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Journal of the Irish Folk Song Society, Volume 1, Issue 2, Page 10

Journal of the Irish Folk Song Society, Volume 1, Issue 2, Page 10
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periodical Publisher
Irish Folk Song Society
periodical Editor
[Periodical]
periodical Title
Journal of the Irish Folk Song Society
volume Number
1
issue Content
1819easily seen that such a form of metre, beyond any other thing of the kind known in anylanguage, would be the least adapted to be set to music. There is a sort of jolt in it,that renders it totally unfit to be sung. If the first line ends in a word of one syllable,the second line must end in a word of two; and if the third line ends in a word oftwo syllables, the fourth line must end in one of three. For narrative or solemn pur-poses, Deibhidhe is as suitable and as powerful a metre as could be imagined, but it couldhardly be sung or set to music in a pleasing manner by the most skilful musician, and itevidently was never intended to be sung.There are many other kinds of metres to be seen in ancient Irish writings, butvery few of them would be suitable to be sung or set to music. I have searched throughthe Book of Leinster, the Eook of the Dun Cow, the Books of Lecan and other oldmanuscripts, but could not find anything in them that might be called a lyric, or thatcould have been intended for such. This is really very curious, and very hard to beaccounted for. If Ireland had not been from the earliest times famous forits music, andif its ancient literature did not, above all other ancient literature, abound with referencesto music and musical instruments, we would not wonder so much at the absence of lyricpoetry in it. Dr. P. W. Joyce, the best living authority on such a rnatterfor he is amusician as well as a savantrthinks that most of those ancient metres were sung, but ina style different from anything practised at present. This is probably the fact, but itappears to me that singing was not practised in ancient Ireland to the same extent as itis practised at present. The ancient poets seem to have written more for the ear thanfor music. Their elaborate metrical system, so full of alliteration, vowel and consonantcorrespondence, and internal rhyme, seems tohave been intended more to please the ear thanto suit the music. Then there is the almost total absence of any of the old metres inmodern Gaelic folk-songs. Nine-tenths of them are in modern metres. There is hardlyone of them in the metres mentioned by ODonovan and Molloy in their Irish grammars.If there was lyric poetry in ancient Ireland, and there probably was, it is strange that solittle of it has been handed down to us.But there is at least one poemit may be called a songin modern Irish, thathas a very ancient trnirnhire; that is, the Blackbird of Derrycarn. It was printed forthe first time, so far as I know, in the Transactions of the Gaelic Society of 1808. Themetre in which it is written is called O,ke1 as. It would be next to impossible to findmore rhythmic smoothness and auricular harmony in any verses in any language. Theauthor of the book mentioned, T. OFlanagan, says that the poem is popularly believedto be as old as the time of St. Patrick. If it is, the language must have been modernised,a thing that probably was done. Only two verses of the song are given; they tell of thesounds that were most pleasing to Finn, and the things his followers liked and disliked:Cearca fraoich urn Chruachan Ohuinn,Fead i1 dobrin Druim.d -loch,Gtha gadhar Glinn.na-chFuath,Longaire cach Ohnuic-na-sgoth.An tri. do mliair Finn s an FhianDob aunsa leo an sliabh n n chill;Ba bhinn leosan fuighle lou;Gtha na gclog leo nior bhinn.The [ cry] of heath-hens about Croghan of Conn,The sorrowful whistle of Drum-d.loeh,The cries of the hounds of Glenn-na.vooach,The cooing (?) of the cuckoos of Knock-na-sgoh.When Finn and the Fians lived,Dearer to them was the mountain than the church;Melodious to them were the voices of blackbirds;They loved not the sounds of bells.The above Irish verses have almost every requisite of an old composition: rhyme,alliteration, vowel and consonant correspondence, together with. the proper number ofsyllables in each line; things in which most modern Irish folk-songs are sadly lacking.There are, however, some very euphonious lyrical compositions in modern Irishsongs, the words of which suit exactly the music to which they are set. They may n9thave all the requisites of the ancient metres, but lacking some of them does not inter-fere with their striking adaptability to the music to which they are set. This will benoticed in Archbishop MacHales trahslation of The Valley lay smiling before me, byMoore. It will be necessary to give only the Irish of one verse of the song, the first,which is nearly a literal rendering of Moores wordsF
issue Number
2
page Number
10
periodical Author
[Periodical]
issue Publication Date
1967-01-01T00:00:00
allowedRoles
anonymous,guest,friend,member

Journal of the Irish Folk Song Society, Volume 1, Issue 2

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