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10:19pm - July 5th, 2008
Songs of Moyvane
by Gabriel Fitzmaurice (1980)
I remember as a very small boy, Tomeen the boss coming into our kitchen
singing "Foley's Jackass". I laughed at him; he was a funny man. His
songs meant nothing to me then.
Years later when I was grown up (say about ten years old!) I heard
someone mention a song called "The
Rose of Newtownsandes". I always wanted to hear that song.
Call it curiosity or whatever but I wanted to hear it, and in 1975
I finally tracked it down. Donie Lyons of Dromerisk (the flute player)
told me of an extraordinary man, Con Greaney of Rooska who sang the
song.
Having come of age on a thin diet of Planxty-like folk songs I was
not prepared for what I heard. I sat on a sugán chair in Greaney's
kitchen with the microphone in my hand. Greaney exploded into song.
I got such a fright that I sat bolt upright in my chair, my heart
having missed a beat!
That started me on the collection of trad songs. Since then I have
met many men (why must it always be men!), some of them old some middle-aged
but every one of them I loved. They had an infinite quality of lovableness
and innocence. Their hearts were In their songs; the great Con Greaney,
my uncles Billy and Jack Cunningham, Jack McElligott of Gurtdromagowna,
the inimitable Jack Carroll, Jimmy Herbert and Mickeen Fitzgerald
of sweet Athea to mention but a few.
The songs of Moyvane parish (Newtownsandes as it was formerly called
for love of landlords) published here may be broadly divided into
"three categories:
(a)Sporting songs; (b) Political songs and (c) Love songs.
Moyvane has a great and varied sporting history, she has given of
her young men who have graced football fields, wearing the proud Kerry
jersey in three continents, poets sang their praises as they did of
the great Dainty Man, a half
blind hound who took Ireland's best to the cleaners that day in Clonmel
when he brought the Derby home to Moyvane.
Moyvane has strong nationalist feelings as is evidenced by the selection
of political songs printed here. Remember it was in our parish that
the men of "The Valley of
Knockanure" were sent to their doom at an early bloom, to
spotlight just one tragedy.
And then we have "The Rose
of Newtownsandes", the best traditional song I've heard in
years. The air, the mystery; it's all there. Who was she, where did
she come from, what was she, why did the poet write the song? All
unanswered questions because everyone has a different answer.
If there's anyone out there who knows any song, bit of song, poem
or verse about the Moyvane/Knockanure area, I would be eternally grateful
if you would give them to me.
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