The Cliffs of Doneen: A Song History

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"The Cliffs of Dooneen" is an Irish song in which the singer praises a stretch of coast, with its wildflowers and wildlife and its views across the water to Kilrush and Kilkee in County Clare, before bidding it farewell.[1] A copy written down in July 1938 for the Schools' Collection at Beale National School in County Kerry records the informant's statement that Jack McAuliffe of Lixnaw composed it while visiting relatives in Beale, and the collector added that Dooneen was a small fort near the cliffs a mile or two away.[2] Christy Moore's website, by contrast, lists the author as unknown, so the sources consulted here differ on who wrote it.[1] The Irish Times columnist Frank McNally places the cliffs in north Kerry, while acknowledging that their whereabouts is a favourite subject of debate in Irish balladry and joking that the song's view of West Clare makes the setting seem partly imagined.[3] The song was also recorded in Kerry: a BBC disc preserves Mrs Eileen Sheridan singing it there on 14 January 1956.[4]

Color photochrom of a green coastline with bays, an island and mountains beyond

[At Valentia. County Kerry, Ireland], photochrom, between ca. 1890 and ca. 1900. A County Kerry coastline shown for its setting; it is not the cliffs of the song.

Moore dates his first hearing of the song to 1965 and names Andy Rynne, Ann Mulqueen and Mick McGuane among the singers whose versions he has heard.[1] He recorded it for his 1972 album Prosperous, recorded at Prosperous, County Kildare, with Dónal Lunny, Liam O'Flynn and Andy Irvine among the musicians.[5] The same four musicians released it that year as a single under the name Planxty, issued by Polydor in Ireland with "Yarmouth Town" on the B-side.[6] Moore notes that singers have taken it in very different directions, from Margo's country-and-Irish recording to Andy Rynne's sean-nós style.[1] Folk-song indexers file it as Roud 9236.[5] The irishtune.info index lists it as a song in D major.[7]

Shelley Stevens includes it, spelled "The Cliffs of Doneen," in Baker's Dozen #1: Celtic Music, thirteen well-known Celtic tunes arranged for solo mountain dulcimer in DAD tuning with standard notation and tablature, published by Fingers Of Steel.[8]

Our book that contains the song "The Cliffs of Doneen"

Sources

  1. Christy Moore: "Cliffs Of Dooneen".
  2. dúchas.ie, The Schools' Collection: "Beale (1): A Song (continued)" (1938).
  3. The Irish Times: "Classic Rock – Frank McNally on tracing the origins of a famous Irish ballad" (2018).
  4. Vaughan Williams Memorial Library: "Ireland: folk songs" (BBC, 1956).
  5. Mainly Norfolk: "Christy Moore: Prosperous".
  6. Mainly Norfolk: "Planxty: Cliffs of Dooneen".
  7. irishtune.info: "Cliffs of Dooneen".
  8. Fingers Of Steel: "Shelley Stevens, Baker's Dozen #1: Celtic Music".
  9. Image: [At Valentia. County Kerry, Ireland], photochrom, between ca. 1890 and ca. 1900. Library of Congress.

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