THE IRISH SONG.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 490, 24 April 1909, Page 9

THE IRISH SONG.

. As' the stork brings the . babies in Germany, so the wild swan brings tho people's songs p though sometimes . it*is agqose.■: ."It you ask who made this song," says' a ballad, .'the answer .'is,;•> Three 'grey geese, and, a -fflute oue./'r; Or,:if the song; tolls'of'love, .. .tho nigiitingalei -is' its •' messenger.'.; In Erigton'd. we,'darenot trust to'things so transiW ory as . birds, but to secure , a steady /supply ot poetry wo endow a Poet Laureate. Jie- , Bide 3. the,laurel'-oroffUj fw'e bfestpw" on' him •an annual pipe of• sherry, "to make him sing," as i'lato said when, in hia model ; Btato, he, allowed old riion .a little .wine. .We ;.support a -vast leisured clas3 'for ; iriinor poets ; too, encouraging ; them ;to : sing at their owii axpenso; Ancl .tnore is Tlarry Lauder, whom ,wo pay a' hundred : tunes; more , than tho .-Laureate,-', because/.we.'like 'himTa; hundred .: times better.' So, by one form of recompense ; or another, we ensure foil ourselves the bost poetry that money can buy. iiut in Ireland the-poet's-case has .'been a little.'dilferen t.- l; Certainly/ her :poet3 'were ■ aiw. a 7 3 plentiful, : :and at one' ti'm& they appear to. have received some .support, from ,the;upper/classes.\ In the part "or i his' ''Itiiie- . ;.; rary",';'treating: of. Iroland ■. in Elizabethan 7times, J'yncs Atoryson, tells us so: "Tho wild .... or mere Iri3h,". ho. says; "have a ; generation of poets, or, rather/rhymers, vulgarly.calh<l' birds, : -who, .in 'their ; songs,' used/to extol, the most bloody- licentious men, and .no '•/./' etlierdj 'iahd/to' 'alluro' the : hearers, not'- to the'-love of civil manners, but' to outrages/robberies, liviflg'as outlaws, atul Bonteiript';.'ol'\th6l;l^!^tes/.indvKine , B laws. Alas I how unlike unto Orpheus, who, R'ith his sweet harp and'/wholesome.. precepts of poetry"—and so on. ... . . • / _ Through. Moryson's. English eyes we get .... just, .that glimpse of the Irish "poets at a time when, liko their country,' they. had . fallen from their. highest ; estate,'/ and were > . no longer the honoured singers of national • greatness; though still welcome in ;tlie homes of the surviving prinoc3 .~of ; claiis;,bccause tiiev sang of war and•'daring arid" defiance of'the. foroign rule. He gives. another reai■ ■ ■ eon for. their' position of mlluohoo: The mere Irish,", he . says,' ; "howsoover--they , un- ■: ilerstand. not what vis 'truly honourable", yet : : But of barbarous ignorance are so affected to j , yam glory, as thoy/nothing so'much fear,the Lord-Deputy's angef , as the - least song ;or ' ...balled those rascals, might -,make/-against . them, tho singing .whereof; to their reproach, . .would more-havo.'dauntod; them/than if a S judgovhad doomed them to the gallows." •.. -'Satire has always remained one of.the Irish ■; '-isinger's powers,' and "to put a -song .upon you"; ono of. his/mostterrible threats.;. But ~ . the ;h;avoo :ahd dovastaiipif..that/accompanied '•/•'• England's Imperial rnle^for^two/iind. a .half cultures; after Elizabeth's, accession still furf ; ; ther reduced the'dignity of the • poets by .' . ; • destroying-, tho /-great • Irish... houses'. m which . their languase could bo understood.;/.lt was ' tliU3 /that/.the Irish singers 'became in the '■ finest ' sense 'popular-' .poets, f wandering t)> tough tho countrv with harnn. that led

the soul of music in dim hovels among tho bogs and .mountains; Like tho prophets of old, having the compensation, of song,' they were often.blind, and, always in destitution, they sang from .villago to village at other people's expense, as noiio of our minor poots can. Tho names'of one or two of the most distinguished liavo come down to us. Such were Garolan, whoso harp still lives, and Baftery, who. was singing a hundred years ago, and made this answer to a stranger, as Lady Gregory translates:—"l am Raftery, the poet, full of hope and love; with eyes without , light, with gentleness -without misery. Going west. on my journey with the 'lightof.my heart; weak and tired to the end of my'road, I am now, and my back to a wall, playing music to empty pockets." '.;.- Such, wo suppose, was Hanrahan the Redj and,' of a later time, Michael Moran, who, like could not see a stim, but sang in Dublin streets till just before the Famine,' nnd- has his place in Mr. Yeats's "Celtic Twilight.- , ' He it;was who made-a poem on Moses, and a parody on tho'same beginning: ;,f ln Egypt's land, contagious, to theNilu,. King PharaohV daughter went to buthe in ■.■■'■' -style.': 1 -■'■-■ '•••■.'••■ ,■.'■■.■" -.'■; ' ■'.- . . vShe.tuk her dip; then walked unto the land, To dry;her. Kpyal pelt, she ran aimg the : ' strand. ' ■' ■-'" ' ■ . . ■ A bulrush tripped her, whereupon sho saw A smiling babby,in a wad:o , straw. She tuk it up, and said, with accents mild: 'Tare-and-ngers, girls, which av yez owns the -.-'.'. child?'" ..:■*.-.;.. . . ■'.■.-,.. "But; it: is seldom' that the names, 'of tie singers have survived. They Jed an obscure and unrecorded life, singing their.'country's' language,.unknown .to the foreigners who set the fashion of polite literature, and haunting the cloudy wastes: and sunset estuaries whero' the followers of foreign culture never cared to penetrate. We know;little of them beyond the remaining words and tunes, which have passed into the general heart of their people, bringing: with them 'almost the only spiritual-blessing of existence to tho poor. They'were the't'hree grey birds and a whiteone who T niade the. songs of Ireland... Many of those: songa, and especially of the tunes, swere memories from older and more splen.did times, ;but the true Irish '-folk-songs" seem chiefly to have arisen in those centuries of ytho .country's blackest misery, and they : ended abruptly as the song of a bird when' it is shot, , .in the.great famine of siriy :yearsagb.':As.;!has. happened , in other countries, those -who cared,to .preserve them came all .but too late for their It'-was actually during: tho famine years.and the ten : years "after"that'tho.fullest collections:were made by Dr. Petrie and Williain Fordc. .But since '.theii, as.is' well known, : the great national w ; 6rk has been carried on:by a. band of. patriots, l; of 'whom' Dr. Douglas Hyde, An Craoibhin; Aoibhin, founder of the G-aelic League,.is'chief.- -",-" ,:;..'.....■ ", : Bugh;, as ;the service, of many .others has been, perhaj>3;Yafter"' all, the' Irish song and :music-owe most to Dr. P. W:\ Joyce, who has l'ecorded his memories irbm.:days of boy-j hood in'the Ballyhoura mbuntiiins, far away back before the famine came. ' He'has now, issued : a new.collection of nearly a thousand unpublished songs and dances, about half of them iiioted .down,.by himself, and , tho i remainder: by William Forde and John Edward Pigot.' It is called "Old Irish Folk Music and■! Songs" (Hodges, Figgis, and Co.j Dublin, and Longmans, \London), and- is mainly 'a record .of the music, -. especially of old reels,' .jigs,''and hornpipes;- though in : some.'cases the words of the old songs are. giyeri,: , .and • we only ' wish they . could have .been , given in all,, Even ■ tho songs 'that were composed in ' a kind of English to the:old Irish .tunes are worth preserving, | some:times;for. a.charm of feeling, and nearly always, as a proof how impossible it is for a poet' to ;u3e any tongue -but hi 3 mother's with-complete •.mastery: •■■.'• ■'' .- ''■. ..

- :Dr. Joyce, tells us that about 3000 of the Irish; airs ' ;havo now been printed, and he' can put his hand on as many inoro still in manuscript.; It ; is a great heritage for. any nation, and a great defence for tbose who are trying to 'exclude-from Ireland the.corruption of the English music-halls and the abomination of the stage. Irish songs that are thought so funny in.Londori suburbs. .But ■we',cannot liere; treat;.'pf jtlie music;-be-yond = noticing ) 'ihat' ; ])iv : - Joyco "'thinks'- it >is . usually. • taken -too ■, slow,.:■-for• he- regards its real character as rapid and spirited rather ■than melancholy.; .-The/Irish music, in fact, has both characters, just as tho songs have both, though scholars and living Irish/poets have, dwelt chiefly on the melancholy side/, There was nothing melancholy. in the songs lor "hauling home the bride";nor in the adventures of 'Valentine O'Hara, who made a great sum of money when he , took to the road, but -'.'lost it all in a sudden death 'at Tyburn"; nor in the satirical ballads- such as Moryson had heard of, and of which Dr. Joyce, gives two .examples, to him ill boyhood; .nor about the. songs of splendour that, Lady Gregory says the old people in Irish; workhouses,', love the best-—the tales of-.castles ; with- crowns overthe dobrs, and lovers 1 ' flights on the backs of eagles, and music-loving water-witches, and journeys: to the other world, and sleeps that last for seven ■ hundred . years; nor, again, .in tho song that Iteftcry made for a wedding feast, when there was not a bit but bread and herrings in the. house, and. he made a. great song about the ! grand ' feast they had, and ho put every sort' of: thing into 'the songall but the beef that was in: Ireland; and ho wont to the Clacldagh, and did riot leave a fish in the sea. And there was no one at all at. tho wedding ; but. he brought all the bacachs and poor men in Ireland, and gave them a pound each. He went to bed after, - '.without; thorn .••giving', him ■a.'drop to drink, as Lfidy Gregory ' also tells in her account of him; : but he did not mind that, when they had, not got it to givo. Or if ,we want the peculiar passion that some people call the Celtic note, wo .have but to turn to the Love Songs of Connacht: "She is my treasure, oh .' she is my treasure,' tho woman, of the grey eye,'she like the rose, a woman,who would not place a han.l beneath my:head, a woman who would not go with me for gold. . "She. is my-secret love,;oh! she is my 6ecret love, a woman who tells me nothing, 11 woman who would not-breathe a sigh after miya woman jvhoMvould not for me shed tears.' -V ■ Or wo may romcmber once more that finest of ,West Irish songs, called "The Grief of a Girl's Heart," that begins: - r ' ■"0 Donnal Øog, if you go across the sea bring myself with you, ond do not forget it; and you will have'a'sweetheart for fair days and market days, and the daughter of the King of 'Greece' beside you-at night. ; 'It is lato last night, the dog was speaking of you; the snipo was speaking of yoj in her doep marsh.; ; It is you- are tho lonely bird through the-woods, and that you may be without; a mate lintilyou find .me.". ';; When' a country possesses sucli an inberitonco -as ; this, what wonder if its, people insist that: no' one. shall-enter, their national university.: who -is so" ignorant: of . their language as to; be excluded from its woalth ? Tho wonder is that, any such regulation should be needed or thougt-of. It would be very hard, on© supposes, for an Englishman who could, speak Danish to. matriculate in Oxford.—Tho ''Nation."