneach;
Ná beadh oc(a)crach-croí ná bocht;
Ná ag tomhas a dhoirn le Síle nuair
A gheobhaidh sé in aon ní uirthi locht.


It isn't like that, as I think, with Sheila
She likes a clean-cut, strapping lad,
Who'd be curled, ringletted, coiffured,
Not crusty or yellow or dirty;
Not quarrelsome, complaining, malicious:
Nor hungry-hearted nor poor;
Nor threatening his fist towards Sheila
If he found any fault in her.

My engagement is settled with Sheila
And it will not be broken in all Ireland.
No thanks to her mother or her kinfolk,We'll marry in the town this month,
And we'll pay the priest well
Ot's unlikely we'll stay in this country
Or go racketting from now on.

Bowles notes: "For reasons not necessary to mention here in detail, it seems possible these verses orignated in an area in the north-west of Co. Roscommon, betwen Ballinlough and Castlerea, where half the population was still bilingual in 1901; where, and no wonder, Dr Douglas Hyde grew up to become the founder of Conradh na Gaeilge, and then President of Ireland.
"The theme, the problems of a propertyless suitor, is as old as, say, The Fair Hills of Ireland. The phrase in the second verse, talamh gan chíos; freehold land, does seem to indicate it was composed in the second half of the [19th] century, after the famines and the emigrations; before then, the bare notion of freehold land would be far from the mind and the hopes of most Irish-speaking people."

Subject: RE: Bheadh Buachaillín Deas ag Síle
From: GUEST,Philippa
Date: 09 Nov 02 - 05:51 PM

I wouldn't differ much with Brian's translation of the Saighdiúrín Singil lyrics posted here.
Verse 1, "singil" should be translated, as others have stated, as "Private". The Irish for harp should be spelled cláirseach

Verse 2, My father sent me over to Dingle to look for a woman/wife (not 'women'; in this instance mná is a genitive singular, not a plural).
Bowles also has the line "do casadh an fia faoim/fé bhráid" and he translates this as "the countryside was looking for me" - so I looked in the dictionary and found that there is a word 'fia' meaning land as well as the more common 'fia' = 'deer'.
Suggestion for the last line: "And great God of my soul, how I lost my senses with women."

Verse 3, "tais" in this sense means mild, gentle. Instead of "chalky", I suggest "white" or "fair"

Verse 4, "scafaire" is a strapping fellow, yes - one who would "dig ditches". Although according to the dictionary "Ní mór ná go mb'fhearr liom" should mean "I'd hardly prefer"; "I'd surely prefer" makes more sense to me. But then, is this verse supposed to make sense? As Brian has suggested, it seems to be drafted in from another song - maybe a song with the same air (see quotation from M Bowles).

The last lines in Bowles' version is "Is gurb iad na fir mhaithe a thógas na mn&# gan spré"; And it is the good men that take women without a dowry!

Subject: RE: Bheadh Buachaillín Deas ag Síle
From: GUEST,Philippa
Date: 20 Jan 03 - 11:08 AM

The above message belongs in another thread and so I have repeated it in that thread.

You can find lyrics and translation for Síle also at Gaelic Voices - as recorded by "Reeltime". The webpage cited gives lyrics and translations for all the Irish and Scots Gaelic songs on the Gaelic Voices compilation album, so is worth a look.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Bheadh Buachaillin Deas ag Sile
From: MMario
Date: 22 Jan 03 - 10:23 AM

X:1
T:SILE
N:Micheál Bowles, "Claisceadal 1"
I:abc2nwc
M:3/4
L:1/8
K:C
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A2d2d2|d4e2|d6-|d4D2|F2E2D2|F2G2A2|
c6|(A4G2)|A4d2d2|d4e2|(d4c2|A2)^B2c2|d2d2d2||
c2A2G2|(F4G2)|A4A2|G2F2E2|D4D2|D6-|D4z2|]

Subject: RE: Bheadh Buachaillin Deas ag Sile
From: Felipa
Date: 24 Apr 21 - 07:49 AM

Here is the Mudcat discussion of With Kitty I'll Go For a Ramble:
https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=13672

It's a different song, but with a similar theme and set to the same tune that is most commonly used for Vheadh Buachaillín Deas ag Síle