Amhrán na Leabhar, or Song of the Books, is one of the big Munster songs I love so much. They are deep and heavy, packed with images and meaning, historically significant, and both musically and poetically sophisticated and powerful. Songs of this sort call to me. I heard it first on Taobh na Gréine by Seosaimhín Ní Bheaglaoich.
The author, Tomás 'Rua' Ó Súilleabháin (1785 - 1851), a hedge school master and regionally famous poet, lived during the last decades of the Penal Laws, when Roman Catholic education was outlawed. Around 1840, after the Penal Laws had been repealed, he moved from the south to the north shore of the Iveragh Peninsula in west Kerry, traveling over the mountains himself, but shipping all his possessions by boat around the end of the peninsula. He lost everything to shipwreck, most notably his library of hundreds of books, including the usual stock of the more outstanding hedge school masters: classics of ancient Greece and Rome, Hebrew texts, manuscript documents, and the classics of Medieval and early modern Irish, all leather-bound. This song is the enduring, monumental lament for that loss.
The melody is particularly suited to the subject of loss, having not only a flatted third and seventh, but also now and then a flatted sixth, giving a thoroughly depressive sound to the air. Technically, it's a combination of the dorian and hypodorian modes.
In addition to Seosaimhín's recording, it has been recorded by her brother, Seamus Begley, and by Tim Dennehy, and can be heard on YouTube performed by Lorcan Macmathuna.
lyrics
5. Amhrán na Leabhar
(Song of the Books) Traditional
Go Cuan Bhéil Inse casadh mé
Coís Góilín aoibhinn Dairbhre
Mar a seoltar flít na farraige
Thar sáile i gcéin.
I bPort Mag' Aoidh do stadas seal,
Faoi [Fe] thuairim intinn maitheasa
D'fhonn bheith sealad eatarthu
Mar mháistir léinn.
Is gearr gur chuala an t-eachtara
Ag cách mo léan!
Gur i mBórd Eoghain Fhinn do chailleadh theas
An t-árthach tréan.
Do phreab mo chroí le hatuirse
I dtaobh loinge an tigheasaigh chalma
Go mb'fhearrde an tír í sheasamh seal
Dá ráibh an tséin.
Mo chiach, mo chumha is m'atuirse!
Mé im iarsma dhubh ag ainnise
Is mé síoraí a'déanamh mairbhna,
Ar mo chás bhocht féin!
Mo chuid éadaigh chúdaigh scaipithe,
Do bhí déanta, cumtha, ceapaithe,
Is do thriaill thar thriúchaibh Banban
Mar bhláth fém dhéin.
Iad bheith imithe sa bhfarraige
Ar bharr an scéil,
Is a thuilleadh acu sa lasair
Is mé go támhach trém néal;
Ba thrua le cách ar maidin mé
Go buartha, cásmhar, ceasnuithe,
Is an fuacht do chráigh im bhallaibh mé
Gan snáth ón spéir!
By Valentia harbour I happened once
Near sweet Goleen Dairbhre
To be the master in Portmagee
Where ships set sail for the ocean deep.
Soon all had the sorrowful story then
Of the sturdy craft, lost at Owen Finn,
Sad was my heart for the ship that failed;
Better this land had it survived the gale.
(A condensed, poetic translation, first verse, by Tomás Ó Canainn)
O, the grief that has left me a former shade of myself;
That horrible day I'm forever reliving!
The delicate shell of my being stripped from me,
Like a blossom being blown from the shores of Ireland.
And those petals (pages) blown adrift on the ocean to their end;
And many more in flames, for in shock I could not save them.
Everyone did pity me that morning as I drifted in thought,
And the worry chilled my bones to numbness without supplication even from heaven!
(A poetic translation of the second verse by Brian Ó hAirt)
David entertains in the old-fashioned way, with warmth and wit, as if he were sitting with the audience around the turf fire
in an Irish cottage long ago. David has been singing old-style Irish songs for 40 years and is deeply invested in collecting, researching, and performing them authentically and entertainingly....more
