Galway Bay origin needed

Subject: Galway Bay origin needed
From:
Date: 18 May 98 - 04:45 PM

I'm a historical novelist, and I need to know if the song "Galway Bay" would have been sung in America in the 1880's or '90's. Does anyone have information on its origin?

If so, I'd greatly appreciate email help at [e-mail]

Thanks in advance!

Subject: RE: Galway Bay origin needed
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 May 98 - 05:55 PM

Well, my Hal Leonard "Best Fake Book Ever" says the song is by Dr. Arthur Colahan, copyright 1947 by Box and Cox Publications of London. I suppose that could be the date the copyright was renewed (or stolen by Box & Cox). Anybody know for sure?
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Galway Bay origin needed
From: Brack&
Date: 18 May 98 - 07:07 PM

Just as a point......... There are two songs called Galway Bay

Subject: RE: Galway Bay origin needed
From: Barry Finn
Date: 18 May 98 - 07:20 PM

Depending on which "Galway Bay", 3 in the DT. The other (not the parody), according to Irish Ballads & Songs Of The Sea - James Healy, is by Francis A Fahy & Air: "My Irish Molly, O", don't know more but I'm sure some of more knowledgable here can give more than me. Barry

Subject: RE: Galway Bay origin needed
From:
Date: 18 May 98 - 09:56 PM

Wasn't this from a Bing Crosby movie? I always thought that it was written for Hollywood, just like that Irish Lullaby song.

Subject: RE: Galway Bay origin needed
From:
Date: 19 May 98 - 08:11 PM

Thanks for the help. Think I'd better find another song.

Subject: RE: Galway Bay origin needed
From: Martin Ryan
Date: 20 May 98 - 04:35 PM

The "other" Galway Bay song ("Tis far away I am today..." might just fit! The writer (Fahy) was born in 1850 and wrote most of his songs towards the end of the 19th century. Died in London 1930, I think.

Regards

Subject: RE: Galway Bay origin needed
From: Barry Finn
Date: 20 May 98 - 06:36 PM

Martin, not to slight the others but Fahy's is the one I consider to be the gem, I don't think Bing would've touch it. Barry

Subject: RE: Galway Bay origin needed
From: Frank McGrath
Date: 20 May 98 - 07:15 PM

Well there's no denyin' Bing
Could remarkably sing
When crooning "Galway Bay"
But when it comes to the other
"Galway Bay" I have to prefer
The version that was written by Fahey.

Francis Percy French-McGrath

Subject: RE: Galway Bay origin needed
From: Joe Offer
Date: 20 May 98 - 08:01 PM

Still, I wonder if anybody knows if there's a story behind the Arthur Colahan /Bing Crosby "Galway Bay." song. Anybody know?
I take it that a man named Crosby is of Irish parentage - how did he come to be called "Der Bingel"?
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Galway Bay origin needed
From:
Date: 23 May 98 - 05:14 PM

Yes, he was of Irish heritage. He seemed to have a fondness for playing Irish-American priests, too.

I think he got the nickname Der Bingle either during or after WWII.

Subject: RE: Galway Bay origin needed
From: GUEST
Date: 06 May 04 - 10:08 AM

He was called Der Bingel by German soldiers in WW II, who loved his singing as much as anybody in the US. Especially "White Christmas"

Subject: RE: Galway Bay origin needed
From: GUEST
Date: 06 May 04 - 01:56 PM

This site implies Mr. Fahy wrote BOTH Galway Bays. ??

link

If this is true you need it to be in circulation before 1880, it's doubtful, unless he wrote it quite early in his career. Got to be a sheet music citation out there somewhere...

Subject: RE: Galway Bay origin needed
From: GUEST,pattyClink
Date: 06 May 04 - 02:05 PM

A bio of Arthur Colahan, b. 1885, which credits him.

Bio of Arthur Colahan

---

Arthur Colahan was born in Galway in 1885. He took up medicine and graduated from Queen's College, Galway in 1913. When World War broke out he enlisted in the British Army's Medical Corps and served in India. After the war, he settled in Leicester, where he worked as a psychiatrist in the police and prison services. His hobby was music and he wrote songs such as Cade Ring, Macushla Mine and the beautiful Galway Bay. He often spent his holidays in his beloved County Galway, and liked nothing better than an evening at the piano while his brothers and sisters sang Irish songs, including his own that he had written in Leicester. Galway Bay, which was written in memory of one of his brothers who drowned in the Bay, is the song of the grief of an exile and had he lived we're sure he would have objected to the version made famous by Bing Crosby, who altered the word 'English' to 'strangers.' Dr. Colahan died at his Leicester home on 9 September 1952 and his remains were removed to Galway for burial in the family grave. Even today there is still no mention of his name on the Celtic Cross that marks the grave of the man of who it was said "money didn't interest him, Glory didn't interest him. He was very gentle and very humble." This entry thanks to Max Wade-Matthews and was taken from his CD: "A Walk Through Leicester." "Galway Bay," published in 1947, was second in the USA in "The Lucky Strike Cigarettes Hit Parade Radio Show - 1935 to 1955" charts for a total of 12 weeks in 1949.

---

Information copy-pasted from the link cited above.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Galway Bay origin needed
From: GUEST,weerover
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 06:28 AM

I've just been sent a CD (by a very generous fellow Mudcat member), "The Ould Plaid Shawl - songs of Francis Fahy". It has Fahy's version of "Galway Bay" on it twice, to different tunes.

wr.

Subject: RE: Galway Bay origin needed
From: Mr Happy
Date: 21 Jun 10 - 08:20 AM

Just to hear again the ripple of the trout stream,
The women in the meadows making hay;
And to sit beside a turf fire in the cabin
And watch the barefoot gossoons at their play.


I was puzzled by this word 'gossoons'

Explanation here:

Hiberno-English "Gassin, gorsoon, gossoon or gossoor is a common descriptor in rural areas for a child, and derives from the French garçon (meaning "boy") ...
63 KB (9,894 words) - 10:04, 9 June 2010

From here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiberno-English

Subject: RE: Galway Bay origin needed
From: GUEST,^&*
Date: 21 Jun 10 - 02:09 PM

"gossoons" may well come from the French - but it does so through the Irish (Gaelic) word "garsún", pronounced gor-soon.

Subject: RE: Galway Bay origin needed
From: GUEST,mayomick
Date: 22 Jun 10 - 01:55 PM

I always thought that Galway men come across as a pretty lazy bunch in the song . Women in the meadow making hay ,women in the uplands digging praties etc.

Subject: RE: Galway Bay origin needed
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 16 Mar 12 - 02:37 AM

I am remembering Liam C. of Seattle and Portland used to sing this so nicely..b ut I remember him singing the blessings of an honest man..which I prefer to the original lonely man..probably because whatever I hear first is to my mind the correct version..

Does anyone know if this is in copyright? write? People tell me again and again which it is but I keep forgetting. mg

Subject: RE: Galway Bay origin needed
From: MartinRyan
Date: 16 Mar 12 - 05:04 AM

For a biography of Fahy, Click here ;. He died in 1935 - no idea of the implications for copyright.

That page has a link to the poem as published - theough one certainly hears minor variations sung, as ever.

Regards