Sliobh Gallen Braes

Subject: RE: Sliobh Gallen Braes
From: GUEST,seaayr
Date: 20 Mar 06 - 04:33 PM

Colin McAllister sings a fine version with his band Setanta and even better live... Setanta loosely based in Glasgow-ish area..
Geordie McIntyre also gave me a set of words but only 3 verses while Colin does 4 verses. When looking song up on web found the version referenced from 'songs of the Irish in America'... .
gc...

Subject: RE: Sliobh Gallen Braes
From: Ferrara
Date: 20 Mar 06 - 03:47 PM

Little Robyn, what Topic recording from 1962? I kept asking Bill whether the version-that-we-can't-find might have been the McPeake family, rather than Joe Heaney, but he was sure that couldn't be right. Maybe it was! We still can't find it, whatever it is :-). I really liked that version (I did think it was a male voice but ... mebbe not.)

Mick, I will swap versions with you when we get together. It was love of this song that made me ask you, at a long-ago Getaway, how I might learn to sing in the sean nos style ... which of course I am NEVER going to be able to do, but I like the song too well to stop singing it. Oh well.

Rita

Subject: RE: Sliobh Gallen Braes
From: GUEST,guest
Date: 20 Mar 06 - 02:56 PM

Dave Shannon and Aam Bracken used to sing a cracking version of the song in the late 1960s

Subject: RE: Sliobh Gallen Braes
From: GUEST,DannyC
Date: 20 Mar 06 - 01:06 PM

Does anyone have the lyrics of the version sung by D. Hammond? I have searched this site and the web unsuccessfully:

"Once I loved a damsel,
but alas she proved untrue..."

Thanks in advance if you have a link.

Regards,

Danny

Subject: RE: Sliobh Gallen Braes
From: MartinRyan
Date: 20 Mar 06 - 12:32 PM

Yep! It's in Appdx 1 of More Irish Street Ballads. Thanx

Regards

Subject: RE: Sliobh Gallen Braes
From: belfast
Date: 20 Mar 06 - 11:37 AM

Colm O Lochlainn's books Irish Street Ballads and More Irish Street Ballads were among the main sources of songs for singers in the 60s and 70s. You'll find a lot of the Planxty repertoire came from there. I believe that MISB was for many the source of 'Sliav Gallion Braes'. 'Wild Slieve Gallion Braes' is, I think, in the appendix.

Subject: RE: Sliobh Gallen Braes
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 20 Mar 06 - 11:26 AM

Mick, I'll PM you.
Ard, I did hear Gemma Hasson, but not singing this particular song. It's a beaut.

Seamus

Subject: RE: Sliobh Gallen Braes
From: Big Mick
Date: 20 Mar 06 - 10:23 AM

Hi Seamus. It was a prosperous week, but a marathon. Green Tet Offensive...........HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA. I am ready NOT to sing for a short time. You?

Mick

Subject: RE: Sliobh Gallen Braes
From: GUEST,Lighter at work
Date: 20 Mar 06 - 08:09 AM

David Hammond of Belfast recorded this fine song around 1969. His version resembles that in DT with a few words changed and lacking a stanza or two.

The melody, for those who've never heard it, is quite beautiful.

Subject: RE: Sliobh Gallen Braes
From: MartinRyan
Date: 20 Mar 06 - 05:02 AM

Funny to see this thread revived. I now have no idea where to find the "Wild Slieve Gallion Braes" song I referred to above!

Regards

Subject: RE: Sliobh Gallen Braes
From: ard mhacha
Date: 20 Mar 06 - 04:26 AM

Seamus and co, did you ever hear it sung by a wee Derry woman Gemma Hasson [1968], this is on a par with that Dolores Keane recording.
Seamus, that opening verse is the same as on the LP by Gemma Hasson.

Subject: RE: Sliobh Gallen Braes
From: Little Robyn
Date: 20 Mar 06 - 02:19 AM

Francie McPeake's grandaughter, Kathleen, sang it on the Topic recording from 1962.
Robyn

Subject: RE: Sliobh Gallen Braes
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 20 Mar 06 - 12:52 AM

Whoops!
Hi Mick! Recovered from the green Tet offensive?

Seamus

Subject: RE: Sliobh Gallen Braes
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 20 Mar 06 - 12:51 AM

Hi JimmyC.
I learned this one from the late Tony McAuley, who sang it as Slieve Gallon's Brae.
I heard a different verse years ago from an old Derryman in Boston who sang:

Farewell to oul' Derry and her pastures so green;
Farewell to the Bannside and the cross at Ballinascreeen,
Oh for now I am a rovin', unto Americay,
So farewell unto ye bonny, bonny Slieve Gallon's Brae.

So I taught it to Tony on one of my trips home.

Tommy Makem does a fine job of it too.

Seamus

Subject: RE: Sliobh Gallen Braes
From: Big Mick
Date: 19 Mar 06 - 10:37 PM

I started to do this song as a result of this thread. I haven't sung it in a few years. Thanks for reminding me about it. Rita, remind me to sing it for you when I see you next.

Mick

Subject: RE: Sliobh Gallen Braes
From: Jimmy C
Date: 19 Mar 06 - 10:23 PM

Slieve Guillion, means the Mountain of Holly, or Holly Mountain,. Although the Irish for holly is "cuileann", may be a bit of local dialect in the name.

I first heard this song as a boy around 1947 from and old family friend ,Paddy McLarnon from Newbridge (near Toome). He would often sing it at parties. His version is quite similar to the one on the site above from Mr. Happy. I can't remember all the words so I don't really know if anything is missing are has been altered or added to his version. I did hear my mother say that he had been singing it for years, it may have been the only song he knew. Too bad we did not have tape recorders in those days,

Subject: RE: Sliobh Gallen Braes
From: Ferrara
Date: 19 Mar 06 - 10:03 PM

It's on "Farewell to Eirinn, Music and Songs of Emigration from Ireland to America," by Dolores Keane & John Faulkner with Eamonn Curran. The title is spelled "Sliabh Gallion Braes." The lyrics are slightly different from the ones in the DT.

I first heard it in about 1996 or 97, when Mary Mulqueen's version was played on the "Thistle and Shamrock" program. I loved it, and Bill played the Dolores Keane version for me. (He has rather a nice record collection.)

We both think we remember another version he played for me, by a male voice that Bill thinks may have been Joe Heaney, but ... we couldn't find such a record in our collection today and I can't find any mention of it online so ... who knows? But the one sung by a man, as I remember it, had sean nos ornamentation that was very, very close to what Mary Mulqueen sang, and different from the Dolores Keane version.

... But I admit that I have a mind like a steel colander so I may be making the whole thing up.l The Dolores Keane version is for real though. I just played it again.

Subject: RE: Sliobh Gallen Braes
From: Mr Happy
Date: 19 Mar 06 - 09:02 AM

I've a very old version of this by Five Hand Reel, with Dick Gaughan singing.

See here:



http://www.nigelgatherer.com/perf/group1/5hand.html

Subject: RE: Sliobh Gallen Braes
From: Mr Happy
Date: 19 Mar 06 - 08:56 AM

in DT, here:@displaysong.cfm?SongID=5403

Subject: RE: Sliobh Gallen Braes
From: GUEST,paul burke
Date: 19 Mar 06 - 08:46 AM

regarding the title of the song Slieve Gallion Braes.

my father died recently and I found the words for this song in his papers. I am trying to find out more about this song

so any help I would appreciate

Subject: RE: Sliobh Gallen Braes
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 30 Jun 98 - 09:54 PM

Thanks guys! I find that singing a song you don't reasonably understand is like singing in Martian - just a lot of gibberish with no soul. I guess that's just one more reason to love this forum.

Regards John

Subject: RE: Sliobh Gallen Braes
From: Big Mick
Date: 30 Jun 98 - 03:04 PM

Wasn't it Delores Keane who did one of the most beautiful a cappella versions of this song that I have ever heard? I will try to find it in my library and post the album/cd it was on.

Subject: RE: Sliobh Gallen Braes
From: Martin Ryan.
Date: 30 Jun 98 - 05:32 AM

It's Irish alright (though it wouldn't surprise me if Bruce turned up a Scottish antecednet!)

Slieve Gallen (spelling varies) is a mountain in the Sperrins range in County Tyrone in Northern Ireland.

There is also a quite different song called "Wild Slieve Gallion Braes" which, oddly enough, is about the Spanish American war of 1890 (?). Regards

Subject: Sliobh Gallen Braes
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 30 Jun 98 - 12:31 AM

Only heard this song for the first time recentishly, and was prompted to start this note after seeing a reference to "Dog & Gun" in a recent thread. (Sliobh Gallen Braes also refers to dog and gun).

Is this song Irish?

What do the words "Sliobh Gallen" (or variants) refer to?

Any help would be appreciated.

Regards John