“Farewell My Love and Remebre Me” also with the title “Our Ship Is Ready”, “The Ship Is Ready To Sail Away” or “My Heart is True”, but also “Emigrant Farewell” is the transposition in the Irish folk song of a broadside ballad entitled “Remember Me”, published in Dublin c.1867 (in the “Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads”).
The theme is that of the emigrant’s farewell who is forced to separate from his true love; he leaves his heart in Ireland so his woman and his country become one in the memory.
In “Ulster Ballad Singer (1968)” Sarah Makem is noted: “Sarah’s melody is used quite often for songs of farewell in much the same way as the air “The Pretty Lasses of Loughrea” was used allover the country for lamentations or execution songs, (see Joyce’s Old Irish Folk Music and Song, pp 219-211). The two best-known printed versions of Sarah’s air are “Fare you well, sweet Cootehill Town” (Joyce, O.I.F.M.S., p 192) and “The Parting Glass” (Irish Street Ballads. p 69). But until such time as a system of notation is invented to record the true intervals of a folksinger’s interpretation, Sarah Makem’s version of this air must remain for study on disc or tape.”
I
Our ship is ready to bear(sail) away
Come comrades o’er the stormy seas
Her snow-white wings they are unfurled
And soon she will swim in a watery world
(chorus)
Ah, do not forget, love, do not grieve
For my heart is true and can’t deceive
My hand and heart, I will give to thee
So farewell my love and remember me
II
Farewell to Dublin’s hills and braes
To Killarney’s lakes and silvery seas
‘Twas many the long bright summer’s day
When we passed those hours of joy away(1)
III (3)
Farewell to you, my precious pearl
It’s my lovely dark-haired, blue-eyed girl
And when I’m on the stormy seas
When you think on Ireland, remember me
III (The Boys of the Lough )
Farewell my love as bright as pearl
my lovely dark-haired, blue-eyed girl
and when I am seal in the stormy seas
I’ll hope in Ireland, you’ll think on me
IV
Oh, Erin dear, it grieves my heart
To think that I so soon must part
And friends so ever dear and kind
In sorrow I must leave behind
Extra Rhymes Lá Lugh
V
It’s now I must bid a long adieu
To Wicklow and its beauties too
Avoca’s braes where lovers meet
There to discourse in absence sweet
VI
Farewell sweet Deviney, likewise the glen
The Dargle waterfall and then
The lovely scene surrounding Bray
Shall be my thoughts when far away
NOTES
(1) or
Where’s many the fine long summer’s day
We loitered hours of joy away
second part: “Old Cross of Ardboe”
http://www.wtv-zone.com/phyrst/audio/nfld/03/ready.htm
http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=22322
