Celtic Music

In Which I Do a Little English-Teachersplaining about Thomas Moore’s “Sing, Sing”

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Léon Bazille Perrault [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
A song about singing is a great choice for a choral concert! So what’s the deal with the lyrics for this song? Well, first let me take a look at the poet himself:

Thomas Moore was an Irishman who lived from 1779-1852. He had a long and varied career, as they say, which could have ended much sooner if the duel he was supposed to fight in 1806 had not been stopped by the authorities; he forever afterward had to deal with rumors that his opponent (the editor of a critical review) had been given an unloaded pistol.

Eventually Moore was persuaded to write lyrics to some already-established Irish airs. These songs included the more-famous “The Last Rose of Summer” and “Believe Me, If All These Endearing Young Charms.”

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Are the Welsh really allergic to vowels?

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PictureThe second-longest known place name in the world refers to a location in Wales:
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysilio-gogogoch
What does it mean? “Saint Mary’s Church in a hollow of white hazel near the swirling whirlpool of the church of Saint Tysilio with a red cave.” (Honesty forces me to admit that there are shorter forms of this name; the long version was invented in 1860 as a promotional tool.) How is it pronounced?

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Why Is Mary Treated So Badly in “Téir Abhaile Riú”? Or . . . Is She?

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PictureThe translation of the title means “Go away home” or “home you’ll go.” A girl named Mary is told in no uncertain terms that she’d better “go away home and stay there because your (marriage) contract Is made.” It doesn’t matter whether or not she’s the one who made the contract; it’s done, and that’s it. Or, as the notes on one version of the sheet music say, “The girl, Mary, having been forced into an arranged marriage with a piper, is advised to go home and accept it.” Seems a little harsh, doesn’t it? And not the mood that would fit the rousing music. That meaning would mesh better with some kind of melancholy ballad, with perhaps the unhappy girl drowning herself at the end.

But I think this interpretation is mistaken. The website SongsInIrish.com says, “This traditional song teases the girl ‘Máire’ about her possible relationship with the piper at the dance. The singer and Máire argue back and forth about whether her ‘match is made.’”

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What Do Tattoos and Tongue-Wagging Have to Do . . . 

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Picture. . . with the adoption of the Welsh national anthem?
Well, you’re going to have to use your imagination on this one. Take a look at the picture. Do you see any skin decorations or anyone sticking out his tongue? Thought not. (Actually, if you look very closely, you can see that the blond guy in the back, just to the left of the center, does indeed have his tongue out.  That’s it as far as I can tell, though.)  And yet this is purported to be the New Zealand All-Blacks rugby team doing a Maori war dance and song called the tongue-wagging “haka” before their 1905 match against the Wales national team. (I’m going to “find explanations in charity” and assume this picture was snapped before the guys had really gotten going.  Surely they did something a little more impressive than this!  Since they’re all Caucasian, they wouldn’t have had the traditional Maori tattoos, so that is indeed a missing authentic detail.)

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