Many of this year's St. Patrick's Day musical selections are found on Schola's St. Patrick's album - available on iTunes, Spotify and more…
Quick link to music downloads….
CDs are available at Schola performances!
South Wind
This ‘slow air’ entitled "A Ghaoith ó nDeas" (Wind from the South) has been a part of the music of Counties Clare and Mayo since the late 1700s.
Billy Turney - accordion
Siúil a Rúin
Go, my love
Traditional Irish song
Arr. Michael McGlynn (Ireland, b.1964)
Siúil a Rúin is a young woman’s lament for her lover who has left for fighting in a faraway land.
Sung by Jackie Mattos / Denise Moore and Schola
I wish I were on yonder hill
′Tis there I'd sit and cry my fill
And every tear would turn a mill.
I wish I sat on my true love′s knee
Many a fond story he told to me
He told me things that ne'er shall be.
Chorus
Siúil, siúil, siúil a rúin
Siúil go sochair agus siúil go ciúin
Siúil go doras agus éalaigh liom
Go, go, go my love
Go quietly and go peacefully
Go to the door and fly with me
His hair was black, his eye was blue
His arm was strong, his word was true
I wish in my heart I was with you.
I'll dye my petticoat, I′ll dye it red
And ′round the world I'll beg my bread
′Til I find my love alive or dead.
Suo Gân
Lullaby
Traditional Welsh Lullaby
The Welsh work Suo Gân translates into English simply at "Lullaby". This song has been a part of the fabric of Welsh life for centuries, and was (finally!) written down around the year 1800.
Hush, my dear one, sleep serenely,
now, my lovely slumber deep.
Mother rocks you, humming lowly,
Close your eyes now go to sleep.
Angels hover, ever nearer,
Looking on your smiling face.
I will hold you, close enfold you
Close your eyes now go to sleep.
Lovely darling, I will guard you
Keep you from all woe and harm.
Slowly, gently, I will rock you,
Resting sweetly, on my arm.
May you slumber, e'er so softly,
Dream of visions wondrous fair.
I will hold you, close enfold you.
Close your eyes now go to sleep.
Dream of visions wondrous fair.
In Dublin’s Fair City (aka Molly Malone)
Traditional Irish song and, by some accounts, the unofficial anthem of Dublin.
Chorus:
Alive, alive, alive-oh!
Alive, alive, alive-oh!
Crying cockles and muscles
Alive, alive, alive-oh!
Planxty Fanny Power and Plenty Erwin
Two planxties (waltzes) by Ireland's blind harper Turlough O’Carolan (1670 – 25 March 1738)
Planxty Fanny Power was written for one of O’Carolan’s patrons, Miss Fanny Power, daughter and heiress of David and Elizabeth Power of Coorheen, Loughrea, County Galway.
Lucinda Sydow and Billy Turney - accordion
Kelvin Grove
(Popular!) Scottish Song
Kelvin Grove, a picturesque and richly wooded dell through which the river Kelvin flows, lies at a very short distance to the northwest of Glasgow. At one part of Kelvin Grove (North Woodside) is an old well, called the Pear Tree Well, from a pear tree which formerly grew over it. This used to be, and still is to some extent, a favorite place of resort for young parties from the city on summer afternoons.
Though the precise author of this song is unknown (a few different folks claimed authorship), it was first published in 1820 in a collection of songs.
Let us haste to Kelvin grove, bonnie lassie, O,
Through its mazes let us rove, bonnie lassie, O,
Where the rose in all her pride.
Paints the hollow dingle side,
Where the midnight fairies glide, bonnie lassie, O,
Let us wander by the mill, bonnie lassie, O,
To the cove beside the rill, bonnie lassie, O.
Where the glens rebound the call,
Of the roaring waters' fall,
Thro' the mountain's rocky hall, bonnie lassie, O.
O Kelvin banks are fair, bonnie lassie, O,
When in summer we are there, bonnie lassie, O,
There, the May-pink's crimson plume.
Throws a soft, but sweet perfume,
Round the yellow banks of broom, bonnie lassie, O.
Though I dare not call thee mine, bonnie lassie, O,
As the smile of fortune's thine, bonnie lassie, O,
Yet with fortune on my side,
I could stay thy father's pride.
And win thee for my bride, bonnie lassie, O.
But the frowns of fortune lower, bonnie lassie, O,
On thy lover at this hour, bonnie lassie, O,
Ere yon golden orb of day
Wake the warblers on the spray.
From this land I must away, bonnie lassie, O.
Then farewell to Kelvin grove, bonnie lassie, O,
And adieu to all I love, bonnie lassie, O,
To the river winding clear,
To the fragrant scented breer,
Even to thee of all most dear, bonnie lassie, O.
When upon a foreign shore, bonnie lassie, O,
Should I fall midst battle's roar, bimnie lassie, O,
Then, Helen! shouldst thou hear
Of thy lover on his bier,
To his memory shed a tear, bonnie lassie, O.
Cúnnla
Sean-nós Irish song Arr. Michael McGlynn (Ireland, b.1964)
Cúnnla is a sean-nós Irish song composed ~ 14th century. Sean-nós means “in the old way,” or without accompaniment, in Englsih.
This song is a traditional Irish old night-visiting song of house spirits, both mischievous and helpful.
"Cé hé siúd thíos atá ‘leagan na gclaíocha?" "Mise mé féin" a deir Cúnnla.
"Cé hé siúd thíos atá ‘tarraingt na pluide dhíom?" "Mise mé féin" a deir Cúnnla.
"Cé hé siúd thíos atá ‘tochas mo bhonnachaí?" "Mise mé féin" a deir Cúnnla.
Chorus : ”’Chúnnla ‘chroí ná tar níos goire dhom!" "M’anam go tiocfaidh!" deir Cúnnla.
"Who is that down there knocking the (stone) walls?" "Me, myself" says Cúnnla.
"Who is that down there pulling the blanket off me?" "Me, myself" says Cúnnla.
"Who is that down there tickling the soles of my feet?" "Me, myself" says Cúnnla.
Chorus: "Cúnnla dear don't come any nearer to me!" "My soul I will!" says Cúnnla. Lead sung by Jackie Mattos
The Lament of the Irish Emigrant
Helen Selina Blackwood (England, 1807-1867)
This ballad was written around the time of the great Irish famine (1845 – 1849) and gives us a hint of the destructive impact of the famine on love and the family.
I'm sitting on a stile, Mary,
where we once sat side by side
On a bright May morning long ago,
when first you were my bride
The corn was springing fresh and green,
and the lark sang loud and high
And the red was on your lips, Mary, and
the love light in your eyes.
‘Tis but a step down yonder lane, the
village Church stands near
The place where we were wed, Mary, I
can see the spire from here
But the graveyard lies between, Mary,
and my step might break your rest
Where I laid you, darling, down to sleep
with a baby on your breast.
I'm very lonely now, Mary, for the poor
make no new friends
But oh they love the better still the few
our Father sends
For you were all I had, Mary, my
blessing and my pride
And I've nothing left to care for now
since my poor Mary died.
Yours was the good brave heart, Mary,
that still kept hoping on
When the trust in God had left my soul
and my arms’ young strength had gone
There was comfort ever on your lip and
a kind look on your brow
And I thank you, Mary, for the same,
though you cannot hear me now.
I'm bidding you a long farewell, my
Mary, kind and true
But I'll not forget you, darling, in the land
I'm going to.
They say there's bread and work for all,
and the sun shines always there
But I'll not forget old Ireland, were it fifty
times as fair.
And often in those grand old woods I'll
sit and shut my eyes
And my heart will wander back again to
the place where Mary lies
And I think I see that little stile where we
sat side by side
In the springing corn and the bright May
morn when first you were my bride.
And the springing corn and the bright
May morn when first you were my bride.
Sung by Lucinda Sydow
Fionnghuala
Traditional Irish Song
Arr. Michael McGlynn (Ireland, b.1964)
Fionnghuala derives from Irish mythology where Fionnghuala was the daughter of Lir. She was cursed by her stepmother, resulting in her taking the form of a swan and living for centuries in the cold and wet outdoors of Ireland.
Thuirt an gobha fuirighidh mi
'S thuirt an gobha falbhaidh mi
'S thuirt an gobha leis an othail
A bh' air an dòrus an t-sàbhail
Gu rachadh e a shuirghe
The blacksmith said, "I'll wait"
The blacksmith said, "I'll go"
The blacksmith said, in his hurry
As he was going to the door of the barn,
that he would be going courting
'Si eilean nam bothan nam bothan
Am bothan a bh' aig Fionnghuala
Island of bothies, of bothies
Fingal's bothies
Bheirinn fead air fulmairean
Bheirinn fead air falmairean
Liuthannan beaga na mara
Bheireamaid greis air an tarrainn
Na maireadh na duirgh dhuinn
I'd knock spots off the birds
I'd knock spots off the hakes (i.e. fish)
Little pollocks (i.e. cod fish) of the sea
we would take a while hauling them in
if our hand lines last
Cha d'thuirt an dadan a' seo
Bheireamaid greis air an tarrainn
Na maireadh na duirgh dhuinn
We got nothing here
we would take a while hauling them in
if our hand lines last
Sung by Billy Turney and Schola
My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose (published 1794)
Robert Burns
Scotland (1759 – 1796)
Burns himself said that it was a simple old Scots song he had picked up in the country.
Burns may have been writing about the vivid red buds of the dog rose, ‘newly sprung in June’. One might not see the big blowsy blossoms of today’s suburban gardens; but rather the tightly-folded red velvet lips in an Ayrshire hedgerow.
Geology as a science was brand new at the time of Burns. The lines about all the seas going dry, and rocks melting with the sun, suggest that Burns must have had a grasp of what we now call ‘deep time’, of an almost infinite length of time through which his love, and the world, would last.
My love is like a red red rose
That's newly sprung in June;
O my Love's like the melodie
That's sweetly play'd in tune;
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in love am I;
And I will love thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry;
Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt with' the sun;
And I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.
And fare thee well, my only Love
And fare the well, a while!
And I will come again, my Love,
Tho' it were ten thousand mile.
Sung by Lucinda Sydow and Denise Moore
Down by the Salley Gardens
This poem is by Ireland’s Nobel Prize in Literature winner, William Butler Yeats. It was published in The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems in 1889. Yeats wrote that he heard it from “an old peasant woman in the village of Ballisodare, County Sligo.”
Salley translates into "willow" in English. The Salley Gardens are located on the banks of the river at Ballysadare near Sligo, where the residents cultivated trees to provide roof thatching materials.
Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet;
She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet.
She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;
But I, being young and foolish, with her would not agree.
In a field by the river my love and I did stand,
And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand.
She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;
But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.
Sung by Jackie Mattos
Will Ye Go, Lassie, Go
Traditional Irish song
Francis McPeake (Belfast, Ireland, 1885–1971)
Chorus:
And we’ll all go together
To pluck wild mountain thyme
All around the blooming heather
Will ye go lassie, go?
Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine March (Appalachian Reel) and The Jimmy Allen Polka
The sounds of Appalachia and its' Scottish settlers is heard in Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine.
The Jimmy Allen Polka is named after Jimmy Allen himself who was from Northumbria (Northeast England) and lived from 1733 to 1810.
Allen was a piper who was famed for his expertise on Northumbrian smallpipes and other kinds of bagpipes, and was an all-round rogue. At age 70 he was imprisoned for stealing a horse, and spent his last seven years in a gaol under the road down to Elvet Bridge in Durham; he died days before a pardon arrived from the Prince Regent. (The underground gaol, very occasionally opened for guided tours, is left just as it was when abandoned, probably soon after Allen’s time: a very dark and spooky place.)
Allen was credited with improvements to the smallpipes, maybe including the first additions of keys to increase the range of the Northumbrian pipes from their basic one octave.
Lucinda Sydow and Billy Turney – accordion
The Water is Wide
AKA Waly, Waly (Wail, Wail)
Scottish Folk Song
The water is wide, I cannot get over
Neither have I wings to fly
Give me a boat that can carry two
And both shall row, my love and I
A ship there is and she sails the sea
She's loaded deep as deep can be
But not so deep as the love I'm in
I know not if I sink or swim
I leaned my back against an oak
Thinking it was a trusty tree
But first it bent and then it broke
So did my love prove false to me
Oh love be handsome and love be kind
Gay as a jewel when first it is new
But love grows old and waxes cold
And fades away like the morning dew
Sung by Georgian McKee and Anna George
Avondale
Dominic Behan (Ireland, 1928 – 1989)
This powerful symbolic song was written by the late Dominic Behan in praise of Charles Stewart Parnell, the nineteenth century Irish nationalist politician, Protestant landowner and leader of the Irish Land League. Parnell was born at Avondale House, County Wicklow in 1846. He died in 1891.
Parnell was “Avondale's proud eagle” as the leader of the Irish Home Rule Movement in the 1880s. He was called “the blackbird of Avondale” because he practiced his oratorical skills from the balcony of Avondale House, his birthplace (which is now a museum). Parnell is still regarded by many as the greatest politician in Ireland, and by others as the “uncrowned king of Ireland”.
In 1889, Parnell was politically neutralized and personally ruined by a carefully orchestrated vilification campaign over a scandal about his romance with Katharine O'Shea, an English woman of aristocratic background. His supporters, under a campaign of hatred by both the English press and the Catholic church, deserted him, and Parnell died without ever getting Home Rule enacted.
Oh have you been to Avondale,
And linger in its lovely vale,
Where tall trees whisper and know the tale,
Of Avondale's proud eagle.
Where pride and ancient glory fade,
So was the land where he was laid,
Like Christ was thirty pieces paid,
For Avondale's proud eagle,
Long years that green and lovely vale,
has nursed Parnell,
her proudest Gale,
And cursed the land that has betrayed,
Fair Avondale's proud eagle.
Tribute to Parnell in Dublin, Ireland
Photo: Billy Turney 2011
The Maid of Coolmore
Traditional Irish Song
Arr. Michael McGlynn (Ireland, b.1964)
This song is of the Maid of Cúil Mór.
Culmore is a small village near Derry (aka Londonderry) in Northern Ireland, and is located at the mouth of the River Foyle. This song may be about a fair maiden who sails from Cúil Mór to America – likely an emigrant. Meanwhile, a boy who is besotted with love for her from first sight, laments her leaving Ireland and sails to America to find her…but never does.
Or is it a lament for the plight of the Irish people in having to emigrate away from their home land to find a better life ?
(Cúil Mór means the ‘Great Corner’ or ‘Nook’.)
Verse 1.
Leaving sweet lovely Derry to fair London town
There is no better harbour on this coast can be found
Where the children do wander and [?]
And the joy bells are ringing for the maid of Coolmore
Verse 2.
The first time I met her she passed me by
And the next time I saw her she bid me goodbye
But the third time I met her she made my heart sore
As she sailed out of [?] and away from Coolmore
Verse 3.
And if I had the power a great storm to rise
A wind to blow high and the seas [?] roar
The wind to blow high and to darken the skies
The day that my true love sailed away from Coolmore
Verse 4.
To the north coast of America my love I'll go seek
It's there I know no-one nor no-one knows me
And if don't find her I'll return home no more
Like a pilgrim I will wander for the maid of Coolmore
Danny Boy
Traditional Irish Song
Arr. Michael McGlynn (Ireland, b.1964)
This beloved song hits home with its’ sentiments.
Rattlin’ Bog
Irish Song
Rattlin’ means "splendid" in this tongue twister of a song.
Chorus:
O-ro the rattlin’ bog, the bog down in the valley-o,
O-ro the rattlin’ bog, the bog down in the valley-o.
Sung by Lucinda Sydow and Schola
The Parting Glass
Traditional Irish / Scottish song
The Parting Glass has long been sung in Ireland. The "parting glass" was the final hospitality offered to a departing guest, were they were presented one final drink to fortify them for their travels.
It is performed in the unaccompanied Sean-nós “old style” of singing.
Jackie Mattos leads the Sean-nós style of singing.
HAPPY SAINT PATRICK’S DAY FROM SCHOLA!
St. Patrick's Day 2025 Schola singers
Anna George - alto
Jackie Mattos - alto/soprano
Denise Moore - soprano
Susan Roller Whittington - alto
Lucinda Sydow - alto/soprano/accordion
Maestro Billy Turney - baritone/accordion