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happy? – Mar 1 (Rody MacCorly hanged)

01 Mar 06 - 08:42 AM (#1682147)
Subject: happy? – Mar 1 (Rody MacCorly hanged)
From: Abby Sale


Rody MacCorly was hanged at Toomebridge, Good Friday, March 1st 1800.
(Reported in Belfast Newsletter March 4th, 1800.) 

          You tender-hearted Christians all, now listen unto me,
          Till I relate these verses great, these verses two or three,
          Concerning of a clever youth was cut off in his bloom,
          And died upon the gal-lows tree, near to the Bridge of Toome.
  
                  "Rody McCorly" (Anon, c1798) in Colm O'Lochlainn: More Irish Street Ballads.

[thanx John Moulden of Ulster-songs where these things are available as broadsheets.]

Also found in DigTrad where there is additionally "Roddy McCorley," words by Ethna Carberry. Howard Kaplan points out, however, that, Easter is always the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox, so Good Friday cannot be as late as March 1st.

It seems that March 1, 1800 turns out to be a Saturday. There may be some mythology involved in all this.

Copyright © 2005, Abby Sale - all rights reserved
What are Happy's all about? See Clicky

01 Mar 06 - 08:47 AM (#1682150)
Subject: RE: happy? – Mar 1 (Rody MacCorly hanged)
From: manitas_at_work

Good Friday cannot be as late as March 1st.



Today is March 1st! Have I missed Good Friday somehow?

01 Mar 06 - 08:50 AM (#1682155)
Subject: RE: happy? – Mar 1 (Rody MacCorly hanged)
From: IanC

Good Friday can't be as EARLY as March 1st (I think the 20 something of March is the earliest it can be and the 18th April about as late.

:-)

01 Mar 06 - 09:07 AM (#1682179)
Subject: RE: happy? – Mar 1 (Rody MacCorly hanged)
From: Tootler

The song in the DigiTrad is the one I remember singing back in the 60's.

BTW the link to the midi appears to be broken. I had a "400 Bad request error" when I tried to check the tune was the same one. I was able to download the midi, but my midi player would not open it, but gave me an invalid format error.

01 Mar 06 - 09:55 AM (#1682243)
Subject: RE: happy? – Mar 1 (Rody MacCorly hanged)
From: Snuffy

In Ireland Good Friday seems very variable: In 1800 it was on March 1st, and in 1916 it was "all in the month of May".

01 Mar 06 - 10:07 AM (#1682256)
Subject: RE: happy? – Mar 1 (Rody MacCorly hanged)
From: Abby Sale

Thanks for the correction. Yep, April 14 this year. "As early as" seems reasonable. I have no opinion on these things. Likely I misquoted Howard.

01 Mar 06 - 10:12 AM (#1682263)
Subject: RE: happy? – Mar 1 (Rody MacCorly hanged)
From: IanC

"In recent years a permanent memorial has been erected at the spot of his execution. On it the date of his execution is given as 1799 but more recent research shows that this date is wrong. That Roddy was executed in Toome is not disputed but the date of Good Friday seems to come from the Ethna Carberry poem written during the centenary celebrations of the rising."

:-)

01 Mar 06 - 10:15 AM (#1682268)
Subject: RE: happy? – Mar 1 (Rody MacCorly hanged)
From: MartinRyan

"'Twas early in the month of Spring.." is one of my favourites.

Regards

01 Mar 06 - 10:42 AM (#1682284)
Subject: RE: happy? � Mar 1 (Rody MacCorly hanged)
From: Wolfgang

The date Friday 28th February 1800 is indubitably correct. The event is reported in the Belfast Newsletter of the following Tuesday. This date is impossibly Good Friday. (John Moulden in an earlier thread)

Wolfgang

01 Mar 06 - 03:46 PM (#1682557)
Subject: RE: happy? – Mar 1 (Rody MacCorly hanged)
From: Abby Sale

Moulden is the best authority in things like this. Squinting again in the Almanac, the Tuesday was March 4, the previous Friday was Feb 28. (It was not a leap year.)

My note from John of 5/30/97: Rody MacCorly: hanged at Toomebridge probably Friday March 1st 1800/ reported in Belfast Newsletter for Tuesday March 4th 1800

He indicated he needed to check further. Was the thread dated after that?

01 Mar 06 - 10:22 PM (#1682869)
Subject: RE: happy? – Mar 1 (Rody MacCorly hanged)
From: Anonny Mouse

EASTER is the first Sunday after the first full moon AFTER the Vernal equinox. Hence, Easter can never be earlier than March 21st or thereabouts. Just find out when the full moon is after the Vernal (Spring) equinox, and count back 3 days---Sunday, Saturday, FRIDAY! It is therefore impossible for Good Friday to be March 1st. Trust me. I'm correct on this.

As for Roddy McCorley, the Kingston Trio did a quintessential version of this tune on their "College Concert" album with John Stewart, who had replaced Guard one album before. So there!

01 Mar 06 - 10:36 PM (#1682881)
Subject: RE: happy? – Mar 1 (Rody MacCorly hanged)
From: Deckman

I've enjoyed this song for many, many years. Thanks for posting this remeberance. CHEERS, Bob(deckman)Nelson

01 Mar 06 - 10:46 PM (#1682890)
Subject: RE: happy? – Mar 1 (Rody MacCorly hanged)
From: jimmyt

I just finished a rehearsal of St. Paddys songs for an upcoming performance nad we . indeed, worked on ROddy McCorley as we always do. Possibly our signature song if we had one. Great music and moving lyrics jimmyt

01 Mar 06 - 11:04 PM (#1682896)
Subject: RE: happy? – Mar 1 (Rody MacCorly hanged)
From: Malcolm Douglas

The link

http://www.mudcat.org/media/midi/RMCORLEY.MID

should enable to you save the midi to your hard drive, and play it from there; for most people, though (and for me well before the crash: I still suspect that this is because MIME types haven't been re-set on the server) it can't be played online.

Sometimes, DT midi files won't play in normal midi programs. I've found that this is often due to the way they are generated from the obsolete SongWright format in which they are stored; this can lead to as many as several hundred empty bars appearing at the beginning. You can use a midi editor to remove them, but on the whole it might be best to store them as ordinary midi in the first place.

That isn't an issue with this particular midi.

02 Mar 06 - 12:23 AM (#1682938)
Subject: RE: happy? – Mar 1 (Rody MacCorly hanged)
From: GUEST

I read a fairly new book by Fr. Andrew Greeley recently, he often includes Irish people and places
in his books and mostly gets the details wrong. In this particular case he referred to Roddy
McCorley and got his (Roddy's) name wrong, the name of the bridge wrong, and the wrong date for the execution.

02 Mar 06 - 03:50 AM (#1683005)
Subject: RE: happy? – Mar 1 (Rody MacCorly hanged)
From: alanabit

I am not sure this was a "happy" day for Roddy McCorley...

02 Mar 06 - 08:34 AM (#1683127)
Subject: RE: happy? – Mar 1 (Rody MacCorly hanged)
From: Abby Sale

Anonny, ok, I trust you. BUT, although my almanac says this was not a leap year -

US Naval Obser reminds me
According to the Gregorian calendar, which is the civil calendar in use today, years evenly divisible by 4 are leap years, with the exception of centurial years that are not evenly divisible by 400. Therefore, the years 1700, 1800, 1900 and 2100 are not leap years, but 1600, 2000, and 2400 are leap years.

Ergo Feb 28 it is.

Thanks All.

02 Mar 06 - 08:47 AM (#1683142)
Subject: RE: happy? – Mar 1 (Rody MacCorly hanged)
From: Purple Foxx

Easter is the Sunday nearest to,rather than after,the vernal equinox.
This still does not allow for 1st March being Good Friday.
Not certain when Ireland switched from Julian to Gregorian calendar.
Might that be a factor?
Is it possible that the Good Friday date was to draw a comparison with somebody else executed on Good Friday?

02 Mar 06 - 09:03 AM (#1683153)
Subject: RE: happy? – Mar 1 (Rody MacCorly hanged)
From: IanC

Good Friday was just poetic imagery by Ethna Carberry. See above.

:-)

02 Mar 06 - 09:23 AM (#1683184)
Subject: RE: happy? – Mar 1 (Rody MacCorly hanged)
From: GUEST,Guest, Big Tim

I have checked the actual "Belfast News Letter" of Tuesday 4 March 1800 held by Queen's University, Belfast and this is what it says;

"Extract of a letter from Ballymena, Sunday 2nd March.

Upon Friday last, a most awful procession took place, namely the execution of Roger McCorley who was lately convicted at a Court-martial...".

So, McCorley was executed on Friday 28 February 1800. As far as I can trace, which involved checking back files of newspapers for the period, plus perpetual calendars, 1800 wasn't a leap year, otherwise the date would have been 29 February 1800. Good Friday 1800 was 11 April.

I investigated Roddy McCorley pretty thoroughly and published the results in my book, "One Green Hill: journeys through Irish songs" (2003).

02 Mar 06 - 09:29 AM (#1683192)
Subject: RE: happy? – Mar 1 (Rody MacCorly hanged)
From: Fiolar

Purple Fox: As Ireland was under British control in the 1700s it is probable that the calendar was changed when Britain did in September 1752. Eleven days were removed and there were riots with the people demanding "Give us back our eleven days".

02 Mar 06 - 06:45 PM (#1683657)
Subject: RE: happy? – Mar 1 (Rody MacCorly hanged)
From: Anonny Mouse

From Purple Fox: "Easter is the Sunday nearest to,rather than after,the vernal equinox..."
This is not correct...it is the Sunday AFTER the first full moon, AFTER the Vernal equinox (because if it WASN'T-Easter would ALWAYS be in March-no later than 3/28 or 3/29, no earlier than 3/21.).

This year, Easter is April 16th--the first Sunday, AFTER the first full moon, AFTER the Vernal equinox. See how that works? Last year, Easter was in March---this year it's in April-and fairly well-into the month!

02 Mar 06 - 07:02 PM (#1683675)
Subject: RE: happy? – Mar 1 (Rody MacCorly hanged)
From: Anonny Mouse

Here, check this out (I can't get this "blue clicky" thing to work!!!)
http://ancienthistory.about.com/b/a/078153.htm
http://ancienthistory.about.com/b/a/078153.htm

Did that work? Guess I'll have to post and see.