6/10/2023 0 Comments Carrickfergus song lyrics![]() ![]() The Irish lyrics were about a man being cuckolded, a bawdy and humorous ditty. Īn early version of the song appeared on a ballad sheet in Cork City in the mid-nineteenth century in macaronic form. Petrie wrote that he believed "Do Bhí Bean Uasal" came from either County Clare or County Limerick, and was in any case a Munster song. Joyce came from Ballyorgan in the Ballyhoura Mountains, on the borders of counties Limerick and Cork. Music collector George Petrie obtained two settings of this melody from fellow collector Patrick Joyce. The melody has been traced to an Irish-language song, "Do Bhí Bean Uasal" ("There Was a Noblewoman"), which is attributed to the poet Cathal Buí Mac Giolla Ghunna, who died in 1756 in County Clare. The 1964 album " The First Hurrah!" by The Clancy Brothers includes a song entitled "Carrickfergus (Do Bhí Bean Uasal)". ![]() In his book, "Ireland Sings" (London, 1965), Behan gives three verses, the first and third of which he says that he obtained from O'Toole and the middle one that he wrote himself. The modern song is due to Dominic Behan, who published it in 1965.īehan relates that he learned the song from actor Peter O'Toole. A somewhat differing version was released under the name "The Kerry Boatman", by Dominic Behan on an LP called The Irish Rover, in 1965. The Clancy Brothers' 1964 album titled " The First Hurrah!" includes this title. Videos of Carrickfergus here." Carrickfergus" is an Irish folk song, named after the town of Carrickfergus in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It is a song that moves people deeply and it is little wonder that it has become one of the most popular of all Irish ballads. For all their faults, the lyrics still conjure up a sense of sadness and nostalgia and when coupled with such a beautiful, soaring melody, the effect is quite magical. Not that any of these issues have done much to affect the popularity of Carrickfergus. Whether the O’Toole link to its discovery is right or not, it seems likely that what has now become the generally accepted lyric is in fact an inaccurate recollection of a fuller and more consistent earlier version. Carrickfergus – a great but incomplete songĬarrickfergus is a great but possibly incomplete song. These appear as disconnected thoughts and may be a truncated version of an earlier, longer lyric. The song then takes a dramatic shift in mood as we discover that the singer is seldom sober and believes that his days are numbered and he hasn’t long to live. The third and final verse refers to marble stones in Kilkenny, supporting his love with gold and silver before suddenly announcing that the singer will perform no more until he gets a drink. These inconsistencies are particularly marked in the third verse. On the contrary, his claim is supported by the fact that the second verse is consistent and contains none of the anomalies of the other two verses which may have been modified over hundreds of years. Behan’s second verse is consistentīehan claimed to have written the second verse and there is no reason to doubt him. “Give me a boat that will carry two, and both shall row my love and I.” The last two words, “and I,” make sense in this version but they could easily could be misheard as “and die,” in the O’Toole/Behan version. Anomalies due to mishearings?Īgain, could the explanation be a mishearing? Other lyrics in similar songs have lines like: The second line brings us into familiar territory involving water keeping him apart from his love but then it gets a little strange again.Īs in most “water is wide” songs, he wishes for a boat to ferry him over to his love but it is expressed in a strange way: “to ferry me over to my love and die.” Does he mean he wants to be ferried over to see his love once more so he can die in peace? It is not convincing. I would swim over the deepest ocean Brendan Behan It doesn’t seem to mean anything and one possible explanation is that O’Toole, or Behan or whoever passed on the song, may not have remembered the words correctly and so glossed over them. The question is, how reliable was O’Toole’s version of the song he probably first heard in childhood?įor example, the opening line is: “I wish I was in Carrickfergus, only for nights in Ballygran.” The first part about Carrickfergus is fine, but what does the second part mean? Behan said he learnt the song from the Irish actor Peter O’Toole. ![]() ![]() It was largely unknown before Dominic Behan recorded it in the early 1960s. This may be because of the unusual way in which the song was discovered and brought to a wider audience. Carickfergus is one of the most popular of Irish songs but the meaning is sometimes unclear. ![]()
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