Getting into the seasonal swing, ready for Dec. 19th in Dodd's.
Maighreád Ní Mhaonaigh agus a grúpa, Altan, ag am Nollaig anuraidh, 2008
21st November- Oh the wind and the rain
Undaunted by the floods, the brave men and women of the Boyle singers' circle turned out in force last Saturday night.
Clare started with the anti-war "Bramblethorn" by Sarah Daniels, later on, she sang Sandy Denny's "Who knows where the time goes", Across the evening sky all the birds are leaving and still later, an R. Burns song, "Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon".
Two women composers, and that's before taking Helen's and Breege's respective compositions; Helen: "I'm going home, soon as I can, to buy a farm, somewhere around the Plains of Boyle" and Breege: "In Culmeen, near Ballyfarnon", a song about Josie McDermott. Theresa read a poem from her own pen about her father.
Joe from the Sligo singers gave a great rendition of an updated version of Kilkelly Ireland. Where normally you'd be expecting:
Kilkelly, Ireland, 18 and 60, my dear and loving son John
[...]
Your brothers have all gone to find work in England, The house is so empty and sad
The crop of potatoes is sorely infected, A third to a half of them bad.
From Joe we got the email version, Kilkelly Ireland, 2001:
We have a jacuzzi inside in the bathroom
and
[We have] holiday homes in Carrick on Shannon,
Tis marshy, but sure it will do.
So - we finally got to the watery theme. However, Eugene's Dark-Eyed Sailor ended with the encouraging line: A stormy morning brings on a sunny day.
Eugene also delivered up Delaney's chicken - but not quite plucked, boiled or skewered:
So this bird must have been crowing since they built the Tower of Abel (Babel)
He was fed by Cain and Abel and he lived in Noah's Stable,
All the shots and shells was fired in the field of Waterloo,
Could not penetrate or dislocate the tilugated, armour-plated, double-breasted, iron-chested cock-a-doodle-doo.
Delaney might have had need of Eileen's "Brisk young butcher" - Says he "A frolic I will have, my fortune for to try, I will go into Leicestershire some cattle for to buy". She also sang You are the call, I am the answer, and "Willie Taylor".
Brian went from
It's in the evening after dark,
When the blackleg miner creeps to work,
With his moleskin pants and dirty shirt,
There goes the blackleg miner!
to the "Finding of Moses" on Egypt's banks, contagious to the Nile and finished later with Sergeant William Bailey.
George gave us Shanagolden, Lough Arrow's Side and I will an' I must get married, for the humour is on me now. Frank had the Chapel gate in Cooraclare, and Oh don't you know the reason. Tony sang, Oh the prickel-eye bush, The cocks are crowing and My love he left me, ...joined the army and marched away. Clíona, "The next market day", "Sadhbh Ní Bhruinneala" and the "Hare's lament": On the first of November on a bright autumn's day...
Frances and Joe recited pieces, Tommy sang Percy French, and a duet with Paddy on "Hear the wind blow", Breege gave us "Matt Hyland" and Helen a ghost song, for the season that's in it.
Time now to prepare for the next season - polish up your Carols for December.
Clare started with the anti-war "Bramblethorn" by Sarah Daniels, later on, she sang Sandy Denny's "Who knows where the time goes", Across the evening sky all the birds are leaving and still later, an R. Burns song, "Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon".
Two women composers, and that's before taking Helen's and Breege's respective compositions; Helen: "I'm going home, soon as I can, to buy a farm, somewhere around the Plains of Boyle" and Breege: "In Culmeen, near Ballyfarnon", a song about Josie McDermott. Theresa read a poem from her own pen about her father.
Joe from the Sligo singers gave a great rendition of an updated version of Kilkelly Ireland. Where normally you'd be expecting:
Kilkelly, Ireland, 18 and 60, my dear and loving son John
[...]
Your brothers have all gone to find work in England, The house is so empty and sad
The crop of potatoes is sorely infected, A third to a half of them bad.
From Joe we got the email version, Kilkelly Ireland, 2001:
We have a jacuzzi inside in the bathroom
and
[We have] holiday homes in Carrick on Shannon,
Tis marshy, but sure it will do.
So - we finally got to the watery theme. However, Eugene's Dark-Eyed Sailor ended with the encouraging line: A stormy morning brings on a sunny day.
Eugene also delivered up Delaney's chicken - but not quite plucked, boiled or skewered:
So this bird must have been crowing since they built the Tower of Abel (Babel)
He was fed by Cain and Abel and he lived in Noah's Stable,
All the shots and shells was fired in the field of Waterloo,
Could not penetrate or dislocate the tilugated, armour-plated, double-breasted, iron-chested cock-a-doodle-doo.
Delaney might have had need of Eileen's "Brisk young butcher" - Says he "A frolic I will have, my fortune for to try, I will go into Leicestershire some cattle for to buy". She also sang You are the call, I am the answer, and "Willie Taylor".
Brian went from
It's in the evening after dark,
When the blackleg miner creeps to work,
With his moleskin pants and dirty shirt,
There goes the blackleg miner!
to the "Finding of Moses" on Egypt's banks, contagious to the Nile and finished later with Sergeant William Bailey.
George gave us Shanagolden, Lough Arrow's Side and I will an' I must get married, for the humour is on me now. Frank had the Chapel gate in Cooraclare, and Oh don't you know the reason. Tony sang, Oh the prickel-eye bush, The cocks are crowing and My love he left me, ...joined the army and marched away. Clíona, "The next market day", "Sadhbh Ní Bhruinneala" and the "Hare's lament": On the first of November on a bright autumn's day...
Frances and Joe recited pieces, Tommy sang Percy French, and a duet with Paddy on "Hear the wind blow", Breege gave us "Matt Hyland" and Helen a ghost song, for the season that's in it.
Time now to prepare for the next season - polish up your Carols for December.
19 September 2009
Visitors from the Sligo Traditional Singing Circle visited the club on the 19th September as they often do. They're holding their annual singers' weekend on the weekend, 2-4 October 2009, in Sligo Town. There'll be representatives of the Boyle Singers there, along with many more. It was a great weekend last year and we expect that it'll be as good if not better this year. For more details, see the Sligo Traditional Singing Circle website.
15 August 2009 at the BSC
A very full night of songs at the Boylers last Saturday. The night had a beginning, middle and end and then an extended encore! There were men singing women’s songs and women saying men’s rhymes and some singing songs to tunes of other songs. (Make that into a song and we’ll give you an extra singing slot!)
Declan Coyne told us, “For I was nothing to him, Though he was the world to me”, an old song, sometimes called The Sad Song (as if there were no other) and sometimes, The Palace Grand.
Frank was in reminiscent mood:
My youthful days are past and it makes my heart feel weary,
As I sit in the cart in the wilds of the prairie.
Hunting the deer that skip around the beaver,
While my thoughts fondly stray to the Bogs of Shanaheever .
Nora, Mary and Marion were thinking of exiles as well: “Dear exiles all who hail from Boyle”, “The crowded streets of Brooklyn” and “I am a lonely exile” (Cill na Martra).
Eugene was more in party-mode with the Irish Jubilee, and he remembered every last one of the 30 or more verses on the menu. Here’s a taster:
We ate oatmeal till we could hardly stirabout, Ketch-up and hurry-up, sweet-kraut and sauer-kraut;
Dressed beef and naked beef and beef with all its trousers on, Soda crackers, fire crackers, Cheshire cheese with breeches on;
Beefsteaks and mistakes were down upon the bill of fare, Roast ribs and spare ribs and ribs that we couldn't spare;
Reindeer, snowdeer and dear me and antelope, The women ate so much melon, the men said they cantaloupe;
Red herrings, smoked herrings, herrings from old Erin's Isle, Bangor loaf and fruit cake and sausages a half a mile;
Hot corn, cold corn, and corn cake and honey-comb, Red birds and red books, sea bass and sea foam;
Fried liver, baked liver, Carter's little liver pills, And everyone was wondering who was going to pay the bill.
Marion told of a famous greyhound, Mary of a “young cowboy”. George was Down by Lough Arrow’s side. A second from Mary : the Water is Wide and Clare was By Clyde’s bonnie banks, (Blantyre explosion). Breege sang about Willie the ploughboy, Paddy from Elphin sang about The Shady boy, Tony was weeping at 19, Clíona sang Two sisters for Clare and Mary and the Charlady’s Ball to keep with the theme of the Irish Jubilee and the Races at Killadoon (I can’t forget all the thrills I met...). Ronnie Drew’s anniversary was remembered in a rendering of Monto from a visitor to Boyle who saw our advertisement in the window of Dodd’s and dropped in.
I’ve missed a few, I know, and can only mention in passing the matchmaking story, the food story, the driving lesson tale, Percy French, My name is Delaney, a name that won't shame me and a Song for Ireland.
This writer had to leave before the encore, so I can’t say with certainty what happened next. Who could?
Be there next month for the beginning of our FOURTH year. Ó neart go neart.
Declan Coyne told us, “For I was nothing to him, Though he was the world to me”, an old song, sometimes called The Sad Song (as if there were no other) and sometimes, The Palace Grand.
Frank was in reminiscent mood:
My youthful days are past and it makes my heart feel weary,
As I sit in the cart in the wilds of the prairie.
Hunting the deer that skip around the beaver,
While my thoughts fondly stray to the Bogs of Shanaheever .
Nora, Mary and Marion were thinking of exiles as well: “Dear exiles all who hail from Boyle”, “The crowded streets of Brooklyn” and “I am a lonely exile” (Cill na Martra).
Eugene was more in party-mode with the Irish Jubilee, and he remembered every last one of the 30 or more verses on the menu. Here’s a taster:
We ate oatmeal till we could hardly stirabout, Ketch-up and hurry-up, sweet-kraut and sauer-kraut;
Dressed beef and naked beef and beef with all its trousers on, Soda crackers, fire crackers, Cheshire cheese with breeches on;
Beefsteaks and mistakes were down upon the bill of fare, Roast ribs and spare ribs and ribs that we couldn't spare;
Reindeer, snowdeer and dear me and antelope, The women ate so much melon, the men said they cantaloupe;
Red herrings, smoked herrings, herrings from old Erin's Isle, Bangor loaf and fruit cake and sausages a half a mile;
Hot corn, cold corn, and corn cake and honey-comb, Red birds and red books, sea bass and sea foam;
Fried liver, baked liver, Carter's little liver pills, And everyone was wondering who was going to pay the bill.
Marion told of a famous greyhound, Mary of a “young cowboy”. George was Down by Lough Arrow’s side. A second from Mary : the Water is Wide and Clare was By Clyde’s bonnie banks, (Blantyre explosion). Breege sang about Willie the ploughboy, Paddy from Elphin sang about The Shady boy, Tony was weeping at 19, Clíona sang Two sisters for Clare and Mary and the Charlady’s Ball to keep with the theme of the Irish Jubilee and the Races at Killadoon (I can’t forget all the thrills I met...). Ronnie Drew’s anniversary was remembered in a rendering of Monto from a visitor to Boyle who saw our advertisement in the window of Dodd’s and dropped in.
I’ve missed a few, I know, and can only mention in passing the matchmaking story, the food story, the driving lesson tale, Percy French, My name is Delaney, a name that won't shame me and a Song for Ireland.
This writer had to leave before the encore, so I can’t say with certainty what happened next. Who could?
Be there next month for the beginning of our FOURTH year. Ó neart go neart.
Music and song in Strokestown House
The next "Reel thing" concert takes place in Strokestown House,Co.Roscommon.
Thursday 13th August
8pm sharp.
It features the husband and wife team of Martin Quinn(accordion/fiddle) and Angelina Carberry(banjo). Their guests on the night are Patsy Hanly(flute) and Pauline Hanly(singer).
Contact 0906625824 for information/bookings.
Thursday 13th August
8pm sharp.
It features the husband and wife team of Martin Quinn(accordion/fiddle) and Angelina Carberry(banjo). Their guests on the night are Patsy Hanly(flute) and Pauline Hanly(singer).
Contact 0906625824 for information/bookings.
July 18th 2009
Cyril McDermott, who has recently launched a CD of songs telling the tale of his local area, around Elphin, Co. Roscommon, was a welcome guest at the Singers' night. There was a good crowd, with people on their way back from the South Sligo Summer School at Tubbercurry and on their way to the Joe Mooney in Drumshanbo. More came hotfoot from the Glens Centre in Manorhamilton and there was a number of visitors who promised to sing, but hoofed it, under cover of the break and the handing around of the sambos, leaving us in suspense until the next time!
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