My Lagan Love: A Song History
"My Lagan Love" pairs words by the Belfast-born poet Joseph Campbell (1879–1944) with an air that the composer Herbert Hughes found in Donegal.[1][2] The Dictionary of Ulster Biography notes that, although Campbell and Hughes worked together on English versions of Irish folk songs, this text was one Campbell wrote himself.[1] In his foreword to Songs of Uladh, Hughes said he made the collection on a holiday in north Donegal in the August before; Ask About Ireland puts that trip in 1903, but a note quoted by Mainly Norfolk instead credits Campbell with collecting the air in 1904, so sources differ on who found it and when.[2][3][4] According to a note on the tune quoted by the Traditional Tune Archive, a fiddler named Proinseas mac Suibhne played it for the collector; he had it from his father, Seaghan, who was said to have learned it some fifty years earlier from a sapper on the Ordnance Survey, and it had once been sung locally to a now-forgotten ballad, "The Belfast Maid."[2] The Lagan of the title has never been pinned down: Ask About Ireland favours the river through Belfast while allowing for a Lagan stream that runs into Lough Swilly, and other commentators point to the Lagan district of east Donegal and west Tyrone.[3][4]
Crozier of Saint Mura, of Fahan, County Donegal (replica of a 7th-century original), bronze, silver and gems, early 20th century. A replica of the crozier of St Mura of Fahan, County Donegal, shown for the Donegal home of the air; it has no connection to the song.
Songs of Uladh was printed in Belfast in 1904 for the publisher William Mullan, with the song on page 32 according to John Moulden, and Villanova University's catalog record of a copy notes that its blocks were made in Belfast and its paper at Ballyclare, County Antrim.[2][5] The tenor John McCormack recorded the song in New York on 25 March 1910 with the Victor Orchestra, in an arrangement credited to Hamilton Harty, and notes quoted by Mainly Norfolk credit that Victor record with popularising it.[6][4] Margaret Barry was recorded singing it by Alan Lomax in 1953, Richard Fariña set his poem "The Quiet Joys of Brotherhood" to the air, and Scottish and Canadian pipe bands occasionally play the melody.[4][2] Neal Hellman includes it among the 35 arrangements in Mountain Dulcimer Arrangements From Both Sides Of The Atlantic, a Fingers Of Steel book that notates ornaments such as pull-offs and pitch bends and comes with an MP3 recording of each piece.[7]
Sources
- Dictionary of Ulster Biography: "Campbell, Joseph".
- The Traditional Tune Archive: "My Lagan Love".
- Ask About Ireland: "My Lagan Love".
- Mainly Norfolk: "My Lagan Love".
- Villanova University Digital Library: "Songs of Uladh" (Belfast, 1904).
- Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Victor matrix B-8751. My Lagan love / John McCormack".
- Fingers Of Steel: "Neal Hellman, Mountain Dulcimer Arrangements From Both Sides Of The Atlantic".
- Image: Crozier of Saint Mura, of Fahan, County Donegal (replica of a 7th-century original), bronze, silver and gems, early 20th century. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.