Two texts in search of an author, with the same title “Shamrock shore” we distinguish two different songs, both as text and as melody, the first reported by PW Joyce at the end of the nineteenth century is an irish emigration song, the second ever traditional is also an emigration song, but above all a protest song, the social and political denunciation of the Irish question.
EMIGRATION SONG: To London fair
Already at the end of the 1800s P. W. Joyce reported it in his “Ancient Irish Music” to then republish it in 1909, so he writes “This air, and one verse of the song, was published for the first time by me in my Ancient Irish Music, from which it is reprinted here. It was a favourite in my young days, and I have several copies of the words printed on ballad-sheets“. Again P. W. Joyce in Old Irish Folk Music (1909) reports further text
“Ye muses mine, with me combine and grant me your relief,
While here alone I sigh and moan, I’m overwhelmed with grief:
While here alone I sigh and moan far from my friends and home;
My troubled mind no rest can find since I left the Shamrock shore.”
The Irish emigrant arrives in London, the tune is that generally known with the title of”Erin Shore” (see)
Horslips from Happy to meet, sorry to part, 1972
PW Joyce, 1890 I In early spring when small birds sing and lambkins sport and play, My way I took, my friends forsook, and came to Dublin quay; I enter’d as a passenger, and to England I sailed o’er; I bade farewell to all my friends, and I left the shamrock shore. |
II To London fair, I did repair some pleasure there to find I found it was a lovely place, and pleasant to mine eye The ladies to where fair to view, and rich the furs they wore But none I saw, that could compare to the maids of the shamrock shore |
PARTY SONG: You brave young sons of Erin’s Isle
More than a song, a political rant about the need for the independence of Ireland and the evils of landlordism.
Matt Molloy, Tommy Peoples, Paul Brady (1978)
I You brave young sons of Erin’s Isle I hope you will attend awhile ‘Tis the wrongs of dear old Ireland I am going to relate ‘Twas black and cursed was the day When our parliament was taken away And all of our griefs and sufferings commences from that day (1) For our hardy sons and daughters fair To other countries must repair And leave their native land behind in sorrow to deplore For seek employment they must roam Far, far away from the native home From that sore, oppressed island that they call the shamrock shore II Now Ireland is with plenty blessed But the people, we are sore oppressed All by those cursed tyrants we are forced for to obey Some haughty landlords for to please Our houses and our lands they’ll seize To put fifty farms into one (2) and take us all away Regardless of the widow’s sighs The mother’s tears and orphan’s cries In thousands we were driven from home which grieves my heart full sore We were forced by famine and disease (3) To emigrate across the seas From that sore, opressed island that they called the shamrock shore |
III Our sustenance all taken away The tithes and taxes for to pay To support that law-protected church to which they do adhere (4) And our Irish gentry, well you know To other countries they do go And the money from old Ireland they squandered here and there For if our squires would stay at home And not to other countries roam But to build mills and factories (5) here to employ the laboring poor For if we had trade and commerce here To me no nation could compare To that sore, oppressed island that they call the shamrock shore IV John Bull (6), he boasts, he laughs with scorn And he says that Irishman is born To be always discontented for at home we cannot agree But we’ll banish the tyrants from our land And in harmony like sisters stand To demand the rights of Ireland, let us all united be And our parliament in College Green For to assemble, it will be seen And happy days in Erin’s Isle we soon will have once more And dear old Ireland soon will be A great and glorious country And peace and blessings soon will smile all around the shamrock shore |
NOTES
1) The song is obviously post-Union (1800), because it refers to the dissolved Irish Parliament
2) the plague of landlordism
3) in 1846 the entire crop of potatoes (basic diet of the Irish) was all destroyed due to a fungus, the peronospera; the “great famine” occurred (1845-1849 which some historians prolonged until 1852) which lasted for several years and almost halved the population; those who did not die of hunger were lucky if they could leave for England or Scotland, but more massive was the migration to America
4) ‘tithes and taxes’ paid in support of the Irish Church, so the song pre-dates the Act of Disestablishment in 1869
5) the years of large-scale industrial expansion (with relative upgrading of infrastructure) began in Britain starting from 1840-50
6) John Bull is the national personification of the Kingdom of Great Britain
FONTI
http://ingeb.org/songs/yebravey.html
http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=62929 http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=130087
https://thesession.org/discussions/13438
http://www.celticlyricscorner.net/casey/shamrock.htm