Sleeve Notes
Sweet Lisbweemore — Mrs. Elizabeth Cronin of Ballyvourney, County Cork, was visited and recorded in the early '50s by Alan Lomax, Sean O'Boyle and Peter Kennedy (for the BBC) and Seamus Ennis (for both RTE and BBC). She had an extensive repertoire of songs in both English and Irish, many of which, like this one, had been composed by local bards.
This extremely witty song becomes more so when one realizes it was written by "that man they call D.D." who the girl is frightened will write a compromising song about her and the young man who is showing her the way. The characters discussing their author is a device used in novels and plays, but I've never come across it in a folk song before. A turbary is — or was — the right of digging turf on common or private property.
Grateful thanks to Tom Munnelly and Frank Harte — singers, folk song collectors and old friends — for helping me with the words of this song.
Moorlough Shore — A well known song in most parts of Ulster This version c omes, in the main, from Eddie Butcher and his relatives in Magilligan, County Derry. Dolores Keane — one of my favorite singers — sings this song to a different air.
Pity The Poor Hare: On Yonder Hill, Merrily Tripping O'er The Plain, The Kilgrain Hare & Pity The Poor Hare — As John Moulton says in his book Songs of the People — From the Sam Henry Collection: "Ulster hare hunting songs are, if the words can be used, the most loving of their kind. The hare is portrayed as a harmless creature and in the most sympathetic way."
This selection underlines those sentiments and, indeed, who could not feel sympathy for that innocent and attractive animal, hunted in the name of "sport".
The first song was learned from the incomparable and late lamented Geordie Hanna from Derrytresk, County Tyrone, while the second is based on songs collected in County Antrim by Sam Henry. Another of my favorite singers, Len Graham, sings a different version called The Hare's Lament.
Down By Greer's Grove — This song is based on a fragment recorded in the '50s by Robert Cinnamon J of Glenavy, County Antrim, who was a fairly old man by the time the folk song collectors got to him. Where Greer's Grove might be no one knows, but Antrim men had a reputation in days gone by for being sailors, so this song may have started its life in some distant port.