Irish/USA songs before USA Civil War

Subject: RE: Irish/USA songs before USA Civil War
From: GUEST,Laurie
Date: 19 Jan 03 - 12:16 PM

Subject: RE: Irish/USA songs before USA Civil War
From: GUEST,Laurie
Date: 19 Jan 03 - 12:26 PM

In 1807-08 Thomas Moore published a number of poems set to old Irish airs in a set of volumes titled "Irish Melodies". Among the more popular songs were "Believe Me if All Those Endearing Young Charms" and "The Minstrel Boy". I wonder how old songs like "Cockles and Mussles", "The Holy Ground" and "I Know Where I'm Going" are? They are usually listed as "traditional".

Subject: RE: Irish/USA songs before USA Civil War
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 19 Jan 03 - 01:53 PM

The first published date for "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" is 1863, sheet music and broadsides at American Memory. "Words and Music by Louis Lambert," pseudonym for Patrick Sarsfield, 1829-1892.
As Declan says, it is a welcome song, meant to be gay, only the tune re-used.

Subject: RE: Irish/USA songs before USA Civil War
From: masato sakurai
Date: 26 Jan 03 - 11:55 PM

These books may help:

William H.A. Williams, 'Twas Only an Irishman's Dream: The Image of Ireland and the Irish in American Popular Song Lyrics, 1800-1920 (Univ. of Illinois Press, 1996) [esp. section 2: "Romantic Irish Popular Songs in Antebellum America"]

Charles Hamm, Yesterdays: Popular Song In America (Norton, 1979) [esp. chapters 3 ("Erin, the Tear and the Smile in Thine Eyes; or, Thomas Moore's Irish Melodies in America") and 8 ("Come Back to Erin: or, More Gems from the British Isles")]

Robert R. Grimes, S.J., How Shall We Sing in a Foreign Land?: Music of Irish Catholic Immigrants in the Antebellum United States (Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 1996)

~Masato