Irish tunes/songs stolen from english

Subject: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: woodsie
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 05:53 AM

I was at a traditional english session last night. I noticed that one of the tunes was very like "lannigan's ball" One of the blokes at the session told me that all so called traditional irish tunes/songs were stolen from the english! I find this very hard to believe.

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: GUEST,Martin Ryan
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 05:56 AM

Sit in an Irish pub and they will tell you the reverse....
Try Scotland and they'll tell you they're both lying!

Tunes are never stolen - just lost or borrowed!

regards

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 05:58 AM

There are many English tunes that are played in Ireland and vise versa. There are also a large number of common tunes that we don't know the country of origin of. To say they were all once English is rubbish.

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: RobbieWilson
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 06:00 AM

No, even that's not quite true. One of the wonderful things about music is that if someone else uses your tune you still have it, you don't lose it.

It's a bit like a smile ; the more you try and give them away the more you find you have.

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 06:01 AM

It's true that a lot of what people think of as Irish are English or Scottish, but not all. Cuts both ways too.

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: Leadfingers
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 06:10 AM

Is the Sheeps Hornpipe (Eire) , the Belfast Hornpipe (N Ireland) or Mavis's Favourite (Northumbrian Tune Book) the original ?? WHO Cares !! Its a bloody good tune whatever you call it , and just as popular under ANY name .
Songs are a different matter (Old Hobby Horse Time) and the fact that an Irishman has sung a Ewan MacColl song doesnt make it Irish , any more than me singing Raglan road makes it a Birmingham song .

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: RobbieWilson
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 06:10 AM

The other thing of course is that songs are what they are now and not what they were hundreds of years ago. The same is true of people.

The Scots as a race were originally from what we now call Ireland. People move and change, absorbing influences as the go. The same is true of songs.

I would say I am Scottish, although I have lived in England for 28 years. Two of my grandparents were Irish, my Surname is very English, though common in Scotland. It doesn't pay to get to parochial about these things.

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: RobbieWilson
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 06:19 AM

Having said all that, I was stunned recently to fid that The Merry Ploughboy ( We're all off to Dublin in the Green)is an old English Army recruiting song, with changes to very few of the words. See this thread.)
merry ploughboy

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: pavane
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 06:42 AM

Many of the 'IRA' songs were set to existing tunes.

Also, there are numerous threads on 'Irish' songs which aren't originally Irish.

A few examples, but you can search the forum for others

Danny Boy (Words by an Englishman, tune MAY be originally from Scotland)
Black Velevet Band (originally set in Barking, Essex - now in London)
Wild Rover (collected in Norfolk, but derived from a 17th C song with known author)
Wild Mountain Thyme = Braes o' Balquidder (Scottish)

(and Green Fields of France = No Mans Land, of course)

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: GUEST,paddy
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 07:24 AM

pavane what do you mean by "MAY be originally from Scotland"?

It's an Irish tune called "londonderry air" period!
The lyric was penned reportedly by a well to do english magistrate - but probably stolen from some penniless minstrel.

Black velvet band set in Barking - what a load of bollox.

Just own up the Irish have THE best musical tradition in these islands. The scotch & english are jealous.

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: pavane
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 07:40 AM

The (London)Derry Air was collected in Ireland, but scholars have linked it to a Scottish tune as possible origin. Danny Boy words were by Fred Weatherly, possibly the most prolific songwriter of the era.

The earliest known version of Black Velevet band, C1820 and set in Barking, can be seen on a broadside at the Bodleian Ballad Library.
There are many versions set in different places.

Black Velvet Band

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: pavane
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 07:50 AM

Blind Jimmy McCurry was supposedly the fiddler from whom the tune was collected.

"Tradition has it that the McCurrys came from Islay in Scotland. Jimmy's father, John, used to visit Ballycastle regularly from his home in Portnahaven, which had close links with Ireland. On one of his trips he met a girl whom he later married. The family settled in Ballycastle but later moved to Myroe, where blind Jimmy was born in 1830."

Therefore a Scottish connection is not so unlikely

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: Torctgyd
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 08:14 AM

I did find (or more acurately was pointed to) a website containing a thorough dissertation on the origin of the tune "Londonderry Air" which debunked some of the myths from Ireland about how it was found. Unfortunately I can't remember who wrote it, where it was or what conclusion the author came to as to the tunes origin (although IIRC it was an Irish origin).

T

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: GUEST,Landscape Artiste
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 08:18 AM

The earliest record of this tune is on 1638 manuscript in Limerick museum. The tune is called "The Island Field" and is near enough note for note the same. It is credited to Godfrey O'Donnell. It later turns up as "Kerry air" in the musical play "Fish for me cash" which was performed all over Ireland in the early 18th century.

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: Torctgyd
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 08:23 AM

W. H Gratton Flood did write a book about 100 years ago in which he claimed virtually every tune from the British Isles (and perhaps further afield) was in fact Irish. So perhaps your acquaintence is just redressing the balance!

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: GUEST,Jones
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 08:26 AM

You are all wrong!

"Dai Boy" was a welsh ballad written by Llynlleddyll Llondllyll in 1347. It was adapted by the Swansea choral society as their anthem in 1572 and to this very day you can see the original manuscript at their HQ library in Llydll Road Swansea.

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: GUEST,Taff
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 08:29 AM

You can do that can't you, won't you, where am I?

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: pavane
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 08:46 AM

Though I live near Swansea, I can't work out what the joke was in Jones's post, even in the mock Welsh names.

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: GUEST,Jones
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 09:00 AM

What joke?

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: Fiolar
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 09:24 AM

For those intereste if you can get hold of "Ireland's Own" dated April 8th there is a two page article on Fred Weatherly.

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: GUEST,stoned research man
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 09:45 AM

Excerpt from peabody encyclopedia of song

Danny Boy or Kerry Air

There is some dispute who put words to this tune. Although there had been over a hundred different sets of lyrics set to this melody over the years in Ierland, Danny Boy is the most enduring of them all.

Many people consider Kerry Air (or later londonderry) and Danny Boy in the same breath, but this famous air was first noted in 1751 in the Irish musical "Fish For Me Cash" yet it was over 160 later before the lyrics "Danny Boy" were added.

The story of these words start in Limerick where a lady overheard some tinkers playing the tune on whistles. It is also quite likely these tinkers came originally from Wales. She sent the tune to her brother in law, Fred Weatherly, who was a magistrate in Somerset England. Fred's hobby was collecting lyrics (in his lifetime he collected hundreds, including Roses of Picardy) and it was Fred Weatherly who dug upsome old lyrics he had collected in Limerick on an earlier visit - Danny Boy was born! This was 1913.

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: GUEST,Alesman
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 10:47 AM

Yes that's what they taught us at school

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 10:50 AM

Dirty old town of course - Written by Salfords own Jimmy Miller and then made its way to numerous antholgies of Irish music.

Funniest I saw lately though was an album called 'Celtic Dreams'. Some lovely tunes and songs on it, with my Favourite being one by Mary Black and General Humbert, but the last medley includes the Tennesee waltz! Didn't know the Celts made it that far:-)

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: artbrooks
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 10:53 AM

Well, as a person from the left side of the pond, I am fairly comfortable in saying that we stole from all of you!

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: GUEST,Allen
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 11:01 AM

Well I saw a cheapo compilation 'The Best Irish Folk Songs" or some sort title with GOODNIGHT IRENE!!

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 11:11 AM

Imagine that. Leadbelly one of the bhoys after all. Who'd have thought it?

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: Brakn
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 11:12 AM

You'll even hear God Save The Queen in parts of Ulster!

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 11:19 AM

Jones, I loved your post. As soon as I'm done here, I am going to google Llynlleddyll Llondllyll.
-------------
In preparation for my annual St Patrick's Day bash, I went through some of the "Airs, Songs" section of O'Neill's Music of Ireland. I found the following tunes in there under different names:

Kelvingrove - Shady Groves
Ar hyd y Nos - the Joys of Summer
Unfortunate Miss Bailey - Oh! the shamrock
Si Bheag, Si More - the Pretty Cuckoo

So here we have one purportedly Scottish tune, a Welsh tune, an English tune and an O'Carolan tune, all collected between about 1880 and 1900 from musicians who deemed them Irish.

In my view, tunes and people moved around so much that it's pointless to ask whether a song is English, Irish or Scottish.

Also, if a person has an Irish mother and an English father, what does that make his music?

Quit talking and play, that's my philosophy.

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: Bernard
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 11:31 AM

A good song is a good song, a good tune is a good tune... where it comes from is for the anally retentive to worry about!! Nobody else gives a fig - they'd sooner get on with the enjoyment!!

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: radriano
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 11:32 AM

And all this because of what somebody said to somebody in a session?

You know, you can't beleive everything you hear. Especially when presented in such a generalized way.

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: GUEST,eoin o'buadhaigh
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 04:48 PM

'Will Ye Go Lassie Go' may sound Scottish and Rod Stewart may at one stage have tried to claim the honour of writing it BUT. . . It's Irish, written by The McPeak family of Belfast.
It doesn't matter where they come from, enjoy them!
       (before Rod Stewart claims them...)
   cheers eoin

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 04:57 PM

Wild Mountain Thyme, a Tannahill resetting of the BRAES OF BALQUIDDER. Both were around long before the McPeaks.

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 05:34 PM

"Sit in an Irish pub and they will tell you the reverse....
Try Scotland and they'll tell you they're both lying!"

Well, eggs-actly! You can dress it up with all the pedantic verbiage you want, but most of these things eventually come down to "We stole it first!"

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: radriano
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 05:35 PM

At least get the names right. It's the McPeake family.

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: moocowpoo
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 05:38 PM

"all so called traditional irish tunes/songs were stolen from the english!". Therefore Ireland has NO traditional music, NONE whatsoever. It sounds suspiciously like a drunken rave, it implies that no Irish person has ever written a tune or song.
pretty silly sessioner.

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 05:47 PM

OTOH they say the same in ireland about England.

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: mindblaster
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 09:12 PM

All folk songs have their roots in Africa ....maaaan!

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Apr 05 - 12:00 AM

In Canada... you just all got absorbed :p

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: Boab
Date: 14 Apr 05 - 03:49 AM

"Jock o' Hazeldean" is a child of the Irish "Johnny Hazelgreene"
"Come by the Hills" [I first heard it sung by Finbar and Eddie 'way back in the sixties]has Scottish lyrics to an Irish tune.
"The Grimsby Boat Disaster" ["three score and Ten"] has been sung so often by Irish artistes that some would claim it for the Emerald Isle.
"Dark Lochnagar" was written by Lord Byron.
   Some melodies and/or lyrics are unmistakeably Irish [or Hollywood mock-Irish!], Scottish, or English. The nearest thing to the Hebridean lilts I have found in the songs of the Japanese islanders.
Good Folk music, both trad and contemporary, is an international joy, and mirrors the history and customs of peoples worldwide. Let's just celebrate ALL of it!

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Apr 05 - 03:57 AM

Isn't it the other way round with Jock o'Hazledean?

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: pavane
Date: 14 Apr 05 - 07:30 AM

Isn't this where we came in?

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: John Routledge
Date: 14 Apr 05 - 08:03 AM

"Stealing" songs and tunes has been going on for so long that I thought it was traditional.

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: GUEST,R Plant
Date: 14 Apr 05 - 08:39 AM

Myself and J Page had no songwriting ability whatsoever so we just stole EVERYTHING we ever recorded and made a huge fortune because millions of idiots had never heard the originals. Pass the champagne...

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: Brían
Date: 14 Apr 05 - 09:44 AM

I refuse to answer on the grounds I may incriminate myself...

Omygosh. I appreciate your honesty, R.

Brían

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: mindblaster
Date: 14 Apr 05 - 04:52 PM

True

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: Irish sergeant
Date: 15 Apr 05 - 04:44 PM

In the end a good song is enduring. Doesn't matter where it came from I can think of three songs off the top of my head all set to the same music Tramp, Tramp Tramp (the prisoner's Hope) From the American Civil War, "God SAve Ireland and Jesus loves the little children. Better that ttype of thievery than some of the other that goes on., Neil

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: GUEST,McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Apr 05 - 06:46 PM

Fred's hobby was collecting lyrics (in his lifetime he collected hundreds, including Roses of Picardy)

Fred Weatherley "collected lyrics" such as "Roses of Picardy" in the same sense any song writer "collects lyrics". There is a sense in which is true of anybody writing a song that becomes poopular - they've latched on to something in the air. But the songs aren't around to be sung before they put them together.

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 16 Apr 05 - 02:55 AM

I don't think that the "peabody encyclopedia of song" exists; nor do I believe that there was ever any play called "Fish for me cash", especially in the 18th century! Two "guests" (probably the same person) mention "ancestral" tunes that are probably also fictional. "The Island Field" is some sort of sports ground, isn't it?

There's always an outside chance that some anonymous person out there is miraculously possessed of knowledge that has eluded scholars for the last century, but it's also possible that the moon is really a turnip.

Foolishness like that can be mildly entertaining (and it's about the only thing that has been said in this thread that hasn't already been said here god knows how many times already), but the trouble is that somebody will believe it, and repeat it as "fact", and before you know it...

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: greg stephens
Date: 16 Apr 05 - 06:18 AM

I tend to agree with Malcolm Douglas here. The 18th century musical play "Fish for me cash", and the 17th century tune "Island Field", that are the suggested sources of "Danny Boy" sound suspiciously like fabrications to me. Lets have some references to this before we pass this information on! I would love to believe it, it's such fun to trace tunes back hundreds of years through various versions, but it's always as well to have a pinch of salt handy.

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: greg stephens
Date: 16 Apr 05 - 06:40 AM

Have thought about this a little more, and had a nose around. i cant even begin to credit this "Island Field" tune, that "GUEST Landscape artiste" claims is "near enough note for noter" the same as Danny Boy, and is a 1638 MS in Limerick museum. "Danny Boy" is such a famous song, and it's origin has genearted so much interest over the years, that I cannot believe the true original is only known to one anonymous Mudcatter. Any scholar who had tracked that tune down in Limerick would have been delighted to announce his discover to the world, so the fact that nobody has done so till it appeared on this thread suggests to me it a load of b*ll*cks. Which raise the really interestingquestion, why do people invent fictitious origins for folk tunes? What is the motivation? Correspondents often refer to people who discuss origins as "anally retentive", but this description does not seem to apply to people who try reinforce national claims to tunes by inventing pedigrees. Why do people do this? It's most interesting.
   Malcolm D mantions a sports field, presumabbly he is referring t the old Toronto island where they used to play rugger. Do we have a Canadian Irish wannabee here inventing Irish tune origins?

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: Janice in NJ
Date: 16 Apr 05 - 07:34 AM

Whenever I sing Geordie, I change "Bohenny" to "Kilkenny" as the place where the poacher sells the sixteen deer. I often get a response like, "Damn that bloody English judge!" along with the presumption that the song is Irish in origin. Yes, I confess I stole it on behalf of an pobal na hÉireann! Anyway, I've looked at maps of the U.K., and I can't find any Bohenny. Bo'ness is the closest, and it's in Scotland, not England. There is, however, the Boheny & Nesbitt Pub. And where is that? In Dublin, of course!

I know someone is going to tell me that Bohenny is a corruption of Bohemia. Maybe so, but taking those stolen deer all the way to the middle of the Continent is quite a trek, especially when Geordie could just as easily sold them in Kilkenny!

Oh, and here are a few songs the Irish stole from the Yanks:
Charley on the M.T.A. by Jacqueline Steiner & Bess Lomax.
The Boxer by Paul Simon.
The Rooster Song by God knows whom!

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: oombanjo
Date: 16 Apr 05 - 11:44 AM

How's this one, THE MOORLOCK SHORE.
OE'R HILLS AND VALES AND FLOWERY DALES
THAT LAY BENEETH MOORLOCKS SHORE.
                           THE FOGGY DEW.
ALL ROUND THE GLEN ONE EASTER MORN
TO A CITY FAIR RODE I..
                            BOTH SAME TUNE.
                            WICH CAME FIRST ???

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: Stephen R.
Date: 16 Apr 05 - 03:06 PM

Bohenny? Kilkenny? Hey, it's Virginny!

Stephen

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 16 Apr 05 - 03:28 PM

I was thinking of the "Island Field" in Limerick rather than the one in Canada.

On Kilkenny/Bohenny: Stephen Suffet also does that, and gets the same knee-jerk reaction from audiences who don't really understand the song. It's nothing new; as I mentioned in a past discussion here, Kilkenny was substituted in a Liverpool broadside edition printed around 1820. See thread How many versions of Geordie, which includes a short list of substitutions.

That particular Foggy Dew is a 20th century song set to an older tune. I thought everybody knew that by now (it's been discussed here often enough, and the lyric posted again and again), but a recent thread on tunes and songs of the American War of Independence period shows that they don't.

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: MartinRyan
Date: 16 Apr 05 - 03:34 PM

Janice

Sorry ot disappoint, but the (excellent) Dublin pub is Doheny & Nesbitt, rather than Bohenny! Well known for its school of economics!

Regards

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: Suffet
Date: 17 Apr 05 - 08:25 PM

Greetings:

The same reaction to "Kilkenny" is no surprise. I learned that version of Geordie from Janice shortly before going over to Ireland nearly 20 years ago. I have since heard it several times, always here in the USA, most recntly by an Irish-American group in New York. I think people do understand the song, and the change from Bohenny to Kilkenny is both easy and obvious.

--- Steve

Subject: RE: Irish tunes/songs stolen from english
From: GUEST,Malcolm
Date: 17 Apr 05 - 09:46 PM

Obvious, perhaps; but no more so than the many other alternatives (yes, the earliest known is Bohemia, but it was white steeds that were stolen rather than wild deer back in the 17th century).

If audiences think that the mere mention of an Irish placename means that it's about a Wicked English Judge being cruel to a poor wee Irishman, then they certainly haven't understood the song. I doubt if anyone ever thought that George of Oxford was Bohemian just because he fenced some stuff there.