“The Heathery Hills”
Description
"I mind it well, and I see it yet" The singer recalls past days meeting Rory on the Heathery Hill. She misses her mother and her father's fields. "The city holds no pleasure" and she would give it up for a summer eve with Rory on the Heathery Hill.
Notes
IRTunneyFamily01: Brigid Tunney explains that she learned the song from her sister; it was among the songs she learned in Glasgow and brought back to Ireland on her annual return. - BS
According to Patrick C. Power, _A Literary History of Ireland_ (Mercier, 1969), p. 160, Ethna Carbery, a native of Belfast, took Donegal as her theme; her "fame rests on one volume alone -- _The Four Winds of Erinn_. This was published posthumously in 1902. She essentially belongs to the nationalistic ballad tradition which goes back to the _Nation_ writers."
According to Kathleen Hoagland, _1000 Years of Irish Poetry_, p. 775, Carbery's true name was Anna Johnston McManus. (I have no idea why she needed a pen name after her death.) Her one song work well-known in folk circles is "Roddy McCorley." - RBW
Recordings
- Brigid Tunney, "The Heathery Hills" (on IRTunneyFamily01)
References
- Roud #5295
- BI, RcHeaHil