{"id":446,"date":"2015-10-06T14:06:13","date_gmt":"2015-10-06T13:06:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/ga\/flower-of-sweet-strabane-the\/"},"modified":"2016-01-25T11:25:38","modified_gmt":"2016-01-25T11:25:38","slug":"flower-of-sweet-strabane-the","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/ga\/flower-of-sweet-strabane-the\/","title":{"rendered":"Flower of Sweet Strabane, The"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 id=\"t:seinnteoirin1\">Play recording: Flower of Sweet Strabane, The<\/h2>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-446-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/00-micil\/me\u00e1in\/flower-of-sweet-strabane-the.mp3?_=1\" \/><source type=\"audio\/ogg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/00-micil\/me\u00e1in\/flower-of-sweet-strabane-the.ogg?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/00-micil\/me\u00e1in\/flower-of-sweet-strabane-the.mp3\">https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/00-micil\/me\u00e1in\/flower-of-sweet-strabane-the.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> Flower of Sweet Strabane, The.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai\">Uimhir Chatal\u00f3ige Ollscoil Washington <span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai-bearla\">(University of Washington Catalogue Number)<\/span>:<\/span> 853909.<\/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> 2745.<\/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> Lucy Simpson.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai\">D\u00e1ta an taifeadta <span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai-bearla\">(Recording Date)<\/span>:<\/span> 21\/01\/1980.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai\">Su\u00edomh an taifeadta <span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai-bearla\">(Recording Location)<\/span>:<\/span> Ray Ridge, Brooklyn, New York, United States of America.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai\">Oc\u00e1id an taifeadta <span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai-bearla\">(Recording Occasion)<\/span>:<\/span> private.<\/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>This is about a pretty girl and the man who&hellip; could do anything in the world to have her&hellip; sitting by his fire. In other words, he do anything to have her for his wife. Even if he was the king of Ireland&hellip; Strabane is a little town in&hellip; Tyrone.<\/p>\n<p>If I were king of Erin&#8217;s isle and all things at my will<br \/>\nI would roam for recreation my comfort to find still;<br \/>\nThe comfort I would ask for, as you may understand<br \/>\nIs to win the heart of Martha, the flower of sweet Strabane.<\/p>\n<p>Her cheeks they are a rosy red and her hair a lovely brown<br \/>\nO&#8217;er her lily-white shoulders it carelessly hangs down<br \/>\nShe is one of the finest creatures of the whole Milesian clan<br \/>\nAnd my heart is captivated by the flower of sweet Strabane.<\/p>\n<p>I wish I had my darling girl way down in Inishowen<br \/>\nOr in some lonely valley in the wild woods of Tyrone;<br \/>\nI would do my whole endeavour and work my newest plan<br \/>\nTo have beside my own turf-fire the flower of sweet Strabane.<\/p>\n<p>But since she will not marry me, no joy is here for me<br \/>\nI will seek forgetfulness in the land across the sea<br \/>\nBut if ever I return again, I swear by my right hand<br \/>\nThat by my own fireside I&#8217;ll have my bride &#8211; the flower of sweet Strabane.<\/p>\n<div class=\"n\u00f3ta\u00ed-bun-leathanaigh\">\n<h2 id=\"t:notai\">Notes<\/h2>\n<p>Before singing, Joe goes into a long digression about the word &#8216;sweet&#8217; in the title of this song, and about other songs he knows from the northern counties of Ireland. Lucy sounds unconvinced by his derivation of &#8216;sweet&#8217; from an Irish word suidh for &#8216;pure white sand&#8217; &#8211; and indeed, no such word is known to any of the dictionaries or the natives of Carna that we have consulted. It&#8217;s far likelier, as Lucy supposes, that the word simply means &#8216;sweet.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Occasionally Joe indulged in elaborate fabrications &#8211; sometimes out of a wish to have an answer for a question, and other times out of pure devilment, as he would admit himself. It&#8217;s hard to tell what his motive is here. Lucy Simpson is one of the few people to whom Joe is generally comfortable giving the answer &#8216;I don&#8217;t know&#8217; and when he&#8217;s indulging in a leg-pull there&#8217;s often a laugh that gives it away.<\/p>\n<p>When asked where he heard it, Joe says &#8216;everybody sang it, to be honest with you, there was no special person &#8211; everybody loved it and sang it.&#8217; This song, along with the other songs of northern origin that he names, became popular standards during the folk revival years, and it is entirely possible that he learned it from another singer at that time.<\/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-446","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\/446","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=446"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1472,"href":"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446\/revisions\/1472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}