Derry Folk Tales by Madeline McCully

Author:Madeline McCully [McCully, Madeline]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780750966900
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2015-10-28T00:00:00+00:00

22

THE LEGEND OF DANNY BOY

Oh Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling

From glen to glen and down the mountainside

The summer’s gone and all the roses falling

’Tis you ’tis you must go and I must bide.

These are the opening words of the famous song that is sung all over the world wherever there’s an Irish diaspora. Written in the English language, it is one of the most hauntingly beautiful songs of all time and Irish people abroad are often reduced to tears when they hear it. Even when people don’t know the words they hum it and many ask,

‘What is the story behind it?’

In the seventeenth century it was known as the ‘Londonderry Air’, but the tune is much older than that. Still, how did the name Londonderry come into it at all?

In the year 1608, King James I was trying to bring the wild Irish race under control, for they had given the English plenty of bother until their chieftains had fled the country in September 1607. The saying is true that ‘All their wars are merry and all their songs are sad’. Sure, there’s no sadder song than Danny Boy, is there?

Now, King James I gave Derry to the City of London Corporation and in 1613 the name was changed from Derry to Londonderry. Although there were strong political connotations to the name, the prudish Victorians thought that Derry sounded too much like the French word ‘derrière’. This word when translated and added to ‘London’ seemed quite rude so they spoke of it as the ‘Air from County Derry’.

The words of the Londonderry Air are seldom sung, but it is the melody that catches the heartstrings, and it is to that melody that the words of Danny Boy were later added. But the melody was handed down, and among those suggested as its creator was Rory Dall (Blind) O’Cahan, a descendant of the ruling O’Cahan clan. Rory Dall lived sometime between 1560 and 1660, and when the O’Cahan lands were confiscated Rory was filled with anger and sadness. He was moved to compose the sorrowful melody called ‘O’Cahan’s Lament’.

There are some tales around Rory’s writing of it, one being that he was drunk one night, when on his way home he stopped to rest, and it was then that he heard the fairies playing the enticing melody. He kept it in his head as he staggered home and once there he played it on his harp until he was sufficiently sure of it. Of course, being Rory, he added some embellishment here and there. Once he was sufficiently sober and confident that he could play back the music, he serenaded guests with it and that was the beginning of the legend of Danny Boy.

Now Denis O’Hempsey was another blind harper whose life spanned three centuries. He was born at the end of the seventeenth century, lived through the eighteenth and died at the beginning of the nineteenth, and was apparently related to Blind Rory. If we believe the story, he inherited much of Rory’s repertoire.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.