Going through a book of Irish Language songs we purchased on a trip to Dublin some years ago, I saw a title that seemed familiar and checked the printed music – why, yes, I held in my hand the music and lyrics for Mo Chaiín Rua – the music used for the song Si Mort À Mors that I talked about in the last installment. Sadly, the book (Ceolta Gael 2, edited by Mánus Ó Baoill) does not have any sourcing notes other than an introduction stating they are (as expected) traditional songs.
So far, none of my searches on the title or snippets of lyrics has yielded anything other than it being a traditional song passed down from older singers to those performing it now. The lyric in Irish talks about a weight of butter being “one pound and one shilling” – if this is a reference to the value of the guinea then the song cannot be older than 1717 when the value of the guinea was set at 21 shillings because of the increase in the price of gold. Interestingly, this specific verse (part of the song where they go to Sligo) does not seem to be in the version in the book above, so who knows which came first, the guinea or the egg.
I shall continue researching…
