The Fair Maid Of Wicklow: A Song History

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"The Fair Maid of Wicklow" is a slow Irish air in triple time and a minor key, which the Traditional Tune Archive files under its other name, "The Dirge of Carolan."[1] That second title belongs to a lament by Robert Tannahill (1774–1810), the weaver-poet of Paisley, for the blind harper-composer Turlough O'Carolan (1670–1738).[1][2][3]

Etching of a quiet river bending between grassy banks and clumps of trees.

Francis Seymour Haden, A River in Ireland, etching, 1864. A river in Ireland, shown for the air's Irish title; the etching does not show Wicklow and has no connection to the tune.

An 1853 edition of Tannahill's works heads the dirge with the Irish air "The fair Maid of Wicklow."[4] Sources differ on which air belongs with the poem, though: an 1877 edition of his songs names an air called "Ballymoney" for the same verses, and the Tune Archive reports that his 1815 collection did the same.[5][1] The pairing with "The Fair Maid of Wicklow" was already in print by 1825, when the Edinburgh volume The Irish Minstrel set the dirge to it.[6][1] Instrumental collections of the 1850s carried the melody on: P. M. Haverty's New York series One Hundred Irish Airs lists it in its index under both names, and J. T. Surenne included it in The Songs of Ireland without Words (Edinburgh, 1854).[7][8] The Tune Archive also notes a second song set to it, John Keegan's "The Holly and Ivy Girl."[1]

Linda Brockinton arranges it as a duet in Simply Dulcimer, a self-published collection of fingerstyle dulcimer settings drawn mostly from Scottish and Irish music.[9]

Our book that contains the song "The Fair Maid Of Wicklow"

Sources

  1. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Dirge of Carolan (The)".
  2. Britannica: "Turlough O'Carolan".
  3. University of Glasgow: "A weaver in wartime: a biographical study and the letters of Paisley weaver-poet Robert Tannahill (1774-1810)".
  4. Internet Archive: "The Works of Robert Tannahill" (1853).
  5. Internet Archive: "Complete Songs and Poems of Robert Tannahill" (1877).
  6. Internet Archive: "The Irish Minstrel: A Selection from the Vocal Melodies of Ireland" (1825).
  7. Internet Archive: P. M. Haverty, "One Hundred Irish Airs".
  8. Internet Archive: J. T. Surenne, "The Songs of Ireland without Words" (1854).
  9. Linda Brockinton: "Simply Dulcimer".
  10. Image: Francis Seymour Haden, A River in Ireland, etching, 1864. The Cleveland Museum of Art.

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