Talk:Carrickfergus (song)

[Untitled]
This song has a 'middle-eight'. Folk songs don't have middle-eights, which suggests to me that it was more likely a product of the nineteenth music hall. I suppose the original tune might be older. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.78.215.221 (talk) 21:52, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Has some of the lyrics been changed by different singers? I think charlotte church adds, I wish I was, in the land of Eire. Or is that part of the original? If so the main topic needs editing. --154.20.216.21 06:32, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I have made a .mid file of the song, which is an instrumental. Digitally made, no copyright. I can add it to this page if someone knows how I can upload it.--Seaspan 06:47, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Don't know if this is pertinent but this song was sung in an Irish singing contest in that Janeane Garafalo movie Matchmaker. 76.185.35.32 22:44, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Transwiki
The article contains encyclopedic information. I don't see a justification for deleting it via transwiki, although the song itself could usefully copied over.JQ 11:59, 18 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree. Please don't (re)move the songfacts. The lyrics could be transferred, of course. – Hattrem 16:47, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I was at Carrickfergus Castle on Sunday and played the song on the pennywhistle up on the ramparts. A Belfast man told me the song had nothing to do with Ulster's Carrickfergus but it was about a town in the South of Ireland. When I searched Ballygran to see if there was a geograpical link, Wiki came up with Ballygrant, a town across the Irish Sea on the Isle of Islay. The T at the end seems to have dropped off over the years. Ballygrant may even be visible on a clear day. Perhaps a Scottish soldier or prisoner was wont to gaze wistfully at it from the Oublieterrie, a cell in the castle. He would have had lots of time to compose homesick love songs. It would, indeed be possible to "swim over" from Carrickfergus if you were a modern-era super athlete with a lot of support but it's probably suicidal for anyone else. I wonder if it has ever been done. The existence of Ballygrant seems to confirm that the song is about Co Antrim. G'luktya! JA Oct 27 09 86.172.23.19 (talk) 05:23, 27 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Ballygrant is in Kilmeny parish on Islay in Scotland across the Irish Sea from Carrickfergus. https://scotlandschurchestrust.org.uk/church/kilmeny-parish-church-ballygrant-islay/
 * It’s possible that Peter O’Toole or Dominick Behan misheard the lyrics as the more well-known Kilkenny GaryLFuller (talk) 01:07, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Irish "original"?
The history of this song is pretty tangled stuff.

The resemblance of the English lyrics to the traditional Waly Waly (more commonly known now as The Water is Wide) is unmissable, and Waly Waly may predate Cathal Buí Mac Giolla Conna.

More interestingly, the song Waly Waly appears to originate in the Scottish ballad Jamie Douglas, and one known variant of the song starts "I was a woman of renown" -- very close indeed to "Do Bhí Bean Uasal". Perhaps the poet merely adapted the Scots song, then? In that case, any English verses that do not match any known Irish version, but match something from the ballad were not "additions" per se, but rather "reinstatements".

One way or the other, it is difficult to justify any definitive statements on something so hard to pin down. Prof Wrong (talk) 23:49, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Origins
I go round in circles here.

It is evident to me that neither the words nor the music of the English language folksong Carrickfergus (as played in folk clubs in England since at least the mid 1960s) owe anything to Sean O'Se/Sean O'Riada. Dominic Behan recorded in 1961 and published in 1965 a version of Carrickfergus with the tune we all know and love plus words which, he said, were recounted to him by the famously inebriate actor Peter O'Toole. He said however that verse 2 was his own. It is not perhaps unreasonable to assume that verse 2 is based on what O'Toole said/sung but he was incoherent at the time and so had to be "edited". This Behan version is - with minor amendments to the wording by the Clancy Brothers - the one used in all the "big name" recordings.

Sean O'Se has recorded an unbelievably beautiful and moving version of Carrickfergus with Sean O'Riada (date unknown but I believe late 1960s at the earliest) and there are many, including family members, who claim that one or the other wrote it. When I came across this version some years ago it took me back to the smoky boozy folk clubs of the 60s where I had first heard the song. But what was this "Do bhí bean uasail...." stuff? Some references suggest that it is Irish (Erse) for "I wish I was in..." which is patently nonsense since it means "There was a noblewoman...." and none of the Irish words have any connection whatsoever with the well known English verses of Carrickfergus. The last verse of the Irish O'Se version has a few quotes from the English version of Carrickfergus but this is just too unlikely to be true. I am willing to bet anything that the Irish source of "Do bhí bean uasail...." contains no reference to Carrickfergus, nor indeed any of the last verse of the O'Se/O'Riada version.

I tend to agree with John Moulden's view - expressed over a decade ago! - that O'Se/O'Riada were just getting two for the price of one: attaching some traditional Irish words (with a modified or new last verse) to a well known tune that happened to fit and already had some haunting verses in English.

I know I come to this discussion a decade late, but what is 10 years in the lists of truth?

125.254.76.23 (talk) 14:21, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

The page at music.ronet.ru (as well as the link to the song) has now but a single line, which says in Russian: «К сожалению, весь архив пропал. Если вам очень нужна какая-то песня из него - напишите мне.» (Unfortunately, the whole archive's suddenly gone. If you have urgent need for any song from it, mail me. No mail address is given.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.5.122.171 (talk) 09:30, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

"Irish" lyrics
I find it hard to believe that after three and a half stanzas, the lyrics of Do bhí bean uasal turn suddenly from Irish to English. Is a faulty copypaste or something? --Thrissel (talk) 12:56, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

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Cedric Smith!!!!

 * Loreena McKennitt, with main vocals by Cedric Smith, on the album Elemental (1985)

considers this insufficient credit for Cedric Smith. I have twice reverted the addition of a separate list entry for him, and likewise the insertion of his name in the composer slot(!) for the song on Elemental; persuade me I was wrong to do so. —Tamfang (talk) 20:08, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

I guess we could change it to Cedric Smith, on Loreena McKennitt's album Elemental (1985). —Tamfang (talk) 20:21, 3 April 2023 (UTC)