published on
Traditional Irish folk song. #SCFIRST
My Lagan Love
Marianne Lihannah sings verse 1 and 4 of the beautiful and mysterious, 'My Lagan Love', over Nyckelharpa drones, with a little nyckelharpa solo in the middle.
You can also watch it on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb0EpR2rFto
MY LAGAN LOVE
words Joseph Campbell (a.k.a Seosamh MacCathmhaoil, 1879-1944)
tune traditional Irish (the Belfast maid)
The words of the 2 verses I have missed out are:
Verse 2:
Her father sails a running-barge
'Twixt Leamh-beag and The Druim;
And on the lonely river-marge
She elears his hearth for him.
When she was only fairy-high
Her gentle mother died;
But *dew-Love keeps her memory
Green on the Lagan side.
Verse 3:
And oft-times, when the beetle's horn
Hath lulled the eve to sleep,
I steal unto her shieling lorn, ("shieling" - a shepherd's summer hut, like a barn or a cottage)
And thro' the dooring peep.
There on the crickets' singing-stone
She spares the bogwood fire,
And hums in sad, sweet under-tone
The song of hearts-desire.
*Dubh (pronounced doov or dew) = dark. One usually meets the sidhe at the crossroads, or at the crossing from day to night.
The Lagan river in this song, is the Lagan near Belfast. Campbell was born in Castlereagh Road, east Belfast, just a couple of miles from the Lagan.
In his youth he suffered from some "nervous" problems and often went for long rambles along the Lagan's banks.
To quote from Mary O'Hara's notes on this song, from her book "A Song For Ireland", - "The leánan sídhe (fairy mistress) mentioned in the song is a malicious figure who frequently crops up in Gaelic love stories. One could call her the femme fatale of Gaelic folklore. She sought the love of men; if they refused, she became their slave, but if they consented, they became her slaves and could only escape by finding another to take their place. She fed off them so her lovers gradually wasted away - a common enough theme in Gaelic medieval poetry, which often saw love as a kind of sickness. Most Gaelic poets in the past had their leanán sídhe to give them inspiration. This malignant fairy was for them a sort of Gaelic muse. On the other hand, the crickets mentioned in the song are a sign of good luck and their sound on the hearth a good omen. It was the custom of newly-married couples about to set up home to bring crickets from the hearths of their parents' house and place them in the new hearth."
From Wikipedia:
"My Lagan Love" is a song to a traditional Irish air collected in 1903 in northern Donegal.
The English lyrics have been credited to Joseph Campbell (1879–1944, also known as Seosamh MacCathmhaoil and Joseph McCahill, among others). Campbell was a Belfast man whose grandparents came from the Irish-speaking area of Flurrybridge, South Armagh. He started collecting songs in County Antrim. In 1904 he began a collaboration with composer Herbert Hughes. Together, they collected traditional airs from the remote parts of County Donegal.
While on holidays in Donegal, Hughes had learned the air from Proinseas mac Suibhne, who had learned it from his father Seaghan mac Suibhne, who in turn had learned it fifty years previously from a man working with the Ordnance Survey of Ireland. Campbell said that mac Suibhne knew the tune under the title of "The Belfast Maid", but did not know the words. A song by this title was published in various early 19th century broadsides, with the first lines "In Belfast town of high renown / There lives a comely maid".This ballad now has Roud number 2930.
The Lagan referred to in the title most likely is the River Lagan in Belfast. Campbell's words mention Lambeg, which is just outside the city. The Lagan is the river that runs through Belfast. However, some argue that the Lagan in the song refers to a stream that empties into Lough Swilly in County Donegal, not far from where Herbert Hughes collected the song.
- Genre
- Folk & Singer-Songwriter