The Tractor, the Bicycle, the Song, Part 2

Forty years have passed since I visited Thomas and Nora Lernihan. I was in County Clare last week, and thought I'd see if I could find any trace of them or their families. I drove to the little town of Connolly, stopped at the petrol station/convenience store, and asked if they knew of any Lernihans in town. I told them the story (scroll down to see my blog post entitled The Tractor, the Bicycle, the Song) and the two young men behind the counter said they'd never heard of them. The middle-aged man, a customer, also said there were no Lernihans living nearby. I was about to give up, thinking that in such a small town of course everyone would know everyone else.

However, one of the young men, possibly a teen-ager, suggested I stop at some of the houses along the main road and ask. If there's one thing I've learned about Ireland, it's that networking is extremely powerful there. I took his suggestion seriously.

The very first house I stopped at I struck gold! The middle-aged woman I spoke to went in and asked her father to whom I told the story and asked about the current whereabouts of any Lernihans. He didn't seem to know but then his wife came to the door and said that she remembered Thomas and Nora. They had both passed on and had never had children. However . . . Thomas had a niece and she currently lives just three houses down the road!

I went straight there and met Marie Clarke, the daughter of Thomas' brother, and we spent well over an hour talking about family and reminiscing about Thomas and Nora and how friendly and outgoing Thomas had been. She said that she had vague memories of Thomas' mother, who had sung to him when he was a child and that she was always loving and supportive. The most interesting thing she revealed was that her father had gone with Thomas, his brother, to the matchmaker's house, back when they were young, to meet his prospective bride. That evening was the first time the husband and wife had met. They were married soon after. Yes, they had an arranged marriage, and it was indeed a good match, for they had a good relationship all the rest of their lives.

And decades later, back in the early 80s, I was the recipient of their hospitality. And then four decades after that, a week ago, I experienced the hospitality of Thomas' niece. After all, hospitality is one of the central qualities of the Irish character, as illustrated by the first wave Thomas gave me when he passed on his tractor so many years ago.

Ireland Changing

Changing Ireland

I was driving out on the Dingle Peninsula heading to an Irish language class when I approached the top of a hill I recognized from thirty years before. I thought I'd take a side trip to see the Gallarus Oratory, the drystone 800-1200 year old small religious construction not far away. I had visited it on my second day in Ireland back in 1982 because of the coincidence of where I was staying those first several nights in Ireland. I had been referred to Seamus and Kathleen Johnson who might rent out a spare bedroom in their farmhouse for several days. It turned out that the Gallarus was on their property.

I had an educational time those first three days at the Johnson's place. I learned, on my first time in an Irish pub, that “fir” meant “men” and that “mna” meant “women” and not the other way around. I looked at both the words and thought about cognates in English and French and decided that the word beginning with f was most likely feminine. But as soon as I went into the MNA room, I realized how wrong I was and made a quick exit! I also learned that there was a difference between a bullock (a castrated male) and a cow (female) and that my host had not a single cow in his herd of bovines! (I had not been a country boy.) I also learned that an Irish countryman will not nod a hello to you but rather tilt his head slightly sideways and at an angle. I thought they were shaking their heads at me, disapproving of me in some way, but learned that they were greeting me.

Now, thirty years later, as I approached the intersection at the top of the hill I saw a road sign for the Gallarus pointing to the left. That was strange, I thought, for I knew that it was straight ahead down a little one-lane boreen. I wasn't going to follow that sign. I knew where I was going. After all, I was now an experienced Irish traveller, having visited the island nine times since that first year. As I drove down the little road I noticed that there was more grass growing up in the middle than I had remembered. Arriving at the Gallarus site I noticed that the little car park off to the side of the boreen was filled with weeds and was obviously unused. How very strange! I parked and mounted the stile (the short set of stairs over the ditch--what we would call a rock wall) to pass into the field for the short (100 yard) walk to the Gallarus Oratory. I paused at the top of the stairs to take in the scene and was struck with amazement.

I saw the Oratory in the field ahead of me as well as dozens of people walking to and from it on a large pathway from the north (I was looking from the west). Looking farther north I saw several buildings with people gathered around and in the background a huge parking lot with three or four large tour buses as well as dozens of cars and scores of tourists.

The intervening 30 years had brought modern tourism to this little backwater spot with a jewel of ancient architecture.

But the extent of the change was only beginning to be revealed to me. The Gallarus itself was as it had been 30 years before—a miniature beauty, a perfectly conceived and executed design about 15 feet tall and with a low doorway at one end and a small window at the other. I stooped into the little building to experience the contemplative quiet of the dimly lit interior. I was soon joined by German and Japanese tourists. I exited and walked toward what appeared to be the visitors' center.

As I approached the visitors' center it became clear to me that the building had been the Johnson's barn. It had been remodeled and upgraded but was basically the same structure. And then I realized that the administrative center for this tourist complex, about a hundred feet to the west, had been the Johnson's house, the place I'd stayed for three nights in 1982. Again, it had been modernized and updated but still held that quintessentially Irish rustic charm.

I told the young man behind the counter of the visitors' center about my experiences of three decades ago. I remembered that Seamus had told me that his grandfather had stopped some opportunistic builders from tearing down the Gallarus. After all, the stone of the walls and corbelled roof were expertly shaped, their lines as smooth and even as if a computer had drawn them. Those stones would have been valuable for building someone's new byre, house, or even just another ditch (a rock wall, again). Was his grandfather defending an example of ancient Irish heritage? Well, no. He used the Gallarus as a sheep pen and was not about to let anyone tear it apart! The man behind the counter hadn't heard that story before.

I was pleased to be able to add something to this young man's experience about the building he was telling others about. And I couldn't help but think that Seamus and Kathleen, if they could see what has happened to their farm, would also be pleased. And I learned that time marches on in Ireland. Even though much of what I love about Ireland is old and much of what tourists come to see is ancient, the Irish people are living in the present and planning for the future.

The Tractor, the Bicycle, the Song

In the lowest gear of my heavily-laden bike I struggled to crest that little hill. Why did I bring so much stuff? It sure makes it harder to get up this hill. I could have left some of those books at home. And did I really need five changes of socks and underwear? I was preoccupied with thoughts like these, peddling toward Miltown Malbay, when I heard the distinctive sound of a tractor coming up behind me. It chugged past me as I approached the top. I soon followed him over the top and picked up speed going down the other side. It wasn't long before I shot past the tractor. I knew that the next little hill, not far away, would be easier if I gained as much speed as possible.

An hour before I had been sitting on the floor in the lobby of Shannon Airport putting my bike together. I was headed for the Willie Week, the famous Willie Clancy Summer School of traditional music on the west coast of County Clare. It was 1983, my second visit to Ireland but this time I was going by bike. And I had to get through the East Clare drumlin fields, a swarm of little hills formed when glaciers covered much of Ireland thousands of years ago.

And now I was slowing significantly as I toiled up the next hill. The tractor soon passed me. The driver waved as he chugged past and went on ahead. I struggled on, got the the top, gained speed, and soon overtook the tractor again. I returned his wave as I sped past. The next hill was the same. He kept a steady speed both uphill and down and always gave a friendly wave as he passed me, laboring uphill. I always accelerated going down—gravity was then my ally—and would reciprocate with another wave. This continued for three or four more little hills and I came to welcome the little boost in spirit I got from his gesture on each uphill slog. We were bonding in some curious way with our repeated mutual recognition.

Then the road leveled off and the farmer disappeared ahead of me. I peddled on without my anonymous fellow traveller, a bit disappointed, for he had given me something to hope for as I strained up each hill. But it wasn't more than fifteen minutes later that I saw him and his tractor in the yard of a cottage at the side of the road. We both waved and I stopped to actually meet my traveling companion.

As is usual with the Irish stranger, he was welcoming and friendly and soon I was sitting in the kitchen in the warmth of their turf fire, with a cuppa in my hands, and in conversation with the older couple. As soon as I said anything, of course, they knew I was a Yank. Then came the typical question: “Are ya here searchin' for your roots?” I answered that I was a singer searching for songs. “Ah, then, wouldn't you give us a song?” So I sang “Erin Gra Mo Chroi” a song of emigration that I'd learned the year before.

At the setting of the sun, when my daily work was done,

As I rambled 'round the fields for a stroll.

It was there all alone, I sat down upon a stone,

For to gaze on the scenes of New York.

Chorus:

Oh, Erin gra mo chroi, you're the only land for me,

You're the fairest spot that e'er my eyes could behold.

You're the bright star of the west, you're the land St. Patrick blessed,

You're far dearer than silver or gold.

2. Oh, the turf it will burn bright, in each hearth and home tonight,

And the snowflake will fall soft on wintry gale.

And St. Patrick's Day will come, and the shamrock will be worn,

In our own little island so green.

Chorus

3. Well, It broke my mother's heart, when from her I had to part;

Never will I see my darling mother more.

For it is now that she is laid, in her cold and silent grave,

In her own little island so green.

And, oh, the exclamations that followed. Here was a Yank, singing “our songs!” The farmer murmured wistfully, “My mother used to sing that song to me.” He appeared lost in reverie for a moment, but then became animated. “But you left a verse out.” Whereupon he sang another verse I hadn't heard before:

It was hard to bid adieu to the one I loved so true,

Darling will I never see you any more?

Not until I do go home, to my friends and kin at home,

To my own native land so far away.

What a pleasant surprise. Here I was getting another verse to a traditional song from a randomly met stranger on the side of the road. I learned that they were Thomas and Nora Lernihan of the townland of Connolly. I learned that a random friendly wave can be most productive. And I learned that traditional songs could be found virtually anywhere in Ireland.

Smiling Aghadoe, part 3

My mission on this most recent trip to Ireland (January, 2020) was to see if I could find where Paddy Quill had ended up in the U.S. After many inquiries I'd learned that Paddy was the one who had sung Smiling Aghadoe on the tape that I'd received in 1983, the recording that had started this whole quest. He had emigrated to the U.S. at some point in the late 1970s. My informant, Danny Maidhcí Ó Súilleabháin, didn't know any specifics about when or how or to where he emigrated. But he knew others who knew him. Maybe we could find out. If I could discover where he'd ended up, I might be able to find a trace of the song here in the States.

Danny Mikey took me to visit three of Paddy's old acquaintances in the hills around Ballyvourney, Co. Cork. One was not at home. Dead end. Another we met on the little one-lane hill road as he was herding his cattle from one pasture to another. Sure, he remembered Paddy from long ago, what? forty years, was it? No, more like forty-five or fifty years! Paddy was a mountainy bachelor, kept to himself mostly. No, didn't remember what year he left or where he went—somewhere in America. We waited for the bullocks to pass then made our way to another old house up in the hills.

The old man, still in his “Wellies”, his Wellington boots, having just finished some drainage ditch work, invited us in and his wife wet the tea for us. They chatted about the old days for a while then Danny asked about Paddy. Oh, sure, they remembered him. Went to America, didn't he? Long time ago. He had a sister moved up to Mayo or maybe it was Galway. No don't really remember anything else about him.

So that was it. It seemed to be nothing but dead ends. Danny also supplied some census data about Paddy's parents and siblings—interesting, but nothing to help with my quest. So that seemed to be the end of my quest for more information about the song, Smiling Aghadoe. I went on over the mountains to Killarney to thank several people who had helped in previous years and to let them know it was now recorded and on YouTube. Here’s the link.

I checked in at the hostel and mentioned that I was doing research on Smiling Aghadoe. (The power of networking is so amazing in Ireland that I've learned to mention what I'm after to anyone and everyone.) “Oh,” says the desk clerk, “My grandmother sang that song!” I was floored. Here I had been searching for years and had contacted all the well-known traditional singers in the area and they all said it was unknown or they remembered it being sung but not in the last few decades. And here was someone, a random stranger, saying that his grandmother used to sing it. She was long gone, of course, but it made me realize that traditional songs are sung outside the community of traditional singers, that not all singers are connected to that community. And that reality, of course, broadens the search area and also makes the search more difficult.

But wait. That's not all! The guy in the office behind the desk at the hostel came out and said, “Smiling Aghadoe? I think my father has mentioned that song.” After checking to be sure it was the right song (there is a well-known song called “Aghadoe, Aghadoe”) he said he would have more information for me later. Next day he told me that his father knew someone who knew someone who sang that song and lived in New York! After several phone calls I got the contact information for John Daly in Yonkers, New York, who is said to know Smiling Aghadoe!

Although it was from a totally unexpected source and for a totally different person, I had finally found a trace—well more than a trace, it turns out—of Smiling Aghadoe in America! And so there will be one more installment of this story.

The Story of Smiling Aghadoe, continued

Could I find the melody of the unpublished and uncollected song, “Smiling Aghadoe?” Although it took me several years I was able to answer that question in the affirmative. I had succeeded in that quest. (See my previous blog post.) But, as often occurs in quests like this, instead of reaching some satisfying answer, it led to more questions. When I transcribed the song, as Danny 'the Singer' Cronin sang it, and set it side by side with the one I'd transcribed 35 years before, some very interesting and puzzling differences emerged.

First a little background: The version I'd transcribed in 1984 was recorded in Coolea, County Cork. On the other hand, Danny the Singer lived in Crohane, a few miles northwest of Killarney, County Kerry, just over the range of tall and unpopulated hills from Cork. The sources, although only about 40 km or 25 miles apart, are arguably in two distinct cultural regions. Coolea (actually Cuil Aodh) is Irish-speaking and fairly isolated; Crohane is English-speaking and very near one of the main tourist attractions in the whole country, the Lakes of Killarney. The Aghadoe of the song is a few miles from Crohane. For ease of identification I've called the earlier version the Cork version and the later one the Kerry version.

It was certainly the same song, but there were obvious folk-processed differences. Most obvious was an entire extra verse in the Kerry version. On closer inspection, however, that extra verse added little to the song and, in addition, was poetically rather awkward and clumsy. Sometimes the folk process is an effective editor! Other differences were fairly obviously the result of slightly faulty transmission or memory of the song. For instance, the Cork version's first line is “I have travelled many a lonely mile,” while the Kerry version begins, “I wandered many a weary mile.” They express essentially the same idea and have similar lyrical and poetic value.

Then there are obvious errors in memory that detract from the song. One line of the Kerry version has “the stately hawthorns grow” while the corresponding line in the Cork version is “where stately hawthorns bloom.” Similar meaning, but the problem is that the line is supposed to rhyme with the place name Aghadoe (pronounced Ah huh doe). Oops. While bloom fits with the meaning nicely it certainly does not rhyme with Aghadoe!

But the most interesting difference was the repeated phrase at the end of each verse. In the Cork version that phrase is “...smiling Aghadoe.” A descriptive phrase like that always piques my interest—a place so beautiful and attractive that it is said to be smiling! In the Kerry version, however, that phrase is “...beauteous Aghadoe,” not nearly as poetically compelling. A difference of that importance in the poetic vision of the lyrics does not happen accidentally. It's not a slip of someone's memory or the inadvertent substitution of a synonym. Someone chose to make it different. The questions then become: Who made the change? Why did they make it? And would it be possible to find the presumed common ancestor of these two versions?

The answers to those questions are probably lost in the mists of the past. However, some light might be shed on them if I could find any trace of the singer of the Cork version. I had found out (from Danny Maidhcí Ó Súilleabháin, a singer in the area and the person who lent me the tape 35 years before) that his name was Paddy Quill, that he had lived in the Ballyvourney area (near Coolea), but that he had emigrated to America in the 1970s. If I could find out where he ended up in the US, I might be able to find a trace of the song here on this side of the pond and maybe some more information about it.

The saga continues.... (scroll up)

Finding "Smiling Aghadoe"

I was pleasantly surprised by the announcement. The bus will depart at 10:30. My watch said it was 9:00. I had a whole 90 minutes! What a luxury, considering the usual stop was too short to disembark and the longer ones allowed only 20 minutes or maybe 30. But this time I could take a walk away from the bus terminal and really stretch my legs and see a little bit of Toledo, Ohio.

I was on a cross-continental bus trip from Portland to New York so I could get a cheaper flight to Ireland from the east coast. Our last stop had been Chicago and I was busy with some of the tapes I'd recorded in Irish pubs and sitting rooms the summer before, indexing and transcribing. I left them on my seat to resume work when we started eastward again.

Dumbfounded and shocked are too weak to describe the sudden devastating and hollowed out feeling that hit me when I heard that the bus had left 40 minutes before. And I had arrived back at the terminal with 20 minutes to spare. What had gone wrong? My watch! It was still on Central time. The bus was gone, along with my suitcase, backpack, and the tapes I'd been working on. Fortunately, I had my music notebook with me and was able to recover the suitcase and backpack in New York. But the tapes were gone forever.

Almost three decades later I wanted to learn one of the songs I'd transcribed that day. I had the words. All I needed to do was to find the tune. Ought to be easy enough—just go online. I only had to search for the title of the song, “Smiling Aghadoe.” But nothing came up. Maybe it would be lurking, hidden deep in Mudcat.org. Not there either. It would surely be in the Irish Traditional Music Archive. The next time I was in Dublin, I dropped into their offices and with the help of one of their archivists, searched in as many different ways possible for several hours and found . . . nothing. “Smiling Aghadoe” had apparently never been published, never been recorded, never even been collected.

What was I to do? Certainly someone would remember it. I went back to west Cork where I'd first heard the song and asked a well-known local singer, Eoiní Ó Súilleabhain. Sure, he remembered having heard the song years ago but couldn't remember the tune. But he referred me to Jimmy O'Brien over the hills in County Kerry. Jimmy would either know the song or who sang it.

Jimmy was a well-known publican in the town of Killarney, just an ass's bray from Aghadoe, itself, the hill just to the north of the Lakes of Killarney. I must agree that on a sunny day, Aghadoe surely smiles as it looks down on the beautiful lakes at the foot of the tallest hills in all of Ireland. A grand scene, entirely. And, oh yes, Jimmy knew of the song. And he also knew that the only person who had sung that song in the area had died about 20 years before. “No one sings it now.” And, no, he couldn't remember the melody.

Was I stuck again? Well, I continued networking, looking for any old singers in the area. I went to the library to ask if any old traditional singers perform there. No, they don't have a meeting or performance room, but they do have a reference librarian who rises to a challenge. Eamon Browne asked me to give him 15 or 20 minutes to see what he could find. He returned with a book of local history which enumerated the main families in each of the area's towns. And in the Aghadoe area was the Cronin family whose patriarch, Danny “the Singer” Cronin died in 1995. That was my man! He must have been the one who sang the song.

It went on to say that some of his children still lived in the area! Now I was on a mission. The goal was getting closer. I went out to Crohane, the tiny hamlet near Aghadoe Heights and started knocking on doors. It took only three tries before I found Tim Cronin, one of Danny's sons. And yes, his father used to sing that song! Not only that, but he thought there might be a recording of him singing it. He promised to look for it. I returned in a week and was given a home-made CD of a sitting room recording of Danny singing about ten songs, including “Beauteous Aghadoe.” I finally had succeeded in finding the air to the song. I could now sing and learn it. But what's with the different name? “Beauteous Aghadoe?”

The rabbit hole gets deeper!

To be continued...(scroll up)

Shipwreck in Ireland

“I remember the day well.” he said.  “They let us out of school for the day and everyone in town was helping in one way or another.”  My informant was speaking of the “fourth day of October in nineteen hundred and seven,” when the freighter De Leon was shipwrecked off the coast of County Clare within sight of the fishing village of Quilty—a momentous several days for that tiny seacoast town.

I was there to find out more about a song that I'd heard and recorded in a nearby town the year before.   It was a broadside ballad (or “come all ye”) that told the story of the successful rescue of the twelve crewmen and the captain of the French ship De Leon by the fishermen of Quilty.  It's all the more amazing knowing that the rescue was made in their little lath-and-canvas fishing boats, usually called currachs but in this town called canoes (pronounced can-OHZ).

It was but a four-mile walk to Quilty from Miltown Malbay where I was attending my second “Willie Week,” the famed Willie Clancy Summer Music School.  I stopped at the pub in the center of the village—it had only one pub, one store, one chapel, and several dozen houses—to ask if anyone knew about the song and its background.  It turns out that pretty much everyone knew about the song and I was directed up the street to where a man lived who could tell me all about it.  He was one of three people still living in the village who actually experienced the event seventy-six years before.

I was a novice at doing field research on songs and I didn't record the name of my informant but the story was so compelling (and I've retold it so often) that I trust my memory for the following details.  The De Leon had come from Portland (yes, Portland, Oregon) and was carrying wheat to Europe when a storm disabled its rudder.  Drifting helplessly, it ended up grounding on the rocks about two miles out in the bay from Quilty.  A distress flare was sent up and the local fishermen responded with “eighteen men in six canoes with Tom Boyle on the lead.”  They rescued everyone on the foundering ship and were rewarded by the owner of the hotel (two miles away in Spanish Point) who threw open his bar to anyone involved in the rescue.  That fact is memorialized in the song by the line “and brought them back to safety to our own little isle so green, where beverage flows spontaneously.”  Suddenly, according to my informant, there were many more people involved in the rescue!

But the song doesn't tell what happened during the next two days.  The storm abated quickly and the next day was calm.  And when opportunity knocked, the villagers eagerly responded.  They spent the day traveling to and from the stricken ship, off-loading as much wheat as they could carry in their small boats.  The grain was spoiled by the salt water but it was certainly good enough for the pigs of the village, who grew nice and fat the following year!  

A day later another storm came in from the west and washed the De Leon completely away.  Not a trace was left of her, other than one ring buoy that had somehow made its way to shore.  Decades later someone found a ship's bell engraved with the name “De Leon” in a second-hand shop in London and brought it to the town.  It's assumed that it was indeed the ship's bell but it remains a mystery how it was saved or ended up in London.

Jump ahead 76 years to the Willie Week in '83.  I had learned the song in the intervening year and had sung it several times in sessions during the week.  I was standing at the urinal in a pub—in rural Ireland at the time (and still in many places) the urinal was a wall with a trough at the bottom and an occasional flush from above—and who should come up next to me but Ollie Conway, the singer I'd heard the song from the previous year.  I introduced myself and thanked him for the song.  He turned to me and said, “So you're the one.  People have been telling me that some Yank has been singing my song.”  I held my breath for what was to come next.  He continued with a smile, “And you're welcome to it!”

Discovery in Antrim

I'd have to walk the last two miles. There was nothing else for it. But it wasn't too bad an experience at all. The day was warm but not too hot. I'd managed to pack everything into one backpack so at least I didn't have to carry a suitcase all that way. The road was pleasant enough, lined with farmers' fields and an occasional cottage: quintessential, picturesque Ireland. And, of course, the ubiquitous friendly Irish, ready to share a few (or many) words of conversation with a stranger.

I was there in southwest County Antrim to see what I could find of Portmore Castle, the subject of a prescient song, “Bonny Portmore.” I'd found the song in Seán O Boyle's The Irish Song Tradition and fell in love with it immediately, for the composer was lamenting the loss of not only the castle but also the surrounding forests and the giant Ornament Tree, an oak more than twelve feet in diameter. Any song that treated trees with such respect got my immediate attention. In addition, it might well be the earliest environmentally aware song, having been collected by Edward Bunting in 1792 at the Belfast Harpers Festival from the blind harper Dennis Hempson.

Any remains of that castle would be in Lower Ballinderry, two miles away from the last stop of the bus from Belfast in Upper Ballinderry. So I was walking and enjoying the view.

I came upon a farmer turning his mown hay, who stopped his work to chat a bit. As soon as I opened my mouth he knew I was a Yank. “Are ye here searchin' for your roots?” I told him I sang the song “Bonny Portmore” and was looking for any remains of the castle. “Oh, that's a mighty song, indeed. Must be 20 verses. A big song altogether.”

Well, that was news to me, for O Boyle published only three verses in his book. The prospect of finding more verses thrilled me. A quest! Not just searching for physical remains of a castle but also hoping to find the “lost” verses of this quietly powerful song.

I continued walking until I arrived at the edge of Lower Ballinderry where I saw a relatively young man trimming his front hedge. I asked him if there were any bed and breakfast establishments nearby where I might spend the night. I didn't realize at the time that he never answered me but instead started a conversation. He was interested in my quest and we chatted for at least twenty minutes when he asked if I'd had my tea yet. (It was late in the afternoon.) I answered in the negative and he invited me in to meet his wife and have tea with them. Engaging conversation continued through the light meal of bread and butter, cold cuts, tomato wedges, and biscuits (what we call cookies). The young man then asked me what my original question had been. When I mentioned needing a B&B he said, “This is Northern Ireland, 1982. There are no tourists. There are no B&B's outside the big cities. Why don't you spend the night here with us?”

What a pleasant surprise! And more was to come. He suggested that he could drive me around to see if we could find the remains of the castle and also the other verses of the song. We spent the whole evening driving from house to house, sometimes gleaning a bit of information about the castle, sometimes finding a lead to another source, and sometimes coming away with nothing at all—other than the pleasure of chatting with interesting strangers. One of the houses had been the site of a John Wesley outdoor sermon toward the end of the eighteenth century.

Eventually we were directed to the site of a ruined foundation consisting of huge sandstone blocks laid in the ground in a rectangular shape. A mobile home sat athwart the remains of the foundation and its occupants proudly showed an aerial photo of their place sitting on the ruins of Portmore Castle. (I found out many years later that there was some mistake because the only part of the Portmore estate that remains today is a section of the garden wall located elsewhere.)

But we still had the matter of the missing verses to the song. We finally found our way to the home of Jean Totten, a local historian. She, just like all the others we'd met that evening, dropped what she had been doing to welcome us. And yes, she thought she could find the other verses to “Bonny Portmore!” I had noticed right away that her sitting room was not like any other I'd seen. It was dominated by many large file cabinets and a large table strewn with books and papers. After many minutes of rummaging through one file drawer after another, she triumphantly held up a booklet. All eighteen verses of the original song were there! With my heart dancing I copied them into my notebook.

Mission accomplished! Thanks to the power of networking and the welcoming nature of the Irish.

Serendipity in Donegal

A July Sunday along the northwest coast of County Donegal must be a slow time, I told myself, as I stood on the roadside—again—with my thumb out. The waits were not excessive but the lifts were invariably short and since I'd disembarked from the Tory Island ferry five hours ago I'd made my way about fifteen miles down the road, more than a couple of those miles walking. Dispirited and tired, what with less than five hours of sleep the night before (the Tory Island Festival had lasted far into the wee hours) I began to wonder how much longer I wanted to submit to the discouragement of standing on the side of a mostly empty road.

Then I realized that the side road I was standing near led to the town of Ranafast, the origin of one of the songs I sing—An Chead Mhairt de Fhómhar (The First Tuesday of Autumn). It occurred to me that, if I spent the night nearby, I'd have a chance to do some field research on the song. (I like to validate my poking around with questions about a song as 'doing field research.')

Asking of pedestrian passers-by I found there was a hotel in Anagrai, about a mile away (this being many years before I owned a smart phone). After checking in I asked if there might be a music session anywhere nearby that evening. It turned out there was a singing session that very night at the hotel bar!

I rehearsed An Chead Mhairt several times and thought about the event that was its subject: A father and son had rowed across the mouth of the bay to get supplies in Bunbeg, the town on the other side. After loading their small boat, a wind had come up and the father told the son that since the boat was too heavily laden to be safe for the both of them, and that the son was good enough to row it across himself, the father would walk home the long way around the shore road of the bay. When the father got home much later, he found that the son had never arrived. He wrote the song as a lament for the loss of his son.

That evening I sang the local song and was received with astonishment—How did a Yank end up learning our song? I told them I'd gotten it from Phonsie Mac A Bhaird back in 1982 and some of them actually remembered the elderly schoolmaster from Teelin, in the south of Donegal.

But that was just the beginning. During breaks in the singing one participant told me of a man named Cormac who could show me the rock in the bay where Paudy's body had been found the following day. Another told me that the 'supplies' they were transporting were really big sacks of barley for making poitín (pronounced puh-cheen), illegally distilled 'mountain dew.' Another said that the father was so grief-stricken that he secluded himself for several days. When he came out of his seclusion he had the song composed, all nine long verses. Yet another whispered that maybe it hadn't really been an accident. The son had just broken up with a girlfriend and some thought that he might have capsized the boat on purpose, wanting to end it all because of his own grief. It was evident that the story behind the song still—to this day—carried significant emotional weight.

The next day I walked to Ranafast asking for Cormac. Each person I asked not only knew where Cormac lived (and directed me a little closer—getting directions in Ireland is another whole story) but also knew of the song and the stories behind it. I finally found Cormac who readily stopped what he was doing and walked with me probably a quarter mile along the shore of the bay to a large rock where he said Paudy's body had been found. It was a significant enough feature of the landscape to have a name: Carraig an nDeor or the Rock of Tears. I wish I had questioned him a little more closely for I don't know if he was found on the top of the rock, having died of exposure, or at its base from having been drowned.

What impressed me most about my experience was the power of the story and the evident strong emotions evoked by the song on the local people. It was as if it had happened just a week or two ago. In fact it had happened almost 200 years ago on the first Tuesday of autumn in the year 1811, as detailed in the last verse of the song. In Ireland, history often seems to collapse into the present.