Editorial note: If you have not yet read our mission statement above, please do so in order that you can put our blogs in context. 

9 April 2012

Easter Monday

THE GALWAY SHAWL

Lyrics below.

For the music, try the Fred Jorgensen version at:

http://www.wtv-zone.com/phyrst/audio/nfld/05/galway.htm

This is not immediately classifiable as a political post. But, thanum an dial, today’s a holiday after all. That said, the song evokes the lost golden age of a pre-Homeric peasant community untainted by modernisation and immune to the evils of progress – a mythical Ireland that de Valera tried, and failed, to magic up out of the mists of Celtic legend.

More’s the pity.

At Oranmore in the county Galway,
 One pleasant evening in the month of May;
 I spied a damsel, she was young and handsome,
 Her beauty fairly took my breath away.

She wore no jewels, nor costly diamonds,
 No paint nor powder, no, none at all;
 She wore a bonnet with ribbons on it,
 And around her shoulder was the Galway shawl.

We kept on walking, she kept on talking,
Till her father’s cottage came into view; She said: “Come in, sir, and meet me father,
 And play to please him, The Foggy Dew.”

She sat me down beside the hearthstone,
 I could see her father, he was six feet tall;
 And soon her mother had the kettle singing,
 All I could think of was the Galway shawl.

She wore no jewels nor costly diamonds, No paint nor powder, no, none at all;
 She wore a bonnet with ribbons on it,
 And around her shoulder was the Galway shawl.

I played The Black Bird, The Stack of Barley,
 Rodney’s Glory and The Foggy Dew; 
She sang each note like an Irish linnet,
 And tears welled in her eyes of blue.

‘Twas early, early all in the morning,
 I hit the road for old Donegal; 
She said, “Goodbye, sir.” She cried and kissed me,
 But my heart remains with the Galway shawl.

She wore no jewels, nor costly diamonds,
 No paint nor powder, no, none at all;
 She wore a bonnet with ribbons on it,
 And around her shoulder was the Galway shawl.
 And around her shoulder was the Galway shawl.

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 You might perhaps care to view some of our earlier posts.  For instance:

 1. Why? or How? That is the question (3 Jan 2012)

2. Das Vierte Reich/The Fourth Reich (6 Feb 2012)

3. The shoddiest possible goods at the highest possible prices (2 Feb 2012)

4. Where’s the beef? Ontology and tinned meat (31 Jan 2012)

5. What would Gandhi have said? (30 Jan 2012)

Every so often we shall change this sample of previously published posts.

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