To Thread - Forum Home

The Mudcat Café TM
https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=13693
7 messages

Lyr Req: Irish Settler's Lament

13 Sep 99 - 03:26 PM (#113924)
Subject: Irish Emigrant's Lament
From: Joe Offer

I really like the Jean Redpath recording of The Scarborough Settler's Lament (click). I mentioned it to Dan Milner last night, because Dan has an interest in the songs of the Irish who came to North America. It's a great song, but the settler was from Scotland, not Ireland. Here's what Fowke says in the Penguin Book of Canadian Folk Songs: Although most Canadian songs are Irish-oriented, Scotland also provided many of our early settlers. Some left the Highlands after the Jacobite Rebellions, and more followed when sheep enclosures drove small farmers from their land. They settled in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia; and in Glengarry, Perth, Dundas, and Scarborough townships in Ontario. Many of them were homesick for their native land, and Sandy Glendenning, who settled in Scarborough (now part of Metropolitan Toronto) in 1840, described his feelings, setting them to the first part of the old Scots air, Of A' the Airts the Wind Can Blow. the song had some currency throughout Ontario, elsewhere being called simply A Scottish Settler's Lament. Sheila Bucher, longtime editor of the 'Old Favourites' page in the Family Herald, say her grandmother sang it to the tune of The Irish Emigrant's Lament. The Irish Emigrant's Lament.? Uh-oh. Not in the Digital Tradition (and it looks like I gave the wrong title to this thread). Looks like we have another song to search after. Can anybody help?
-Joe Offer-

13 Sep 99 - 06:14 PM (#113966)
Subject: Lyr Add: THE IRISH EMIGRANT (Lady Dufferin)
From: bigJ

Joe, I'm not convinced that this is the one, but Lady Dufferin wrote The Irish Emigrant which Count John McCormick recorded in New York on the 13th of January in 1928. It's always been a great favourite among tenors - and indeed it regularly turns up in the repertoire of traditional singers too. Frank Harte makes a good job of it. Here are the words.

THE IRISH EMIGRANT
(Lady Dufferin)

I'm sitting by the stile, Mary, where we sat side by side,
On a bright May morning long ago when first you were my bride
And the corn was springing fresh and green, and the lark sang loud and high
And the red was on your lips Mary, and the love-light in your eye.

The place is little changed, Mary, the day is bright as then
The lark's loud song is in my ear, and the corn is green again
But, I miss the soft clasp of your hand and the breath warm on my cheek
And I still keep listening to the words, you never more may speak
You never more may speak.

I'm very lonely now, Mary, for the poor make no new friends,
But oh, they love the better still the few our father sends
And you were all I had Mary, my blessing and my pride
There's nothing left to care for now since my poor Mary died

I'm bidding you a long farewell, my Mary kind and true,
But I'll not forget you darling, in the land I'm going to.
They say there's bread and work for all, and the sun shines always there
But I'll ne'er forget old Ireland were it fifty times as fair
Were it fifty times as fair.

13 Sep 99 - 07:39 PM (#113984)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Irish Settler's Lament
From: Alice

Joe, here is a link to an earlier thread on LAMENT OF THE IRISH EMIGRANT, from July 1997.
click http://www.mudcat.org/thread.CFM?threadID=2347

Alice Flynn

13 Sep 99 - 07:40 PM (#113985)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Irish Settler's Lament
From: Barry Taylor

I'm not sure how to blue-clicky a refreshed thread, but if you refresh on the keyword Emigrant you'll find some discussion around this tune on 18 Aug. Also in there are links to two midis demonstrating two separate melodies that evolved o'er the eons.

13 Sep 99 - 08:01 PM (#113991)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Irish Settler's Lament
From: Alice

I provided the full lyrics and there is quite a discussion at the link to the July/97 thread. - alice

13 Sep 99 - 08:35 PM (#113998)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Irish Settler's Lament
From: Barry Taylor

Alice... I see now that our responses were within one minute of each other's, so I wasn't aware of yours while I was drafting mine. Anyway, top notch service I'd say! :-)

13 Sep 99 - 10:54 PM (#114033)
Subject: Lament of the Irish Emigrant
From: Joe Offer

Oh, YEAH, I've heard that song! Thank you very much, everybody. I searched the database and forum, but a little discrepancy in the title of the song threw me off.
-Joe Offer-