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Subject: Garryowen From: toadfrog Date: 04 Jul 02 - 05:44 PM The "Garryowen" available on DT ("Let Bacchus' sons be not dismayed")looks like a parody of an Irish patriotic song from the mid-19th Century: Oh Garryowen is gone to rack-- Her blood lies on the outlaw's track-- [?] The night hangs cold, and black, Above the shining river; Yet voices live along her walls, That ring out like old bugle calls, Thro' lonesome streets and ruined halls "Our native land forever!" Then hip hurrah! for Garryowen, For as stands the Treaty stone, Our Irish hearts will bear alone, For Garryowen na glora, The broadside appears to come from the mid 19th Century. And the DT version (quickstep of the 7th Cavalry) looks a whole lot like a parody. In fact, it could hardly be anything else. "Instead of spa, we'll drink brown ale, And pay the reckoning on the nail, No man for debt shall go to jail, From Garryowen in glory! Does anyone know any of the history of this? Garryowen, of course, is the old town of Limerick. Is it perhaps, the part of Limerick where Joseph of Arimathea is said to have landed? Was it named in honor of Saint Gereon? Search for "garryowen" threads |
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Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen From: greg stephens Date: 04 Jul 02 - 05:53 PM John's yard or garden at a guess. St John perhaps? |
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Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen From: toadfrog Date: 04 Jul 02 - 06:02 PM Greg: I ask because there is a St. Gereon's church in Cologne. Your version sounds more plausible. Do you know anything about the songs? |
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Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen From: GUEST Date: 04 Jul 02 - 06:02 PM The song "Garryowen" (a suburb of Limerick) is from the pantomime 'Harlequin Amulet', 1800. The tune was earlier know as "Auld Bessy" (Aird's Airs, vol. 3, 1788). Broadside copies of the song are on the Bodleian Ballads website. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen From: Dicho (Frank Staplin) Date: 04 Jul 02 - 07:45 PM Thread 31125 of about a dozen is perhaps the best: Garryowen |
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Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen From: The Walrus Date: 04 Jul 02 - 08:16 PM Toadfrog, It looks like your "Irish patriotic song" was the parody, it's not unusual with such songs, the prime example is "Dublin in the Green", which is probably more widely known that the original ("Scarlet and the Blue"). Walrus |
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Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen From: X Date: 04 Jul 02 - 11:46 PM Keep in mind that Custer's men played Garryowen when he butchered my people, oldmen, women, and childern. And after doing so the 7th. cut out the vaginas of the slain and wore them as hats. I know it was war and happened 130 years ago but I cringe everytime I hear the song. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen From: GUEST,ozmacca Date: 05 Jul 02 - 12:05 AM I believe I read in a number of places that "garryowen" was a favourite in British cavalry regiments for a long time, and was practically an unofficial song for the Light Brigade well before the Crimea... So did the US cavalry pinch it from the Brits, who had adopted it from the music hall / theatre, who based it on an Irish tune? Don't life get complicated? |
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Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen From: Dicho (Frank Staplin) Date: 05 Jul 02 - 12:17 AM ozmacca, obviously the US cavalry were latecomers in the use of this 18th century (or older?) tune. A damn good one, so it spread far and wide. The tune was there for the taking, so I don't think you can say anyone "pinched" it. See the other threads with more specific information. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen From: PeteBoom Date: 05 Jul 02 - 08:43 AM Ah, Banjoest, indeed. Yet we must remember that the contempt the 7th Cav had for your folk, they also had for others - particularly the 9th and 10th Cav - the Buffalo Soldiers (the original ones). It was they, btw, who succeeded in accomplishing their mission, where the 7th failed. They did so with a combination of mercy, respect for their oppenents, and simple grit. And Walrus, I very much prefer Scarlet and Blue over Dublin in the Green - lame lyrics that they are... or am I thinking of the strathspey Orange and Blue... senility sets in - too many eejits lighting off fireworks around the house last night - good thing we had watered *everything* during the day... Cheers - Pete |
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Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen From: X Date: 05 Jul 02 - 11:10 AM Pete: The 9th and the 10th still have the repect of my people for having the true Warriors heart, something that the 7th never earned. Today we call Lt. Col. Custer the "Indians Hitler" |
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Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen From: Declan Date: 05 Jul 02 - 11:24 AM Any of you who saw "They died with their boots on" starring Erroll Flynn will know that Garryowen was introduced to the 7th Cavalry by a little drunken Irish man, who was sort of a Company mascot. Or is it possible that Hollywood had something historically inaccurate in a movie ? |
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Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen From: Jacob B Date: 05 Jul 02 - 02:45 PM My understanding is that Custer heard Garryowen being played by a Massachusetts regiment, liked it, and told his buglers to play it. There were lots of Irish immigrants to Massachusetts. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen From: toadfrog Date: 05 Jul 02 - 03:25 PM Thanks for the information! Dicho: Sorry about that. I thought I had done a thorough search before starting this one. I guess I was wrong. Walrus, I still think "Let Bacchus sons be not dismayed" has to be a parody of the other songs, because of the way the final lines in the chorus match. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen From: GUEST,JTT Date: 05 Jul 02 - 06:55 PM Lots of Custer's men were, alas, Irish - mostly "Scots-Irish" - and they probably brought the tune with them to their red slaughter. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 06 Jul 02 - 07:37 AM I believe there were Nazis in death camps who used to like having the music of Beethoven and Schubert as background music to the killing.
A tune isn't responsible for the disgusting people who choose to play it while they are at btheir work of murder. But it can become inescapably associated with such events.
Has anyone ever written set of words to Garryowen about Custer's massacres? It could be a way of rehabilitating the tune maybe. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen From: X Date: 06 Jul 02 - 02:46 PM McGarth: Your correct in saying that the music in not the villian but I bet there are some of our Jewish friends out there who can't hear Beethoven without thinking of a loved one they lost. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen From: GUEST,Melani Date: 07 Jul 02 - 12:25 PM Why Declan, whatever makes you think that Hollywood might put something historically inaccurate in a move? Actually, the only thing that WAS accurate in "They Died With Their Boots On" was that there was a guy named Custer who got killed at the Little Bighorn. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen From: dorareever Date: 07 Jul 02 - 04:16 PM Yes someone (Tim O'Brien)has written new words about the massacre using that tune. http://www.timobrien.net/Lyrics2.cfm?ID=2 |
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Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 07 Jul 02 - 06:50 PM Thanks for that. I heared Tim O'Brien and his sister at Cambridge one festival, and liked them. I even caught the CD he threw out into the crowd, and I've got it downstairs. But I'm pretty sure if he'd sung that oine I'd have remembered it.
Thanks doraveever. That's a good song for a tune that deserves it.
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Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen From: toadfrog Date: 07 Jul 02 - 06:53 PM Note: Although the Seventh Cavalry is remembered mostly for Little Big Horn, it also (1) served with Pershing in Mexico; (2) Served in the South Pacific in World War II; (3) saw extremely heavy combat in Korea and Vietnam; and (4) still exists. Some of the battles it fought, especially in Korea, are a great deal more important, historically, than LBH, although they have less legendary importance. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen From: X Date: 07 Jul 02 - 08:27 PM Dora: Would that be Tim O'Brien's "Mick Ryan's Lament?" Good tune. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen From: Noreen Date: 07 Jul 02 - 08:37 PM Mick Ryan's Lament |
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Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen From: dorareever Date: 08 Jul 02 - 02:16 AM Yes it is Mick Ryan's Lament.Very good tune indeed. |
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Subject: Lyr Add: GARRYOWEN From: Jim Dixon Date: 16 Sep 08 - 09:17 AM Here is a text of the "Irish patriotic song" that toadfrog quoted above. I'm surprised no one has posted this version before—but then, it seems it is rarely published anywhere. I failed to find it with Google Book Search. The Library of Congress and the Bodleian Library each have copies of the broadside, but they are of very poor quality, with many letters missing or broken, and many misspellings. I found only one "good" transcription, at Songs Collected by Donagh MacDonagh. I tweaked it in a few places to make it agree more closely with the broadside, except in places where the broadside made no sense. GARRYOWEN 1. Oh, Garryowen is gone to rack. Her blood is on the outlaw's track. The night hangs starless, cold and black Above the shining river; Yet voices live along her walls That ring out like old bugle calls, Through lonesome streets and ruined halls: "Our native land forever!" Then hip hurrah! for Garryowen, For, as stands the Treaty stone, Our Irish hearts will bear alone For Garryowen na glora. 2. On those old walls brave Sarsfield stood And looked into the Shannon's flood And lo! 'twas flowing red with blood Of foreign foes to freedom. Within the good old town is still For Ireland's cause some blood to spill And hearts to fight with right good will, And Sarsfield is yet to lead 'em. Then three times three for Limerick town, And Sarsfield's men of high renown Who tramp the English banner down In Garryowen na glora. 3. Our good sires met the English Lords, Their hands forever on their swords, Their slashing blows the only words They deigned to give the foemen; And we will take our fathers' place And scowl into the Saxon face The hatred of a royal race That will be slaves to no men. Then draw your swords for Garryowen And swear upon the Treaty stone To live for Ireland's sake alone In Garryowen na glora. 4. Oh! for an hour in Garryowen, In the crimson light of days long flown, Our banners of green to the gay winds thrown To the chorus of the cannon; To hear the thrilling bugle's call, And Sarsfield's cry: "Behold the Gall!" Hurrah! to leap the fosse and wall And pike them in the Shannon, Then toast the men who fought and won Beneath our banner of the sun, And we can do what they have done In Garryowen na glora. 5. Though Garryowen is gone to rack, We'll win her golden glories back; The night that shrouds her, cold and black, We'll light with song and story; And though her walls are overthrown, We'll build them high yet, stone on stone, And freedom shall be Queen alone, In Garryowen na glora. So three times three for Garryowen, Her old gray walls and Treaty stone! We live for Ireland's cause alone In Garryowen na glora. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen From: GUEST,Marianne Date: 21 Jan 13 - 05:06 AM Does anyone know what spa is in the lyrics. They say "instead if spa we'll drink brown ale". |
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Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen From: MartinRyan Date: 21 Jan 13 - 05:15 AM Sean McMahon, in The Poolbeg Book of Irish Ballads writes: ... The "Spa" in the first verse refers to the fashionable nineteenth-century practice of drinking water naturally impregnated with sulphur and chalybeate from spa-wells. Regards |
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Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen From: Dave Hanson Date: 21 Jan 13 - 06:21 AM Is it sung to the double jig tune Garryowen ? reputedly General Custers favourite marching out tune but played as a quickstep. Dave H |
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Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen From: gnu Date: 21 Jan 13 - 06:40 AM Missed your last post, Jim. Thanks. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen From: GUEST,Seayaker Date: 21 Jan 13 - 05:50 PM Garryowen is also the name of the evil tempered dog who is with the Citizen in the Cyclops episode of James Joyce's Ulysses. The Citizen (based on Michael Cusack) is a bigoted nationalist who can only see one point of view (hence the Cyclops allusion) and tries to draw Bloom into an argument. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen From: Lighter Date: 31 Mar 15 - 06:05 PM Concerning the original lyrics, the best source appears to be Maurice Lenihan's "Limerick; Its History and Antiquities" (Dublin, 1866). Lenihan writes that around the year 1800, a gang of hell-raisers "made a noise in the old town; and the parish of St. John in particular rang with the echoes of their wild revelry, while they caused their own names and fame to be wedded to verse to the immortal air of 'Garryowen,' - and air which is heard with rapturous emotion by the Limerick man in whatever clime he may be placed, or under whatever circumstances its fond familiar tones may strike upon his ear. ...The words to which this air has been wedded contain allusions not only to the state of society as is existed in Garryowen in these days, but to certain local worthies, and principally the late John O'Connell, Esq., the proprietor of the Garryowen Brewery, who was deservedly much esteemed." To this account, Thomas Toomey and Henry Greensmyth's "An Antique and Storied Land: a History of the Parish of Donoughmore, Knockea, Roxborough and its Environs in County Limerick" (1991) adds that "Johnny Connell, whose family owned Garryowen brewery, ...was... mentioned by the Bard of Thomond [Michael Hogan] as being the leader of a gang of early 19th century bucks in [Hogan's poem] 'Drunken Thady and the Bishop's Lady.' He was buried by candlelight in Donoughmore Graveyard after his death in 1853." Lenihan gives, "THE ORIGINAL SONG OF GARRYOWEN... Let Bacchus' sons be not dismayed, But join with me each jovial blade; Come, booze, and sing, and lend your aid To help with me the chorus :— Instead of spa we'll drink brown ale, And pay the reckoning on the nail, No man for debt shall go to, jail From Garryowen in glory We are the boys that take delight in Smashing the Limerick lamps when lighting, Through the streets like sporters fighting And tearing all before us. Instead, &c. We'll break windows, we'll break doors, The watch knock down by threes and fours, - Then let the doctors work their cures, And tinker up our bruises. Instead, the. We'll beat the bailiffs, out of fun, We'll make the mayor and sheriffs run ; We are the boys no man dares dun, If he regards a whole skin. Instead, &c. Our hearts so stout have got us fame, For soon 'tis known from whence we came; Where'er we go they dread the name Of Garryowen in glory. Instead, &c. Johnny Connell's tall and straight; And in his limbs he is complete; He'll pitch a bar of any weight From Garryowen to Thomond-gate. Instead, &c. Garryowen is gone to wreck Since Johnny Connell went to Cork ; Though Harry O'Brien leapt over the dock In spite of judge and jury. Instead, &c. Lenihan's note informs us that, "Garryowen signifies 'John's Garden' - a suburb of Limerick in St. John's parish, in which in these times there was a public garden which the citizens were accustomed to frequent in great numbers.... The 'Nail' here mentioned is a sort of low pillar still extent in the Town-Hall, upon which payments used to be made in former times." |
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Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen From: Lighter Date: 31 Mar 15 - 06:41 PM A little more info, from T. Crofton Croker's "Popular Songs of Ireland" (1839). Sir Charles O'Donnell informed Croker in 1833 that "Mr. Connell (the Johnny Connell of Garryowen) and Darby O'Brien (some versions have Harry, others Jerry O'Brien) were two squireens in Limerick, and, about the time the song was written, between the years 1770 and 1780, devil-may-care sort of fellows, who defied all authority: they were the sons of brewers; the former is still alive, and has, or had, until very lately, a large brewery in Limerick." A "squireen" holds a small estate. Croker also quotes from a London weekly of 1822: "The celebrated Garryowen forms part of the filthy suburbs of Limerick. The former character of its inhabitants is said to be well described in a verse of their own old song: In Garryowen we'll drink nut-brown ale, An score de reckonin on de nail ; No man for debt shall go to gaol From Garryowen in glory whu! [a yell.] "Some years ago the Garryowen boys, headed by a young gentleman of respectable family, did what they listed in every department of heyday wildness and devilment : they were the half-terror, half-admiration of the surrounding communities. ...[T]he old leader, to whom I have alluded, is now a most respectable quiet citizen, about sixty, famed for propriety and urbanity of demeanour, and at the head of one of the most thriving mercantile concerns in the town. My antiquary (Mr. Geoffrey Foote) pointed him out and introduced me to him, the other day, in the streets ; and I futilely sought, in the grave and generous expression of his features, in the even tone of his voice, and in the Quaker cut and coloured suit which he wore, for any characteristic of the former Georgie Robinson of an Irish Porteus mob. Neither age nor change of habits had altered the tall and muscular figure which, in the redolence and buoyancy of youth, must have been equal to any achievement of physical prowess." Thomond Gate and Garryowen, Croker says, were on opposite sides of Limerick. Croker's version of the song is identical to Lenihan's. The words are easier to sing to the somewhat simpler tune of Aird's "Auld Bessy" (1788) than they are to the fuller modern version in "Harlequin Amulet." See the other current "Garryowen" thread for pedantic details. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen From: gnu Date: 01 Apr 15 - 05:56 AM Great stuff! Thanks, Lighter. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen From: Lighter Date: 01 Apr 15 - 09:09 AM Don't mention it. Sorry I haven't organized everything more clearly and concisely. To bring words and melody together: The words of "Garryowen" were probably written about 1780 to something very like the "Auld Bessy" tune, not printed till 1795 (not "1788" as stated). The tune was being called "Cory Owen," "Cary Owen," and "Garrione" within four years of being identified only as "Harlequin Amulet," after the pantomime in that popularized it in December, 1800. Surely the Irish title wasn't due to a local Limerick song whose lyrics seem to have been unknown elsewhere for decades. Without broadside printings, the "Bacchus' sons" words could not have been widely known. No copy of those lyrics appears in the Bodleian. Custer's widow, Elizabeth Bacon Custer, gives both words and tune as known to the 7th Cavalry in her "Following the Guidon" (1890). The stanzas about the local character Johnny Connell have understandably disappeared. Otherwise the 7th's song is as in Croker and Lenihan. Croker notes that the "spa" in the song refers to "The spa of Castle Connell, about six miles from Limerick." Lenihan, by the way, also gives a quite different song written to the tune in 1811 - as well as translations of the original into Latin and Greek! The tune, called "Auld Bessie" by Scotsman James Aird in 1795, was being called "Cory Owen," "Cary Owen," and "Garrione" within four years of being identified only as "Harlequin Amulet," after the pantomime in that popularized it in December, 1800. Surely the Irish *title* wasn't due to a local Limerick song whose lyrics seem to have been unknown elsewhere for decades. Whether the melody originated in Ireland, Scotland, or elsewhere is probably unknowable. "Auld Bessy" is Scots. James Byrne, the musical director of "Harlequin Amulet," evidently thought the tune sounded Welsh, but it was described in 1801 as "The Favorite Irish Air Performed on the Harp in Harlequin Amulet" (Musical Journal, I [Baltimore, 1804]). John Peacock's "Tunes" (ca1805) has a version arranged for Northumbrian small pipes that he calls "Newmarket Races." http://tunearch.org/wiki/Newmarket_Races But Peacock's arrangement may have been influenced by the newly popular "Harlequin" version. A distinct but structurally related tune appeared as "Horse and Away to Newmarket" in the manuscript of James Biggins of Leeds, dated to "1779." It doesn't *sound* much like "Garryowen," though one can see the similarity. http://www.village-music-project.org.uk/abc/biggins.abc But the tune's place of origin is less important than the fact that it has been identified with Garryowen and Limerick since at least the beginning of the 19th century. Thanks especially to "They Died with their Boots On," it is now widely associated with George Armstrong Custer. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen From: Lighter Date: 01 Apr 15 - 12:08 PM Besides the identity of Harry (or Jerry or Darby) O'Brien, it would be good to know when John Connell was born (allegedly ca1762) and when and why he "went to Cork." The song must have been written after that. I believe that in the 18th century young men of the gentry were usually sent to the university between the ages of sixteen and eighteen. Any Connell (or O'Brien) genealogists out there? |
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Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen From: Lighter Date: 29 Apr 21 - 02:16 PM Anything new on "Garryowen"? |
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Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch Date: 14 Sep 22 - 04:15 AM RE: Harlequin Amulet – "A favorite DANCE, Performed by Mr. Weippert* at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane In the NEW Pantomime of “HARLEQUIN AMULET”. Arrang'd as a RONDO for the P-Forte or Harp by M.Latour**. DUBLIN. Publish'd by (HIME) at his Musical Circulating Library (No.34) College Green–. Price 1s.1d." *Johann Michael Weippert (1775-1831): Harpist. Younger brother of composer and bandmaster John Erhradt Weippert (1766-1823.) **More on Jean Théodore Latour (1766–1837) here: Origins: Off She Goes |
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