The Minstrel Boy: A Song History

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"The Minstrel Boy" belongs to Thomas Moore's Irish Melodies, a series of Irish tunes arranged for voice and piano with new words by Moore, issued in ten numbers between 1808 and 1834.[1] The Traditional Tune Archive dates the song's first appearance to 1813 and identifies Moore's air as "Moreen," which George Petrie gave as "Móirín."[2] Charles Villiers Stanford, editing the Melodies in 1895, called it "a reel-tune, altered by Moore into a march."[2] Moore is widely believed to have written it in memory of friends from his Trinity College, Dublin, days who died in the United Irishmen's rising of 1798, though the sources consulted here report this as a belief rather than a documented fact.[3][4]

Engraving of a bearded bard with a harp striding on a rocky crag above a river, with an army on the far bank below.

John Hall after Philip James de Loutherbourg, The Bard, etching and engraving, 1784. A harp-carrying bard above an army, shown for the song's title; the engraving illustrates Thomas Gray's poem The Bard, not Moore's song, and has no connection to it.

The Gilder Lehrman Collection holds an American sheet-music printing made in Baltimore for J. Carr, catalogued as about 1863, though its date is uncertain.[3] The song became a favorite among Irish soldiers in the American Civil War.[3][4] Victor recordings include a piccolo solo by George Schweinfest, dated 1902 in the discography though the date is unconfirmed, and a 1905 recording by tenor James McCool, both listing the air as "The Moreen."[5][6] Francis O'Neill also printed the melody in Music of Ireland (1903), crediting the fiddler James O'Neill.[2]

The tune is now a standard among Irish bands of Great Highland pipes.[2] A brass-band arrangement is a regular part of the Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph in London, and films such as Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down have used it.[1] In The Man Who Would Be King (1975), Sean Connery and Michael Caine's characters sing it once it is clear they will not meet again.[2] For mountain dulcimer, Shelley Stevens sets it among the thirteen melodies of Baker's Dozen #1: Celtic Music, a Fingers Of Steel collection of solo chord-melody arrangements in DAD tuning, printed in both standard notation and tablature.[7]

Our book that contains the song "The Minstrel Boy"

Sources

  1. Queen's University Belfast, Thomas Moore in Europe (ERIN): "The Irish Melodies: Songs That Still Speak".
  2. Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation: Minstrel Boy (The)".
  3. Gilder Lehrman Collection (American History, 1493-1945): "The Minstrel Boy" (GLC05874).
  4. Mainly Norfolk (Folkinfo): "The Minstrel Boy".
  5. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Victor matrix [Pre-matrix B-]1623. The minstrel boy / George Schweinfest".
  6. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Victor matrix B-2483. The minstrel boy / James McCool".
  7. Fingers Of Steel: "Shelley Stevens, Baker's Dozen #1: Celtic Music".
  8. Image: John Hall after Philip James de Loutherbourg, The Bard, etching and engraving, 1784. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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