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Sleeve Notes
Dublin like most cities has a timeless quality which is reflected in her ballads and songs. Ronnie Drew pauses momentarily in his ramble to buckle up a pretty girls shoe while Mary Black longs for the city as she fondly remembers it.
I particularly like the thought of small children playing the traditional — Ring a Ring a Rosie as the light declines. Pete St John's popular and evocative ballad Dublin in the Rare Auld Times — remembers a city with a strong community spirit and attachments to place before 'progress' intervened. I am sure this record will be welcomed and enjoyed by Dubliners and by our visitors in this special year.
Carmencita Hederman
Lord Mayor of Dublin.
DUBLIN, our historic capital, has seen revolution of the political variety and romance of many kinds but, as you will hear in some of its ballads, architectural changes in its skyline and, indeed, streetscapes are not always for the better. Our fair city is known in Gaelic by two names: Áth Cliath: The Ford of the Hurdles, and Dubh Linn, the Black Pool the latter title being bestowed on us by the Danes, we're told. They had been raiding up and down our east coast for about forty years and in the summer of 837 they settled at Dyfflin because they liked it. There was gold to be found in the surrounding Wicklow Hills and it was a safe anchorage.
The Hurdle Ford itself was sited where the Fr Matthew Bridge is now, across the river and provided a vital link across the dangerous tidal waters of the Liffey. Fr Matthew, of course, was our famous temperance crusader. I think you'll agree with me that our national tipple made by J. Arthur Guinness in St James Street has not suffered much in sales from his intervention as most of our singers here seem to be either jolly or mournful imbibers!
Dublin has always been renowned for its street ballads even before the days of Zozimus, its most famous balladeer, who peddled his song sheets to the 'gintry' and in fact to any passer-by who could lend an ear and had a penny to spare. His songs told many stories in those long gone days, mostly of injustices by landlords to their tenants (in the countryside) but also of imminent revolution by the likes of Wolfe Tone, Robert Emmet, the Fenians and of the day when auld Ireland would be free. When, indeed?
Are we any nearer to that elusive jewel now? This collection, apart from the world famous Molly Malone, is culled mostly from the recent past and present and is sung by ballad singers who enjoy popularity here and abroad today, their fame spread by records, cassettes and television.
Old city landmarks have been vanishing rapidly. Liberty Hall, the original building demolished in the 1950s, was the headquarters of Ireland's first Labour Party headed by James Connolly who led out his handful of men on that fateful Easter weekend in 1916 to join Patrick Pearse and his little army of poets and writers, school teachers and dreamers, to make a stand against 600 years of British rule at the historic General Post Office, still with us on O'Connell Street. Then known as Sackville Street, it was to be the scene of another bloody struggle when the Civil War broke out in the wake of the British withdrawal, sorrowfully setting brother against brother.
There are visionary songs here too — Patrick Kavanagh, the poet who lived close by Baggot Street Bridge on the south side of the Grand Canal (there's a memorial seat beside the canal where he used to sit and muse) — wrote of Dublin through an aura of mysticism, as you will hear on 'Raglan Road' which is just five minutes walk from that spot. The tune was originally used in 'Fainne Geal on Lae' or 'The Bright Ring of the Day' (the sun, no doubt). Most of these songs tell of the plight of the immigrants, their childhood days in our city and its environs, the hopes nurtured by them as children, then as youths setting out for. the 'new world' and their subsequent embitterment and loneliness for home having experienced life abroad …
By and large the songs concern people's lives as they remember them in their childhood: 'Farewell to Dublin', the places they played in, schools they attended, trysting spots 'down by the Liffey-side' and where they drank their teenage pints, 'the Mero', a well known cinema, scene of first courting experiences of the sort outlawed by the strict Redemptorist order, to be carried to fruition perhaps over at Dolly Fossett's Emporium near the South Dublin Union which was another building taken over by the Rebels in 1916. Then, of course, there's the perennial fish and chip shop where they wandered from after closing time to court their young ladies with a 'one and one'. The local cinemas, too, have all but vanished, leaving memories of the 'folleyerupper', the Saturday afternoon serial which the youngsters watched agog, cuddling their 'motte' in the back row …
The Ferry Man — The little boats are gone. They surely are. The last of the ferries across the river Liffey. The workers' ferry. New bridges saw to that. So a tradition of river service ended in talk of progress! They'll never be gone for me … I see them clearly in my mind's eye …
The Rare Oul' Times — My grandmother … on the mother's side … always told me … in fact she drummed it into my brain. 'You can spend a fortune but never spend a trade' … she believed in a trade as a guarantee of making your daily bread. She was wrong! The cooper's trade died with the birth of the iron lung. Soon Dempsey was one of the victims of my granny's dictum. Dublin changes all the time … some of us will never change … Rare Oul' Times are all in the mind …
The Dublin Saunter — "Dublin can be heaven with coffee at eleven..in Bewleys of Grafton Street no doubt, the city's most famous coffee house.
The Spanish Lady — … is reputed to have been the mistress of the 18th century Viceroy of Ireland who, although domiciled in the Vice-Regal Lodge in the Phoenix Park (now the presidential residence) kept his paramour in Montague Street just off Harcourt Street. It is said that the bow window in which she sat preening herself, was bricked up by him when he heard the ballad. Today it has been restored but the lady is long gone …
Tram Workers — The year 1913 was a bad one in Dublin. There was a general strike when the tram workers said 'No' to the harsh employment conditions. Eight long months of idleness and false promises. The strike was broken by the employers but a Union was born and leaders emerged that would change the face of the city forever. Larkin, Connolly and gentle, brave women like Ellie …
The Auld Triangle — … refers to the time spent by poet and dramatist Brendan Behan in Mountjoy jail with the Royal Canal in constant view from his cell window. Possibly the triangle referred to was the mealtime signal for incumbents.
Colcannon — Colcannon is, to the best of my knowledge, a dish peculiar to Dublin as is 'coddle'. The former is made usually on Shrove Tuesday and is a delicious mixture of spuds, bright green cabbage (my granny had the common habit of putting bread soda in it to ensure its colour) and diced onions, served up if the family could afford it with bacon. As a matter of interest, coddle is a form of stew made up of rashers of bacon, pork sausages, onions and potatoes boiled up, perhaps, with a touch of Victorianesque Bisto … an acquired taste, I'm told.
Isle Of Man Ructions — The word 'crack' has been translated to 'craic' in Gaelic and is purported to cover any state of affairs from drunken and disorderly behaviour to lechery and benevolent violence. Trips to the Isle of Man result in this often disgraceful behaviour to this day and such Paddywhack is to be eschewed by the discerning traveller. However, Paddy Reilly and his gang would have us believe they had a grand aul' time of it.
Grace Gifford — Grace Gifford married Joseph Mary Plunkett, the poet, who joined the Volunteers, only to be sentenced to death for his part in the 1916 Rising. Known as Joe by my ballad collecting father who was a junior teacher at Pearse's St Enda's College in Rathfarnham, he was apparently a gentle and 'droll' member of the cohort. They were married in his cell at Kilmainham jail whose grim walls stand to this day as a reminder to all of the evil happenings which occurred there during the dark days.
Anne Devlin — This truly remarkable woman was a genuine Irish patriot. Her story, lived in peril and suffering, is a tale of bravery and strength of immense proportions. Her early life in Wicklow, service in a great house in the Dublin suburbs and incarceration in Kilmainham Jail is a saga of passion, dignity and loss. The Rising of 1798, Robert Emmet's futile revolt, Michael Dwyer's guerilla raids in the mountain areas were all part of Anne Devlin's extraordinary life. She died in poverty and loneliness as a further proof of man's inhumanity and forgetfulness …
Nora — Nora is sung to the same melody as 'When You and I Were Young Maggie', a Victorian parlour song. It refers to playwright Sean O' Casey's famous character featured in The Plough & the Stars' first staged at Dublin's Abbey Theatre.
Rosie — Rosie "up in Moore Street, tipplin' under her shawl … " was probably the most famous of Dublin street vendors noted for her generosity, for looking after lost children etc … her favourite pub, Madigans, is now alas also gone from the famous street market.
The Mero — The queue outside the Mary Street picture house was a comment on the street life in the Dublin of the late 40s and early 50s. The Mero was the place to be on Saturday afternoons. The street theatre before and after 'the the experience of Flash Gordan, Gene Autrey, Ming & Zorro was set against the live character of Dublin's own "Bang-Bang", a shell shocked pensioner beloved of tram and latterly bus travellers as he popped off and on without any warning! 40 Coats, Hairy Lemon and more … We were young, eager and in need of heroes … we found them in the Mero.
My Last Farewell — My Last Farewell is a new song which graphically captures the love Padraig Pearse had for his mother, family and country. Based on actual letters he wrote from Kilmainham Jail in 1916 the song shows how Pearse was not aware that his brother, Willie, would also be executed. "My Last Farewell" reflects how Pearse often referred to his beloved Ireland as 'Mother'.
Although many of the ballads on this evocative album bemoan the passing of famous characters and lament the advent of the modern skyscraper, there still exists in our beloved city much of the best Victorian, Georgian, and earlier architecutre. Then of course there's the people themselves, who still sing their songs in their own inimitable fashion.
In fact every reason to echo the title of Patrick Liddys excellent book — 'Dublin be Proud!'
Dolphin Records, the long established Irish music company, are of the opinion that this collection is a truly representative cross section of Dublin songs … enjoy!