Friday 15 May 2020
Tune of the Day: The Connacht Mother's Slumber Song
Traditional Irish air
This air is taken from Francis O'Neill's collection Waifs and Strays of Gaelic Melody, published in Chicago in 1922. O'Neill remarks:
Not the least charming of the many airs and dance tunes, for which we are indebted to our liberal San Francisco contributor, Francis E. Walsh, is the fine Slumber Song above printed. It is an old strain of which variants under divers names gained wide circulation. Who hasn't heard the one time popular ballad about “my Love Nell from the Cove of Cork” and her inconstancy. “Mary of Blackwater Side”, one of the numbers in Joyce's Old Irish Folk Music and Songs, Dublin 1909, betrays a similar origin.