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At the Brink of the white Rock (Ar Bhruach na carraige báine) is said to originate from the Blasket Islands, a now-deserted archipelago just off Dingle Bay. The original Gaelic would have lived on there. The song, like so many Irish ballads, deals with the lost love for a woman. Gerard Harrison wrote the arrangement […]

Carrickfergus is a well-known Irish ballad from the nineteenth century that has been performed by various artists. It is probably a combination of a number of songs. The lyrics of the song are full of nostalgia for the Northern Irish town of Carrickfergus and the home of a loved one across the sea in the

Down by the Sally Gardens is a poem by the Irish poet William Butler Yeats (1865 – 1939). The text was set to music by Herbert Hughes (1882 – 1937) and others, such as Rebecca Clark (1886 – 1979), John Ireland (1879 – 1962) and Benjamin Britten (1913 – 1976). I once had a guitar

Down by the Sally Gardens is a poem by the Irish poet William Butler Yeats (1865 – 1939). The text was set to music by Herbert Hughes (1882 – 1937) and others, such as Rebecca Clark (1886 – 1979), John Ireland (1879 – 1962) and Benjamin Britten (1913 – 1976). I became acquainted with this

She moved thru the Fair is a song with wonderful lyrics and an almost ghostly melody. The melody was collected and chronicled by Herbert Hughes (1882 – 1937), the Irish poet Padraic Colum (1881 – 1972) wrote the text. There have been quite a few variants on the text, but the story is the same:

Red is the Rose is an Irish folk song with the same tune as the famous Scottish Loch Lomond. A song with a well-known theme: The sad separation of lovers. Galway Bay is a composition by a certain Dr. Arthur Colahan, who was born in Ireland and grew up in Galway. Bing Crosby used the

Si Beagh si Mor is attributed to the Irish bard and composer Turlough O’Carolan (1670-1738). The song takes its title from two burial mounds, one large and one small, in the area where O’Carolan lived in Ireland. In Irish tradition, barrows are inhabited by fairies, so there are also readings that the title is about

The lyrics to The Foggy Dew were written by Charles O’Neill (1887 – 1963), a priest from Portleglone in Northern Ireland. The melody comes from the love song The Moorlough Shore. Gerard Harrison wrote this arrangement for guitar. The Foggy Dew is about the Éirí Amach na Cásca, the Irish Easter Rising in 1916. After

Turlough O’ Carolan (1670-1738) was one of the last wandering Irish harpers. A certain Mrs. MacDermott Roe, the mistress of the estate where O’Carolan’s father worked, set herself up as the boy’s patroness. She made sure that he received an education and that he -after he became blind- became a good harp player. In the

The text of The Last Rose of Summer is an 1805 poem by the Irish poet Thomas Moore (1779 – 1852). The poem was given the music of another traditional: Aisling an Óigfhear, The Young Man’s Dream in English. Scottish and Irish folk songs became fashionable with the classical composers in the nineteenth century. For