Help: Andy Irvine's 'General Monro'

Subject: Andy Irvine's 'General Monro'
From: Big Tim
Date: 22 Mar 02 - 05:25 PM

I don't think that I imagined this track but can't find it anywhere. Can anyone provide the details. If memory serves, it's by far the best recording of the song ever done.

Subject: RE: Help: Andy Irvine's 'General Monro'
From: Sorcha
Date: 22 Mar 02 - 06:02 PM

Look for Monroe instead of Monro.........

Subject: RE: Help: Andy Irvine's 'General Monro'
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 22 Mar 02 - 06:44 PM

If you are looking for the old 17th C. General of the Scottish army, his name was Monro, not Monroe. There was also a General Monro at Gallipoli. and the family continues.

Subject: RE: Help: Andy Irvine's 'General Monro'
From: Sorcha
Date: 22 Mar 02 - 07:12 PM

Andy Irvine's song is spelled Monroe, though.

Subject: RE: Help: Andy Irvine's 'General Monro'
From: Hrothgar
Date: 22 Mar 02 - 07:14 PM

If it's the one about the Monroe who was a leader in the Rising of 1798, it's in the DT. I haven't studied how to do blue clicky things, so do a search. Best of luck.

Subject: RE: Help: Andy Irvine's 'General Monro'
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 22 Mar 02 - 07:44 PM

Daniel Monroe (unlikely Irvine subject) and my old girlfriend, Marilyn, are in the DT. No generals that I could find. No Munros either.

Subject: RE: Help: Andy Irvine's 'General Monro'
From: Big Tim
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 03:39 AM

Hey folks it's the Andy Irvine recording, "General Munroe" about Henry Monro [sic] (1758-98) executed leader of the Down 1798 insurgents that I'm after. I've got plenty other recordings of the song, an excellent tradtional ballad, but AI's version was, naturally, great. (Henry Monro, that's how he spelt it himself, was a direct descendant of the Scottish General Robert Munroe who was beaten at Benburb in 1646 by Owen Roe O'Neill during the Confederate War. He was born and lived all his life and died very bravely in Lisburn. He was an episcopalian United Irishman). But enough about Henry Monro, the man. There are numerous Irvine discographies on the web but none that I can see which include "General Monroe".

Subject: RE: Help: Andy Irvine's 'General Monro'
From: Hrothgar
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 03:49 AM

Do a search using "General Munroe" in the DT, and bingo! There you are!

I must learn these blue clicky things...........

Subject: RE: Help: Andy Irvine's 'General Monro'
From: masato sakurai
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 04:10 AM

GENERAL MUNROE in the DT.

~Masato

Subject: RE: Help: Andy Irvine's 'General Monro'
From: masato sakurai
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 06:35 AM

Andy Irvine's "General Monroe" [note the spelling] (as solo with DONAL LUNNY) is on VARIOUS / High Kings of Tara (Tara, 1980). This info from HERE & HERE.

~Masato

Subject: RE: Help: Andy Irvine's 'General Monro'
From: Big Tim
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 08:54 AM

I know the song and the history. It was the discographical details of the AI recording I was after. Thanks Masato.

Subject: RE: Help: Andy Irvine's 'General Monro'
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 12:07 PM

The nooks and crannies of Mudcat. General Monroe in Lyrics Search, then in Forum search, produces a blank. The file name is GENMONRO and that yields no results. Monroe didn't work but Munroe does. Like putting in Smith and getting Jones.

Subject: RE: Help: Andy Irvine's 'General Monro'
From: masato sakurai
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 12:49 PM

There are 10 broadsides in the Bodleian Library. One of them is THIS.

~Masato

Subject: RE: Help: Andy Irvine's 'General Monro'
From: Big Tim
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 04:36 PM

Matsako; thanks for airing the alternative "George Clokey" rather than "George Campbell" version.

Big question : who was Clokey, who was Campbell? (I don't know - tho I do have some clues and ideas)/

Subject: RE: Help: Andy Irvine's 'General Monro'
From: masato sakurai
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 07:15 PM

While in most versions (at least on the web) the narrator's name is George Campbell, in some it is George Clokey (Click HERE & HERE). Two versions (about George Clayton & George Campbell) are in Georges-Denis Zimmermann, Songs of Irish Rebellion (Allen Figgs, 1967, pp. 156-157). I don't know who they were.

~Masato

Subject: RE: Help: Andy Irvine's 'General Monro'
From: Big Tim
Date: 24 Mar 02 - 03:27 AM

Wolfe Tone has a diary entry about "Andrew Clokey".

I can find no reference to an historicaal person called George Campbell.

I have to rush out now. Will post Tone's very interesting comment this evening. Cheers.

Subject: RE: Help: Andy Irvine's 'General Monro'
From: Big Tim
Date: 24 Mar 02 - 03:18 PM

Tone's Journal 16 aug 1792 "Arrive at ballynahinch late. Introduced to Clokey, a proper man. A new corps raised there on Peep-O-Day Boy [Orange) principles, converted by Clokey, who in return is chosen their lieutenant. The Catholics and they are now on such good terms that the Catholics lend them their arms to learn their exercise and walk to see them parade, both parties now in high affection with each other, who were before ready to cut each other's throats. All this done in about two months by the exertions of one obscure man. What might not have been done by the aristocracy of County Down if they were actuated by the same spirit? Damn them!" No mention by Tone of Clokey's first name but the book's index gives it as "Andrew". A William Clokey was tried as a rebel on 31 July 1798 and transported to Botany bay, he had fought at Ballynahinch. He later returned to Ireland and lived to a ripe old age, known locally as "Clokey, the last of the rebels". A Joseph Clokey from Spa (just two miles from Ballynahinch) is known to have been a rebel "Brigadier General". Unfortunately I have been unable to ascertain if all these "Clokeys" were related or were indeed the same man. No reference whatsoever traced to a "George Campbell".

Subject: RE: Help: Andy Irvine's 'General Monro'
From: Wolfgang
Date: 27 Mar 02 - 04:08 AM

Just as an aside, the song was also included in Frank Harte's CD '1798' (I love that rendition too) and has been sung by the 'Irish Country Four' (I have no recollection whether I liked their version).

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Help: Andy Irvine's 'General Monro'
From: GUEST,derrymacash at work
Date: 27 Mar 02 - 08:16 AM

Richard Gilpin has recently recorded a cracking version on his "Beautiful Mistake" album. The album's reviewed here.

Gilpin's website is here!

Subject: RE: Help: Andy Irvine's 'General Monro'
From: Big Tim
Date: 27 Mar 02 - 12:19 PM

Thanks W. & Derry. Unfamiliar with those versions, will check them out.

Subject: RE: Help: Andy Irvine's 'General Monro'
From: MartinRyan
Date: 28 Mar 02 - 06:00 PM

Big Tim

I recently picked up a book of Irvine's songs, published in Germany, called " Aiming for the Heat - poetische lieder aus Ieralnd"! It gives the words (as "General Munroe") and the following dicographical details:

"High Kings of Tara"
Tara 3003 Recorded 1979, released 1980.

Regards

Subject: RE: Help: Andy Irvine's 'General Monro'
From: MartinRyan
Date: 28 Mar 02 - 06:35 PM

....Make that "Aiming for the Heart"!

Regards

Subject: RE: Help: Andy Irvine's 'General Monro'
From: Big Tim
Date: 29 Mar 02 - 12:55 AM

Thanks Martin, really looking forward to acquiring the Richard Gilpin version.

Re the spelling I've yet to see a version not spelt as Munro, Munroe or Monroe. Fair enough. However it's thought that HM himself used the minor variant form of "Monro". Northern historians such as Charles Dickson and Jonathan Bardon both use this form. On display in the Ulster Museum (Belfast) is a presentation cream jug that HM had presented to his local Masonic Lodge (a front for the United Irishmen?) and it is spelt as "Monro".

Irrespective of the spelling, Monro is a rather neglected man today, no proper biography (that I have ever seen), an unmarked grave and no monument in Bow Street, Lisburn, where he lived and so bravely died.

Subject: RE: Help: Andy Irvine's 'General Monro'
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 29 Mar 02 - 01:02 AM

The Clokey family owned a glass factory at the corner of Divis St. and John St. in Belfast, round the corner from St. Mary's School in Barrack St. According to legend they were descended from the Andrew Clokey of 1798 fame.

All the best.

Seamus

Subject: RE: Help: Andy Irvine's 'General Monro'
From: Big Tim
Date: 29 Mar 02 - 02:20 PM

Thanks Seamus, interesting.

Subject: RE: Help: Andy Irvine's 'General Monro'
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Apr 13 - 03:41 PM

It was recorded by Planxty in about 1977 as part of the recording sessions that produced the excellant After the Break album but was not included on the finished album. It was released later on the sampler album The High Kings of Tara along with a couple of other Planxty tracks that ,to my knowledge, were not released elswhere. I am lucky enough to own a copy

Subject: RE: Help: Andy Irvine's 'General Monro'
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 02 Apr 13 - 09:24 PM

I have it too. There's some damn fine stuff on that album all right.