Bonny Portmore was one of the first Irish songs I learned. It appealed to me because it treated trees--those stately beings from whom I've learned much about life--with such dignity and love. It might well be one of the earliest songs with an environmental theme, lamenting the logging of the surrounding forests, the loss of a gigantic oak, the Ornament Tree, as well as noting the futility of efforts by the estate manager, Sq. Dobbs, to gain farmland by draining the small lake, Portmore Lough.
The anonymous composer laments the destruction of Portmore Castle, the opulent hunting lodge of Lord Conway, perhaps the richest man in Ulster in the seventeenth century. Built in the 1660s and used for only a short time--Lord Conway's son and grandson showing no interest-- it fell into neglect and was eventually parted out and auctioned off in 1761. As an indication of its opulence, the stables, reputedly large enough to house a regiment, had marble troughs for the horses to drink from!
This song was originally collected by Edward Bunting from the harper, Daniel Black, in 1796. I found the first three verses, collected from Robert Cinnamond in 1952, in Seán O Boyle's The Irish Song Tradition. I chose the other three verses, one of which I cobbled together, from the complete 17 verse song as presented by Jean Totten in her John's Two Journeys (Killultagh Historical Society, 1999).
The background of this song is so rich and I have so many stories about it and about my field research on it that I couldn't begin to include them here. You can find more fascinating information about this song on my website, www.reverbnation.com/davidingerson.
lyrics
13. Bonnie Portmore
(Roud 3475) Traditional
Oh, Bonnie Portmore, you shine where you stand,
And the more I think on you the more I think long:
If I had you now as I had once before,
All the lords in old England could not purchase Portmore.
Oh, Bonnie Portmore, I am sorry to see
Such a woeful destruction of your ornament tree.
For it stood on your shore for many's the long day,
Till the long boats from Antrim came to float it away.
All the birds in the forest, they bitterly weep,
Saying, "Where shall we forage and where shall we sleep?
For the oak and the ash, they are all cutten down,
And the walls of Bonnie Portmore are all down to the ground."
Squire Dobbs, he was ingenious; he framed a windmill
For to drain the lough dry, but the lough is there still;
When the wind did blow the mill it went right,
But what it drew off all the long day, crept back under at night.
Oh, Bonnie Portmore, you are unfairly done,
Where once your proud buildings their equal was none;
With your ivory tables, and windows of ash,
Where great lords they used to dine, the farmers now thresh.
Now Bonnie Portmore, fare you well, oh, fare you well,
Of your far-famed beauty I ever shall tell;
When my last day shall come, I will lie by your shore,
And sweet will my dreams be, by you Bonnie Portmore.
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
