{"id":392,"date":"2015-10-06T14:06:12","date_gmt":"2015-10-06T13:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/ga\/hy-brasail-the-isle-of-the-blest\/"},"modified":"2021-03-30T11:59:14","modified_gmt":"2021-03-30T10:59:14","slug":"hy-brasail-the-isle-of-the-blest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/ga\/hy-brasail-the-isle-of-the-blest\/","title":{"rendered":"Hy-Brasail, the Isle of the Blest"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 id=\"t:seinnteoirin1\">Play recording: Hy-Brasail, the Isle of the Blest<\/h2>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-392-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/00-micil\/me\u00e1in\/hy-brasail-the-isle-of-the-blest.mp3?_=1\" \/><source type=\"audio\/ogg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/00-micil\/me\u00e1in\/hy-brasail-the-isle-of-the-blest.ogg?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/00-micil\/me\u00e1in\/hy-brasail-the-isle-of-the-blest.mp3\">https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/00-micil\/me\u00e1in\/hy-brasail-the-isle-of-the-blest.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<div class=\"dmeite\">\n<p><span id=\"neasc-nocht-ceilth\" class=\"nmeite\">view \/ hide recording details [+\/-]<\/span><\/p>\n<ul id=\"clarMeiteashonrai\" class=\"meiteashonrai\">\n<li><span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai\">Teideal <span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai-bearla\">(Title)<\/span>:<\/span> Hy-Brasail, the Isle of the Blest.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai\">Uimhir Chatal\u00f3ige Ollscoil Washington <span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai-bearla\">(University of Washington Catalogue Number)<\/span>:<\/span> 840111.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai\">Uimhir Chnuasach Bh\u00e9aloideas \u00c9ireann <span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai-bearla\">(National Folklore of Ireland Number)<\/span>:<\/span> none.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai\">Uimhir Roud <span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai-bearla\">(Roud Number)<\/span>:<\/span> 32533.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai\">Uimhir Laws <span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai-bearla\">(Laws Number)<\/span>:<\/span> none.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai\">Uimhir Child <span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai-bearla\">(Child Number)<\/span>:<\/span> none.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai\">Cnuasach <span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai-bearla\">(Collection)<\/span>:<\/span> Joe Heaney Collection, University of Washington, Seattle.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai\">Teanga na Cro\u00edmh\u00edre <span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai-bearla\">(Core-Item Language)<\/span>:<\/span> English.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai\">Catag\u00f3ir <span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai-bearla\">(Category)<\/span>:<\/span> song.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai\">Ainm an t\u00e9 a thug <span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai-bearla\">(Name of Informant)<\/span>:<\/span> Joe Heaney.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai\">Ainm an t\u00e9 a th\u00f3g <span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai-bearla\">(Name of Collector)<\/span>:<\/span> unavailable.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai\">D\u00e1ta an taifeadta <span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai-bearla\">(Recording Date)<\/span>:<\/span> 15\/11\/1983.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai\">Su\u00edomh an taifeadta <span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai-bearla\">(Recording Location)<\/span>:<\/span> University of Washington, United States of America.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai\">Oc\u00e1id an taifeadta <span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai-bearla\">(Recording Occasion)<\/span>:<\/span> evening class.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai\">Daoine eile a bh\u00ed i l\u00e1thair <span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai-bearla\">(Others present)<\/span>:<\/span> unavailable.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai\">St\u00e1das ch\u00f3ipcheart an taifeadta <span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai-bearla\">(Recording copyright status)<\/span>:<\/span> unavailable.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>There was a man from the Aran Islands who saw this Isle of the Blest. And if you look at that<sup class=\"tagairt-n\u00f3ta-bun-leathanaigh\">1<\/sup>, this is the song that was written about that man, when he went looking for the island. And believe me, you&#8217;d swear, as I did coming from school-I thought I could leave my hand on that island, and it was millions of miles away from me\u2026 But if you go back to Conamara, don&#8217;t stay up looking for the Isle of the Blest. You won&#8217;t see it. And you won&#8217;t see it &#8211; you have to be terrible innocent before you&#8217;d see it. And, eh, well, you could be innocent &#8211; but then again, you might be there at the wrong time. Well, this is the way they used to sing that song &#8211; the old people<sup class=\"tagairt-n\u00f3ta-bun-leathanaigh\">2<\/sup>:<\/p>\n<p>On the ocean that hollows the rocks where ye dwell<br \/>\nA shadowy land has appeared as they tell;<br \/>\nMen thought it a region of sunshine and rest,<br \/>\nAnd they called it Hy-Brasail, the Isle of the Blest.<\/p>\n<p>From year unto year on the ocean&#8217;s blue rim<br \/>\nThis beautiful spectre showed lovely and dim;<br \/>\nThe golden clouds curtained the deep where it lay,<br \/>\nAnd it looked like an Eden away, far away.<\/p>\n<p>A peasant who heard of the wonderful tale<br \/>\nIn the breeze of the orient loosened his sail.<br \/>\nFrom Ara the holy, he turned to the west;<br \/>\nFor though Ara was holy, Hy-Brasail was blest<sup class=\"tagairt-n\u00f3ta-bun-leathanaigh\">3<\/sup>.<\/p>\n<p>He heard not the voices that called from the shore,<br \/>\nHe heard not the rising wind&#8217;s menacing roar;<br \/>\nHome, kindred and safety he left on that day<br \/>\nAnd he sped to Hy-Brasail away, far away.<\/p>\n<p>Morn rose on the deep, and that shadowy isle<br \/>\nO&#8217;er the faint rim of distance reflected its smile;<br \/>\nNoon burned on the wave, and that shadowy shore<br \/>\nSeemed lovelily distant and faint as before.<\/p>\n<p>Lone evening came down on the wanderer&#8217;s track,<br \/>\nAnd to Ara again he looked timidly back;<br \/>\nOh! Far on the verge of the ocean it lay<br \/>\nYet the Idle of the Blest was away, far away.<\/p>\n<p>Rash dreamer, return! O ye winds of the main,<br \/>\nBear him back to his own peaceful Ara again.<br \/>\nRash fool for a vision of fanciful bliss<br \/>\nTo barter thy calm life of labour and peace!<\/p>\n<p>The warning of reason was spoken in vain;<br \/>\nHe never revisited Ara again.<br \/>\nNight fell on the deep, amidst tempest and spray,<br \/>\nAnd he died on the ocean away, far away.<\/p>\n<p>They&#8217;ll tell you that story in the Aran Islands. That man did that. And it looks so near! It&#8217;s funny. You know, on a calm day, there&#8217;s something &#8211; the sea, it does something to your vision. An island that&#8217;s three miles away, it will seem like it&#8217;s only ten yards away\u2026 That&#8217;s a dangerous time to go on the ocean.<\/p>\n<div class=\"n\u00f3ta\u00ed-bun-leathanaigh\">\n<h2 id=\"t:notai\">Notes<\/h2>\n<p class=\"n\u00f3ta-bun-leathanaigh\">1. Joe was referring to a printed text of the poem as he sang this, and was letting students know what to look for among their own printed materials.<\/p>\n<p class=\"n\u00f3ta-bun-leathanaigh\">2. It is debatable whether &#8216;the old people&#8217; actually sang this &#8211; not because they would not have sung a song in English (which they manifestly did), but because its idiom and structure are so different from the kinds of English-language songs they habitually chose.<\/p>\n<p class=\"n\u00f3ta-bun-leathanaigh\">3. A section of the recording, where Joe points out to students an error in their printed text, has been edited-out. When he resumes singing at the fourth verse, the pitch of the melody is a half-tone higher. While it was common for Joe to &#8216;go sharp&#8217; over the course of a song &#8211; indeed, this is a very common phenomenon among traditional singers in Ireland &#8211; he normally does so imperceptibly. The fault in this recording should not, therefore, be laid at his door.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Hy-Brasail, the Isle of the Blest&#8217; is a poem composed by Limerick-born poet Gerald Griffin (1803-40) which draws upon a traditional legend. Joe appears to be using it to illustrate the traditional belief in the existence of such a place, reminiscent of stories about T\u00edr na n\u00d3g (compare the story of Ois\u00edn and Niamh of the Golden Hair) or other mythical lands-beneath-the-waves such as Atlantis. Joe liked to tell about the time that he believed he himself saw Hy-Brasail, when he was a boy on his way home from school; also the story of how the island figured in one local family&#8217;s reputation as bonesetters. For more about Hy-Brasail (in Irish, &#8216;Beag-\u00c1rainn&#8217; or &#8216;Lesser Aran&#8217;), see Tom\u00e1s \u00d3 Concheanainn, &#8216;Seanchas ar Mhuintir Laidhe&#8217; in \u00c9igse 33 (2002), 179-225; also Daith\u00ed \u00d3 h\u00d3g\u00e1in, &#8216;The Mystical Island in Irish Folklore,&#8217; in P. Lysaght, S. \u00d3 Cath\u00e1in and D. \u00d3 h\u00d3g\u00e1in (eds.), Islanders and Water-Dwellers: Proceedings of the Celtic-Nordic-Baltic Folklore Symposium held at University College Dublin 16-19 June 1996, DBA Publications Ltd. for the Department of Irish Folklore, UCD (1999), 247-60.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"templates\/template-full-width.php","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-amhrain","category-amhrain-i-mbearla"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=392"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3610,"href":"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392\/revisions\/3610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}