The songs of our forefathers will always resonate with me
Remember that most beautiful, haunting song about emigration from Donegal - Noreen Bawn? Nobody can be absolutely certain who actually wrote the lyrics, was it J M Crofts or Neil McBride from Creeslough?
One way or another, the basis of the song was the tale of Bridget Gallagher, from Oughdarragh townland, who emigrated to America like thousands before her.
At the age of 23, and very ill, she returned home but died shortly afterwards. She is buried in Doe Cemetery not far from her native place.
Donegal’s own songstress Bridie Gallagher made Noreen Bawn famous. Well, I sang the old song last Friday and again on Saturday!
Friday morning saw myself and my friends Tommy and Jim meet for our regular monthly breakfast. We meet either in Fermoy or Midleton, and between talk, craic and ating, we generally spend between two and three hours together!
Last Friday, we were joined for our morning nourishment by another great friend, Art Supple. Art and meself sang every second verse of Noreen Bawn in a low-key manner, but still the applause came.
Twenty-four hours later, I was ‘alone, all alone’ in the Park Hotel in Dungarvan with no Art Supple to back me up this time! The occasion was the Annual Dinner of the Gortroe Ladies Club, and yours truly was the after dinner entertainment.
As Leo Maguire, God bless him, used to say, ‘If you feel like singing , do sing an Irish song’.
Amazing, then, wasn’t it, after my two-day immersion in those great songs of our past, that when I plonked myself by the roaring fire on Saturday night, my mind was once again filled with thoughts of ‘bringing it all back home’! As I’ve often told ye down the years, I’m not a big telly fan. On a night all alone at home I’d put on the wireless and take down a book from the shelf and away I’d travel on wings of poetry or prose -last week Canon Sheehan’s My New Curate filled my senses.
Anyway, on Saturday night the telly was on in the corner. Before the heat induced an armchair nap, didn’t I see Pat Shortt on the box with his ‘D’Telly’ programme where he goes back over old programmes from years and decades before.
Back in the 1970s, Pat and his pal Jon Kenny were part of a crazy, zany band called Gimik that we hired for a GAA Festival Dance in Rathcormac - what a night of musical mayhem that was!
On Saturday night, I was gobsmacked to see Pat showing a video clip from January, 1981. It was wonderfully nostalgic piece - ‘radio on Television’ is how one could describe it.
Back in 1927, Raidió Éireann featured its first ever ‘sponsored’ programme, and 25 years later, in 1952, the Walton’s programme started on a Saturday afternoon.
Martin Walton was a tall, elegant Dubliner. Born in 1903, he joined Fianna Éireann and acted as a courier during the 1916 Rising. He later joined the Volunteers and fought in the War of Independence. He was arrested and spent a year in Ballykinlar Camp in Co. Down.
Whilst interned, he and Peadar Kearney - Brendan Behan’s uncle - formed a Prisoner’s Orchestra - improvising regular orchestral instruments with what ever they could find or make!
In later life, Walton became a music publisher, instrument maker and teacher. He set up his business at 2, North Frederick Street in Dublin.
Martin began publishing sheet music and in 1951 Glenside Records was set up. A year later, the Walton’s sponsored programme came to the Saturday afternoon airwaves and remained there for nigh on 30 years. The presenter was a contemporary of Walton’s, the great Leo Maguire.
We all can recall - well, those of us of a certain age - the Ballad Boom of the 1960s with The Dubliners, Clancys, Johnstons, Emmet Spiceland, Johnny McEvoy, the Ludlows and Danny Doyle. Well, in the late 1940s and the 1950s, Walton’s gave ‘air-time’ to an earlier generation who laid the foundations of what was to come in the ‘Boom’ years.
Looking back now from our hi-tech perspective, some may pour scorn on the Glenside recordings as old fashioned and a bit stage Irishy. Yes indeed, they were old-fashioned, but truly they were the songs our fathers and grandparents sang, and proud they were of them too.
Artists like Joe Lynch, Delia Murphy, Martin Dempsey, Margaret Barry, Connie Foley and Charlie McGee and his gay guitar were just some of the names I still recall.
When we were all small in our house in the 1960s, dinner time was usually around 1pm. With the dinner, maybe semolina after that, then tay and maybe a few cuts of bread and butter, the meal could take well over an hour. Mam, the five of us, Paddy who worked for us, and Auntie Jo and oft times Granny Twomey - Lord, how did we ever fit into our small kitchen at all!
Whatever about Sunday or other days during the school holiday, the one certainty was that of a Saturday all eating and drinking was well done by a quarter to two. That’s when the voice of the great Leo Maguire welcomed us all to enjoy the music and songs of our forefathers.
Listening to Delia with The Blackbird or Joe Lynch with The Lovely Cottage By The Lee, or indeed Bridie Gallagher with The Boys Of Armagh as a youngster, I was imbued with that sense of history and pride in the people and places being sung about on the radio. Of course, Moonlight In Mayo, The Wild Colonial Boy, and Boolavogue might no longer be on the lips of today’s teenagers, but songs like these and so many others coloured our youth.
Coincidentally, Martin Walton died in 1981, the year his sponsored radio programme finished. Leo Maguire lived on until 1985.
Most people under 50 would look askance nowadays if asked about ‘sponsored programmes’ but they meant as much to generations of Irish people as all the modern fandangles of ‘social media’ mean to today’s populace.
Glad was I on Saturday night to see that historic clip of Leo Maguire as he presented his last Walton’s Pprogramme in January, 1981.
Ah yes, I’ll finish now with a chorus that I often sing when thoughts of old times and the people gone before me come to mind;
App?
