Lyr Req: Erin's Green Shore

Subject: Erin's Green Shore
From: Richard
Date: 26 Nov 97 - 07:15 PM

Looking for variations of Erin's Green Shore. Joe Hickerson sings one version. Oral history in British Columbia says it is about a woman who came here in the 1860s. it is sung in Newfoundland the Appalacian Mts. Interested in sources as well. Thanks

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Also see Erin's Green Shore / Eileen McMahon (different song)

Subject: RE: Erin's Green Shore
From: Murray
Date: 27 Nov 97 - 05:45 PM

ERIN’S GREEN SHORE There are 2 songs to be distinguished: (1), an Irish patriotic song, referring to "the daughter of Daniel O’Connell": John Harrington Cox, "Folk-Songs of the South" (1925, 1967), 442 ( no. 151): 3 versions, without music; the 3rd titled "The Irish Dream". Kenneth Peacock, "Songs of the Newfoundland Outports" (1965), II.362. 2 versions, with music. First tune also found to the popular text "The Blooming Bright Star of Belleisle". 2nd is a typically Irish tune in 6/8; in. 3/4 time in P. W. Joyce, "Old Irish Folk Music & Songs'” (1909, 1965), 151 (no. 325), with one stanza [of version 2 below!], and in Greenleaf & Mansfield, "Ballads and Sea Songs of Newfoundland" (1933, 1968), 142 (no. 69). Helen Creighton, "Songs & Ballads from Nova Scotia" (1922, 1966), 171 (no. 79), "The Mantle of Green". H. M. Belden, "Ballads & Songs Collected by the Missouri Folk-Lore Society" (2nd ed., 1955), 282. (2), a love song about Waterloo: in Creighton, ibid., 60 (no. 30), "Mantle So Green", to its own tune. Belden, ibid., 151, "The Mantle of Green". One stanza in Joyce as above. Ord, "Bothy Songs & Ballads" (1930), 154. Colm O Lochlainn, "Irish Street Ballads" (1939), 14 (no. 7), with music. James N. Healy, "The Mercier Book of Old Irish Street Ballads" (Cork, 1967), 284. That should keep you going. Tellus about the BC woman!

Cheers Murray

Subject: RE: Erin's Green Shore
From: Richard
Date: 28 Nov 97 - 03:14 PM

Murray;

Thanks for all your info. The story of Joanna Maquire is perhaps too lengthy for this list but if you send me your e-mail or contact us at [e-mail] I can pass on the whole story.

Subject: RE: Erin's Green Shore
From: Martin Ryan
Date: 30 Nov 97 - 12:21 PM

Richard

At least post a precis! Or forward a copy to me please.

Regards

Subject: RE: Erin's Green Shore
From: Frank Maher
Date: 30 Nov 97 - 12:35 PM

I have the words for Erin's Green Shore as sung by the McNulty Family back in the 1930s.Would You like Me to send them to You?

Subject: RE: Erin's Green Shore
From: Richard
Date: 30 Nov 97 - 09:11 PM

Frank Mayer

Yes, thanks Frank, that would be great. Any version might help.

Subject: RE: Erin's Green Shore
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 01 Dec 97 - 01:15 PM

Frank- If you'er posting, please post 'em here, to.

Subject: Lyr Add: ERIN'S GREEN SHORE (from McNulty Family)
From: Frank Maher
Date: 01 Dec 97 - 03:21 PM

[You can hear this recording at the Internet Archive.]

ERIN'S GREEN SHORE
As recorded by The McNulty Family (Decca 12155 B), 1938.

One evening so late as I rambled,
On the banks of a clear purling stream,
I sat down on a bed of primroses,
And gently fell into a dream.
I dreamt I beheld a fair female--
Her equal I ne'er saw before--
As she sighed for the wrongs of her country,
As she rambled 'round Erin's green shore.

I quickly addressed this fair female:
"My jewel, come tell me your name.
In this country, I know you're a stranger,
Or I would not have asked you that same."
She resembled the goddess of freedom,
And green was the mantle she wore,
Bound round with a shamrock and roses,
That grew along Erin's green shore.

"I know you're a true son of Granuaile,
And my secrets to you I'll unfold,
For here in the midst of all danger,
Not knowing my friends from my foes.
I'm a daughter of Daniel O'Connell.
From England, I lately came o'er.
I've come to awaken my brethren
Who slumber on Erin's green shore."

Her eyes were like two sparkling diamonds,
Or the stars of a cold frosty night.
Her cheeks were like two blooming roses,
And her teeth of the iv'ry so white.
She resembled the goddess of freedom,
And green was the mantle she wore,
Bound round with a shamrock and roses,
That grew along Erin's green shore.

In a transport of joy, I awakened.
But I found it was only a dream.
This beautiful lady had vanished.
How I'm longing to see her again!
May the heavens above be her guardian,
For I know that I'll not see her more.
May the sunburst of Erin shine on her,
As she wanders 'round Erin's green shore.

"I'm a daughter of Daniel O'Connell.
From England, I lately came o'er.
I've come to awaken my brethren
Who slumber on Erin's green shore."

- - -

That's about the best I can do. Hope you can use it.
All the best,
Frank Maher
[e-mail]

Subject: RE: Erin's Green Shore
From: alison
Date: 01 Dec 97 - 04:30 PM

Hi Frank,

Thanks for the lyrics, does it have a well known tune?

Slainte

Alison

Subject: RE: Erin's Green Shore
From: Frank Maher
Date: 01 Dec 97 - 09:32 PM

Hi Alison, The Air to Erin's Green Shore is something like the Air to Robin Debow

Subject: RE: Erin's Green Shore
From: Frank Maher
Date: 02 Dec 97 - 04:26 PM

Anybody wishing this Song or any other Old Irish ones sent to them on a Tape,I will be only to happy to send them,whenever the Mail Strike is over Slan !

Subject: RE: Erin's Green Shore
From: Martin Ryan
Date: 02 Dec 97 - 05:14 PM

In the third verse, "Granule" is usually sung as "Grania" (pronounced graw-nyah!). Its short for Granuaile - an old allegorical name for Ireland. The song is and "aisling" i.e. allegorical vision. Lots of 'em in Irish.

Regards

Subject: RE: Erin's Green Shore
From: Richard
Date: 02 Dec 97 - 05:15 PM

Ah hah, that must mean you live in Canada. As we wait for the amil e-mail is certainly coming into use. yes Frank, if you have this on tape it would be very useful. Contact me at: [e-mail]

Thanks, Richard

Subject: RE: Erin's Green Shore
From: Nonie Rider
Date: 02 Dec 97 - 05:25 PM

"Grania." Great! I could tell it was something besides "granule," but couldn't make something else come right in my head.

Subject: RE: Erin's Green Shore
From: alison
Date: 02 Dec 97 - 06:00 PM

Frank,

do you mean "Roisin the bow"? It fits perfectly to it.

Slainte

Alison

Subject: RE: Erin's Green Shore
From: Bruce O.
Date: 02 Dec 97 - 07:15 PM

"Granuaile"

This is the modern corruption, being derived from the name of Grace O'Malley in Gaelic, Graine Mhaol (with an accent or two missing here). The tune of this title is called for as 'Grania Meuel' in a ballad opera by H. Brooke, Dublin, 1748, with songs printed in 'Songs in Jack the GyantQueller,' 1749. Other renderings: Granach Weale, Granuwail, Granuweal, Granu Weal__or Ma, Ma, Ma (Bunting's 3rd collecion, 1840), Grana Uile, and Granny Wale, and a few others. There seems to be only one tune known as "Granuaile" that goes back to the 18th century (others appeared in the 19th century). What are claimed to be the original words to the tune are in Hardiman's 'Irish Minstrelsy', but I haven't seen this work. There are several songs of the 19th century on Granuaile. The 18th century tune is a 3/4 time dorian on G which is in a collection of 22 Irish melodies printed by B. Cooke in Dublin, c 1793-5.

P.S> There was a TV documentary on Grace O'Mally some 3-5 weeks ago.

Subject: RE: Erin's Green Shore
From: Bruce O.
Date: 02 Dec 97 - 07:40 PM

I forgot to add that Grace O'Mally as Granuaile came to symbolize Ireland, itself, so Martin is quite correct.

Tune for "The Hornet and Peacock" in DT should be "Granuaile", but after listening to it, I think that version is missing the first part of the tune.

Subject: RE: Erin's Green Shore
From: Alice
Date: 02 Dec 97 - 08:03 PM

Frank and Alison, just a note on "Rosin the Bow" and "Roisin Dubh" (Rosheen Doov). The titles jumped out at me because I have noted how often the titles are confused with each other. "Rosin the Bow" is the dying fiddler song, but "Roisin Dubh" is, according to Herbert Hughes, "one of the many secret allegorical names by which Ireland was referred to in bardic literature and folk-lore." "Roisin Dubh", or Little Black Rose, is like the song "The Red Haired Man's Wife", Hughes writes, "-bear symbolistic titles that belong to a time when it was the habit of poets and ballad-writers to refer to Ireland under a concealed name. She became ...The Poor Old Woman, Dark Rosaleen, .... and so on. When the fiat went forth from Dublin Castle that ballads (being powerful political instruments) were not to be sold, ballad-mongers adopted the simple subterfuge of selling bundles of straw, especially on such lucrative occasions as market days, for the price of a broadsheet, giving the concealed broadsheet away with the bundle of straw. In Jacobite times the allegorical ballad was at the height of its vogue, yet when the ban was lifted the allegorical method remained, and has persisted even into the twentieth century, becoming living drama in Yeats's "Cathleen ni-Houlihan" and poignantly lyrical in Katherine Tynan's poem." H.Hughes, Dedham, Christmas, 1934, IRISH COUNTRY SONGS, VOL.III

Alice in Montana

Subject: RE: Erin's Green Shore
From: Alice
Date: 02 Dec 97 - 08:10 PM

BTW the tune for "Roisin Dubh" is completely different than "Rosin the Bow". A. in MT

Subject: RE: Erin's Green Shore
From: Frank Maher
Date: 03 Dec 97 - 05:50 PM

Yes Alison,I meant Rosin the Bow

Thanks Alice for Your Interest and Information

Frank in Newfoundland

Subject: RE: Erin's Green Shore
From: Barry
Date: 04 Dec 97 - 10:10 PM

Alice, how does the love song, written in the old classic style, "The Red Haired Man's Wife" become a disguised form of Ireland? I always heard it & sung it as a lament for the broken hearted. Barry

Subject: RE: Erin's Green Shore
From: Jon W.
Date: 05 Dec 97 - 10:58 AM

I'm going to try my hand at literary analysis here. If you take the Red Haired Man to be England (the Redcoats), the wife to be Northern Ireland, and the singer to be Ireland (from the Sinn Fein point of view), the song reflects the current political situation rather well.

The version I have is from the Boys of the Lough album "Wish You Were Here." Cathall McConnell, the singer, does the first three verses essentially the same as the version in the DT, but the last verse is completely different:

Oh my darlin' sweet Phoenix, if now you could be my own,
For the patriarch David had a number of wives, it's well known,
So yield to my embraces and straight put an end to all strife,
Or else I'll go crazy to gain the Red Haired Man's wife.

In other songs in the DT, I've seen "Phoenix Park" as a place name, apparently somewhere in Ireland. If someone could tell where exactly this place is, it might shed a little more light on the subject.

One problem I see with this analysis is that I suspect the song was written long before Irish independence--or perhaps it refers to an earlier partitioning of Ireland?

I'm going to submit this in another thread for further discussion.

Jon W.

Subject: RE: Erin's Green Shore
From: Alice
Date: 05 Dec 97 - 11:14 AM

Barry, my response on the Jon's new thread. Alice

Subject: RE: Erin's Green Shore
From: Martin Ryan
Date: 07 Dec 97 - 04:44 PM

Phoenix Park is a large green area within Dublin city. As to the connection with the song - I'll get back to it!

Regards

Subject: RE: Erin's Green Shore
From: Murray
Date: 08 Dec 97 - 03:30 AM

Another reference [for the O'Connell set]: Edith Fowke, "Traditional Singers and Songs from Ontario" (1965),35, with music (a version of Peacock's first, kin to the "Belleisle" tune). Text like Frank's above, omitting 8 lines.

Subject: RE: Erin's Green Shore
From:
Date: 15 Jul 03 - 09:17 PM

I have heard "The Banks Of The Little Eau Pleine" sung to this tune.

Subject: RE: Erin's Green Shore
From: Liam's Brother
Date: 15 Jul 03 - 10:51 PM

There is a Rhode Island version from the Flanders Ballad Collection with a very lovely and uncommon melody on the new "Irish Ballads from Old New England" CD. You can hear it at Irish Songs from Old New England.

All the best,
Dan Milner

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Erin's Green Shore
From: GUEST,Wally Macnow
Date: 19 Nov 17 - 10:18 AM

There is a version by Hedy West on you tube that was posted in October 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWlIPARWBME