Help: Who wrote Salonika?????

Subject: Who wrote Salonika?????
From: GUEST,Mikey Joe
Date: 23 Nov 00 - 07:21 AM

Hi folks

does anyone know who wrote the song Salonika? As in

"My husbands in salonika I wonder if he's dead? I wonder if he knows he has a kid with a foxy head? S'write away..........."

I've heard Hamish Imlach & Jimmy Crowley sing it.

I always thought it was a Cork song due to the many local references (Coliseum, St. Mary's Hall, Blarney etc etc)

Anyone any idea

Mj

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote Salonika?????
From: MartinRyan
Date: 23 Nov 00 - 08:04 AM

Its known as a Cork song alright. Any reason to doubt it? I doubt if the author is known - but Jimmy would certainly know it, if anyone did.

Regards

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote Salonika?????
From: Stewie
Date: 23 Nov 00 - 09:08 AM

Tomas O Canainn included it in his 'Down Erin's Lovely Lee: Songs of Cork'. He notes that it is a Cork city song from the first world war, but gives no attribution. He suggests the reference to Sinn Fein in the last stanza reflects an additional verse to suit a new political situation. The only other information he gives is that the 'Dicky Glue' mentioned in the second last stanza was a pawnbroker and moneylender who had considerable difficulty in recovering his loans.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote Salonika?????
From: GUEST,Mikey Joe
Date: 23 Nov 00 - 10:38 AM

I could try Kimmy's website I s'pose.

If anyone can confirm anything I would be grateful. Thanks again folks

Mj

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote Salonika?????
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Nov 00 - 01:15 PM

According to the sleeve notes of the Jimmy Crowley album "The Boys of Fair Hill" most of the verses of Salonika were collected from Mrs Ronayne who was the grandmother of Mick Murphy of Jimmy's band "Stoker's Lodge. M

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote Salonika?????
From: mousethief
Date: 23 Nov 00 - 02:31 PM

St. Paul wrote Salonika twice. Or is that not what you meant?

Alex

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote Salonika?????
From: Wolfgang
Date: 24 Nov 00 - 05:30 AM

In case some wonder what song is talked about, the lyrics are in Mudcat, but not yet harvested for the DT (hint!). If you follow that link you'll find also a note about the origin of the song.

James N. Healy, Ballads from the pubs of Ireland, has this note on the origin:

Irishmen often served in the British Army during Napeolonic [sic!] times and for long after. There seemed an opportunity to get away from poverty and to grips with adventure by serving abroad.
Not until the Boer war was a real effort made to resist recruiting, but many thousands of Irishmen fought in Europe during the war of 1914, despite agitation at home.
The male population became to some extent divided between the man in uniform and those who felt that 'England's weakness is Ireland's opportunity.'
One of the most attractive peculiarities of Irish balladmakers is to laugh at a situation when you can't do anything else about it; and so the following rather bawdy ballad became current in Cork during the first war. Eventually there were two versions - one by those involved in the war; and the other by those who sympathised with the volunteers. It is hard to say with whom some of the verses originated, because they could be a cynical reference either way, but I have marked them 's' (soldiers) and 'v' (volunteers) as a guide. There were many more verses as you can imagine: many unprintable.

Of the verses posted by Frank McGrath in the link above, Healy has marked verses 1, 2, 6, 7 as 's' and verses 4 and 5 as 'v'. If Healy is right, we have here a song and it's parody entwined in one.

We are grateful for your attempt to help, Alex, but no, that is not meant.

Wolfgang