Could I find the melody of the unpublished and uncollected song, “Smiling Aghadoe?”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)