I recorded this poignant song in the early 1980s in a pub session in Miltown Malbay during the Willie Clancey Week. I have no idea who the singer was, but the song, with all its specific personal and historical references, grabbed my attention. Tommy Dunn kindly supplied the next-to-last verse for me.
The lyrics were composed by John Canavan and had the title, "The Emigrant." Being ignorant of that when I learned the song, I gave it a title echoing the repeated phrase in the song, "...my lovely mountain home." Frankly, I like my title better, for the whole thrust of the song is the narrator's longing and yearning for his meaning-laden and memorable birthplace, which he will never see again.
The emigrant ends up enlisting in the US Navy during the Spanish-American war and is embarrassed to have taken arms up against the "sons of Spain," who were traditional allies of the Irish (both being Roman Catholic and enemies of England). The Caribbean wing of the Spanish fleet was decimated by the US Navy on 3 July, 1898 just outside the bay of Santiago De Cuba.
Carndaisy Glen is on the southern slope of Slieve Gallion in the southeast corner of Co. Derry.
The text appears in the Canavan Country, in Search of John Canavan, The Bard of Killycolpy, by the John Canavan Festival Committee, 2013. I am unable to find any other recordings of this song, which deserves a much wider audience.
lyrics
15. My Lovely Mountain Home
or The Emigrant (Roud 2888) Traditional
To all intended immigrants I penned this simple lay,
From one who lies in hospital three thousand miles away,
To warn them all the dangers, that they might weep and see
The fate of a young Irishman in that great land of the free.
I left my lovely mountain home, near to Slieve Gallion Braes,
Light-hearted as a moor cock that on the heather plays.
No hare on Carndaisey was swifter than I,
When I left my lovely mountain home and bid my lass good-bye.
On board of an ocean liner where the Foyle's white waters play,
I stood an Irish immigrant, bound for Amerikay.
And as I took my last fond look, with a heart both sad and sore,
I cursed the laws that drove me from my lovely shamrock shore.
The evening that I landed I scaled two hundred pounds.
I feared not the great O'Sullivan who wore the laurel crown.
Fresh from my lovely mountain home with muscles strong as steel,
No champion on Columbia's shores, before him would I yield.
But for six long months in search of work, sure I rambled far and near,
Till at length I joined the Navy as an Irish volunteer.
No wonder on my wasted cheeks I wear the blush of shame,
To think I backed the stars and stripes against the sons of Spain.
I stood on board of a battleship on that ill-fated day
When the Spanish fleet was captured close to Santiago Bay.
A bombshell fired that evening from out of Fort San Juan
Left many's the widow mourning and me a wounded man.
Disabled now for all my life, I never more will stray
On the hills of Carndaisey or the green shores of Lough Neagh.
I will never see my parents more, who grieved my loss full sore,
Or kiss my darling colleen in the town of Moneymore.
In dreams I oft-times wander back along those mountain streams,
Where the hare at dawn is sporting on Derry's lovely plains.
I think I hear the moor cock in his heathery tummock crow,
Tucked up in sweet Slieve Gallion, in his fleecy bed of snow.
But why should I go rambling for those fine old days gone by,
When in a New York cemet'ry my wasted bones will lie.
Like thousands of my countrymen, I'll fill a nameless grave,
Far away from sweet Slieve Gallion, where the wild heather waves.
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
