Give Me Your Hand: A Song History

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"Give Me Your Hand," known in Irish as "Tabhair dom do lámh" and in Latin as "Da mihi manum," is a tune from the Irish harping tradition.[1][2] Tradition credits it to Ruaidhrí Dall Ó Catháin (Rory Dall O'Cahan), an Ulster harper said to have worked mainly in Scotland, and Edward Bunting's Ancient Music of Ireland of 1840 named him as composer with a date of 1603.[3] On his Early Gaelic Harp site, Simon Chadwick writes that the earliest attribution he has seen comes from the memoirs the harper Arthur O'Neill dictated for Bunting in the early 1800s.[2] In O'Neill's anecdote, Rory Dall refused a tune demanded by a Lady Eglinton and left her house, and after she sought a reconciliation he composed this piece for her.[3]

Engraving of young David playing a harp before King Saul, who sits holding a spear

Lucas van Leyden, David Playing the Harp Before Saul, engraving, ca. 1508. A harper, shown for the subject; it has no connection to the tune.

The story is now treated with caution: according to the University of St Andrews' Soundyngs blog, Keith Sanger found no mention of Rory Dall or the tune in the Eglinton estate papers and no evidence of either at the court of James VI, and Chadwick notes that Sanger has suggested this Rory Dall never existed.[4][5] The melody's earliest written source is the lute manuscript kept by Lady Margaret Wemyss in Fife in 1643–44, and the blog, summarizing a 2022 study by Áine Henegan, concludes it can probably be understood as "Scottish before it became Irish."[2][4] Through the eighteenth century it was printed in Dublin, London and Edinburgh collections, and Bunting noted his version from O'Neill's playing in about 1800 or 1806.[2][3]

Recordings include versions by Planxty on their album Planxty, by the Chieftains on The Chieftains 5, and by James Galway with the Chieftains on In Ireland in 1986.[1] Neal Walters and Heidi Cerrigione, part of a band known as The Doofus, include it in Occasional Number 4: 18 Favorite Waltzes For Autoharp, a collection of autoharp arrangements in sheet-music form.[6]

Our book that contains the song "Give Me Your Hand"

Sources

  1. irishtune.info: "Give Me Your Hand".
  2. Early Gaelic Harp Info (Simon Chadwick): "Da Mihi Manum".
  3. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Give Me Your Hand".
  4. University of St Andrews, Soundyngs: "Historical Harping 2: Who Was Rory Dall?".
  5. Early Gaelic Harp Info (Simon Chadwick): "Rory Dall: his life".
  6. Neal Walters and Heidi Cerrigione: "The Doofus - Occasional Number 4 - 18 Favorite Waltzes For Autoharp".
  7. Image: Lucas van Leyden, David Playing the Harp Before Saul, engraving, ca. 1508. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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