Time for a new song…
You have to be prepared for those occasions where you find yourself in the midst of a impromtu music session…
The last one I stumbled upon, was a couple of months ago at the Galway Bay Hotel out in Salthill. We went in for a night cap there towards midnight, strolled into the lounge area and there was a big circle of Dublin men, with their fists around their pints and they blashting out some great songs….
Since then I’ve been thinking that I should brush up on my own repertoire. I decided to learn a brand new song…
I wanted to pick a local song, so I thought I’d learn “Skibbereen”, also known as “Dear Old Skibbereen”. It’s an old rebel song in the style of a conversation of a father telling his son about how the famine ruined his farm in Skibbereen, and killed his wife.
A lot of people do a cover of it; Sinéad O’Connor and The Wolfe Tones to name but a couple, but I like Ronnie Drew’s version best, here it is on youtube:
For those of you who never heard of Skibbereen, it’s a small town in West Cork and if you get to know it well, you can call it Skibb for short:
The Lyrics of Skibbereen:
O, father dear and I often hear you speak of Eireann’s Isle
Her lofty scenes, her valleys green, her mountains rude and wild
They say it is a lovely land wherein a prince might dwell
Then why did you abandon it, oh, the reason to me tell
My son, I loved my native land with energy and pride
Then a blight came over all my crops and my sheep and cattle died
The rents and taxes were to pay and I could not them redeem
And that’s the cruel reason I left old Skibbereen
‘Tis well I do remember the bleak November day
When the bailiff and the landlord came to drive us all away
They set the roof on fire with their cursed English spleen
And that’s another reason I left old Skibbereen
Your mother, too, God rest her soul, lay on the snowy ground
She fainted in her anguishing seeing the desolation round
She never rose, but passed away from life to immortal dreams
And that’s another reason I left old Skibbereen
Oh you were only two years old and feeble was your frame
I could not leave you with my friends for you bore your father’s name
I wrapped you in my cóta mór at the dead of night unseen
And I heaved a sigh and I said goodbye to dear old Skibereen
Oh father dear, the day will come when on vengeance we will call
And Irishmen both stout and tall will rally unto the call
I’ll be the man to lead the van beneath the flag of green
And loud and high we’ll raise the cry, Revenge for Skibbereen
