Cití na gCumann: A Song History
"Cití na gCumann" is a song from the Irish tradition that is also played as an instrumental slow air.[1] English renderings of the title vary: the track listing of Alan Lomax's 1955 Irish anthology gives "Kitty of Loves," while the Irish Traditional Music Archive's catalogue gives "Darling Kitty."[2][3]
Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company, Irish Jig, from National Dances, commercial color lithograph, 1889. A dancer rather than a singer, shown for its Irish subject; it has no connection to the song.
The earliest recording indexed by irishtune.info is a performance by the singer Máire Ní Shúilleabháin (Máire O'Sullivan), dated there to about 1951.[1] It was issued on the Ireland volume of the Columbia World Library of Folk and Primitive Music (Columbia Masterworks SL-204), an LP compiled and edited by Lomax and released in 1955.[2] Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh and Frankie Kennedy recorded it for their 1987 Green Linnet album Altan, and the band Altan, with Ní Mhaonaigh on vocals and fiddle, recorded it again in 2009 for 25th Anniversary Celebration.[1][4] It is also among the pieces in Tomás Ó Canainn's collection Traditional Slow Airs of Ireland, and a 1995 recording of that name from Ossian Publications in Cork, with Ó Canainn among its performers, presents it as an air.[1][3]
Linda Brockinton includes it, under the title "Citi' Na Gcumman, Kitty In The Corner," in Simply Dulcimer, a self-published collection of her fingerstyle dulcimer settings, drawn mainly from Scottish and Irish music; the listing describes her as a National Dulcimer Champion.[5]
Sources
- irishtune.info: "Cití na gCumann".
- Mainly Norfolk: "The World Library of Folk and Primitive Music: Ireland".
- Irish Traditional Music Archive: "Traditional slow airs of Ireland [Tape 1]".
- irishtune.info: "Altan by Frankie Kennedy and Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh".
- Linda Brockinton: "Simply Dulcimer".
- Image: Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company, Irish Jig, from National Dances, commercial color lithograph, 1889. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.