“Garryowen (II)”

Description

"Let Bacchus's sons be not dismayed"; "booze and sing" ;"take delight in smashing the Limerick lamps" and fighting in the streets. Doctors can fix our bruises. Break windows and doors. Beat bailiffs. "Where'er we go they dread the name Of Garryowen"

Notes

Croker-PopularSongs: "Garryowen, in English, 'Owen's Garden,' is a suburb of Limerick."

Digital Tradition: "Official marching tune of Custer's Seventh Cavalry."

Croker-PopularSongs quoting a letter of 1833: Two of the characters in the song [Johnny Connell and Darby 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." The Digital Tradition version omits four of the seven verses from Croker, and adds none, and the verses mentioning Connell and O'Brien are among the missing: Connell went to Cork and O'Brien leapt over the dock, apparently at sentencing.

Croker-PopularSongs: "Speaking of the enjoyments of the people of Limerick at fair time or on festival days, Fitzgerald and MacGregor notice in their history, a fondness for music of the fiddle or bagpipe. 'Amongst the airs selected upon these occasions, 'Patrick's Day,' and 'Garryowen,' always hold a distinguished place.'"

The only obvious connection between "Garryowen (I)" and "Garryowen (II)" is the last line of the chorus: "From Garryowen in glory!"/"For Garryowen na glora" - BS

References

  1. Croker-PopularSongs, pp. 230-237, "Garryowen" (1 text)
  2. ADDITIONAL: Kathleen Hoagland, editor, One Thousand Years of Irish Poetry (New York, 1947), p. 264, "Garryowen"
  3. H. Halliday Sparling, Irish Minstrelsy (London, 1888), pp. 478-479, 511, "Garryowen"
  4. BI, CrPS230

About

Author: unknown
Earliest date: 1839 (Croker-PopularSongs)