Lyr Req: Mharie Mor / Mairi Mhor / Màiri Mhór

Subject: Lyr Req: Mharie Mor
From: folk_radio_uk
Date: 03 Dec 06 - 11:31 AM

does anyone have the lyrics and translation to Mharie Mor?

Many thanks

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mharie Mor
From: Effsee
Date: 03 Dec 06 - 11:52 AM

Try Googling - Mhairi Mhor.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mharie Mor
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 03 Dec 06 - 12:07 PM

But for rather more extensive results, try Mairi Mhor instead.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mharie Mor
From: folk_radio_uk
Date: 03 Dec 06 - 12:19 PM

Cheers

I think I've found it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mharie Mor
From:
Date: 03 Dec 06 - 12:25 PM

Malcolm has it properly in Gaelic. - However don't recall ever seeing a song of that title.

Mary MacPherson or Mary of the Big Songs (ie Mairi Mhor) was a real person, who was covered in a Gaelic film a few years back with a movie of that title. She wrote some of the seminal songs in the fight for land rights by the tenant farmers against the Clan Lords who were clearing their lands to put them to more profitable use raising sheep instead of crops or clan members. Good movie of some terrible times.

Can you tell us where you heard this song and who by?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mharie Mor
From:
Date: 03 Dec 06 - 12:28 PM

Also, Big Mary is the literal translation for "Màiri Mhór.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mharie Mor
From:
Date: 03 Dec 06 - 01:35 PM

folk_radio_uk, could you enlighten us with some information on the song, singer, etc? Thanks

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mharie Mor
From: folk_radio_uk
Date: 03 Jan 07 - 05:34 AM

Sorry I haven't got back sooner:

It's a singer friend that's after the lyrics. I thought I had the lyrics but it wasn't the one. She doesn't know the singer. She can sing the first verse phonetically so forgive spelling etc:

Tarva nom senara war agus van erlin inish vaira quin
Moogras imaura waura
Shey a vanya bora hanya lonya saura wol y waur

Is a wol y waur
A deuch a doo a
Mar a gigolom my own tu
Go mar turin sa deara hu

She realises the vaira bit is probably the Mhaire bit. We've had no luck googling it.

Cheers

Subject: Lyr Add: Máire Mhór
From: Felipa
Date: 28 Nov 21 - 11:52 AM

I can barely get any Gaelic from the crazy transliteration and I probably wouldn't understand the singer - but I realised that "is a wol y waur, A deuch a doo a" has some similarity to the chorus of an Irish Gaelic song I'm familiar with, "A Mháire mhór, an dtiofaidh tú" (big Mary, will you come). So it has nothing to do with the Scottish songwriter and activist Màiri Mhòr nan Òran, Great Mary of the Songs (1821-1898).

Máire Mhór has been recorded by Dé Danann and by Dervish
These lyrics are from https://songsinirish.com/maire-mhor-dervish-lyrics/ (probably transported from the older site Celtic Lyrics Corner)

Tá bean a'msa in Arainn Mhor
Is bean eile in Inis Bearacháin
Ach mo ghrá í Máire Mhór
Is i an bhean is fearr ar fad acu

Curfá:
Is oró Mháire Mhór
Is a Mháire Mhár a' dtiocfaidh tú?

Is grá mo chroí mo stóirín
Is tú nach ndearfadh tada liom
Is tú a chuirfeadh na fataí móra
I dtaisc' ar leic an teallaigh dhom

(Curfá)

Ní le faochain na le barnigh
Ná le bláth na scailliun dearga
A mheall mise Máire Mhór
Ach le fuisce láidir Shasana

(Curfá)

Mura dtiocfaidh tú mar gheall tú
Go mbáitear ins an gcladach thú

(Curfá)

Dá bhfeicfeá Máire Mhór,
's í dul sráideanna na Gaillimhe
Gan fálach ar a bráid
Ach cóta mór a' charraera[?]

(Curfá)

Dá mbeinnse 'n Árainn Mhór
Is mo bhád seoil bheith faoi lucht agam
Nach deas 'thornalfainn an ród
Ach Máire Mhór a bheith faoi deic agam

(Curfá)

Bhí 'yes' aici 's bhi 'no' aici
Is ar ndóigh bhí 'what not' aici
Is murach lucht a' Bhéarla
Nach gcuirfinn 'Dandy cap] uirthi

(Curfá)

Mura dtiocfaidh tú mar gheall tú
Go mbaitear ins a' gcladach thú

(Curfá)

Mura dtiocfaidh tú mar gheall tú
Go mbáitear ins a' gcladach thú


Translation

I have a wife in Aranmore
And another wife in Inis Bearacháin
But my love is Máire Mhór
She is the best woman

Chorus:
And oh Máire Mhór
And oh Máire Mhór, will you come?

Oh my darling and my dear
Sure you'd never say a word to me
Big praties you'd have hid
And roastin' on the hearth for me

It's not with periwinkles or barnacles
Or the blossoms of scallion
That I would entice Máire Mhór
But with strong English whisky

And if you say you won't
I hope you drown in the shore

If you saw Máire Mhór on the streets of Galway
With no scarf round her neck and chest, but only the carter's overcoat

Were I to be in Árainn (Inishmore, Aran Islands)
With my sailing boat fully loaded
Wouldn't I turn the road (tack the boat) nicely
With Máire Mhór below deck

video with lyrics on screen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWiZkHHm740

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mharie Mor / Mairi Mhor / Màiri Mhór
From: Felipa
Date: 28 Nov 21 - 12:00 PM

as for Màiri Mhòr nan Òran,her Òran Beinn Lì is posted on Mudcat https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=168388

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mharie Mor / Mairi Mhor / Màiri Mhór
From: pattyClink
Date: 28 Nov 21 - 07:54 PM

Thanks for untangling that. I am familiar with the Dervish recording and was deluded into thinking it involved Donegal's Arainn Mhor commonly called Arranmore.

But it's clearly about the Aran Isles near Galway, and they 'mean' Inishmann when they say 'the big Aran island' by calling it Arranmore in the translated verse.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mharie Mor / Mairi Mhor / Màiri Mhór
From: Felipa
Date: 28 Nov 21 - 08:41 PM

Inis Meain aka Inishmaan is the middle island, Inis Oirr (Inisheer) the Eastern island. Inishmore (inis mór the big island) is referred to as "Árainn" when speaking Irish. Usually the word mór isn't used so the island name of the largest of the Aran Islands, Árainn, isn't confused with Arranmore in Donegal or in Scotland.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mharie Mor / Mairi Mhor / Màiri Mhór
From: GUEST,pattyClink
Date: 28 Nov 21 - 10:10 PM

Whoops, I got that wrong too. Thanks again.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add; Máire Mhór
From: Felipa
Date: 01 Dec 21 - 03:57 PM

well, I put something wrong too. The Scottish "Isle of Arran" or "Arrann" is just that, no "more" or mór/mhór added to its name. The Gaelic name is Eilean Arainn. Eilean is another word for an island, spelled "oilean" in Irish.

https://voiceforarran.com/issue-117/arran-gaelic-place-names/

https://placeandsee.com/wiki/isle-of-arran:

"Most of the islands of Scotland have been occupied consecutively by speakers of at least four languages since the Iron Age. Many of the names of these islands have more than one possible meaning as a result. Arran is therefore not unusual in that the derivation of the name is far from clear. Mac an Tàilleir (2003) states that 'it is said to be unrelated to the name Aran in Ireland' (which means 'kidney-shaped', cf Irish ára 'kidney'). Unusually for a Scottish island, Haswell-Smith (2004) and William Cook Mackenzie (1931) offer a Brythonic derivation and a meaning of 'high place' (c.f. Middle Welsh aran) which at least corresponds with the geography — Arran is significantly loftier than all the land that immediately surrounds it along the shores of the Firth of Clyde."