Liner Notes for An Irish Christmas: Songs and Music from West Cork
All songs and tunes traditional unless noted.
1. A Calling on Song [Song]
This is a mumming song. Mummer’s plays were performed throughout most of Great Britain and Ireland, with the mummers disguised in self-constructed costumes and masks, often roving door to door. This song is an appeal for their audience's attention and cooperation, with the promise that the best is yet to come.
2. Stick to the Craythur [Song]
A series if witty rhymes and the biography of our hero's relationship to whiskey evolves. Irish "moonshine" goes by a dozen different names, including poitín (pronounced poteen), the craythur, whiskey, the drop, the pure, itself, and others that don't quickly come to mind... Spirits of this ilk share in the Christmas season in Ireland much as they do in other parts of the world -- warming us from the inside and shared with friends and family in the glow of their company.
3. “Turf Jigs” The Creel of Turf / Lost and Found / The Trip to Athlone / The Bank of Turf [Jigs/Slide]
We called these the "Turf Jigs" for the starting and ending tunes. Turf is compacted vegetation (given enough time and proper geological conditions, becomes coal) that became the main fuelsource in Ireland in the 1600s, replacing the nearly extinct native woodlands. Turf was cut from the bog ground by hand using a sleán, and was then stacked to dry. A turf fire has a distinctive, pleasant scent, which melds with the other scents of the midwinter holidays.
4. Tá Nead Ag an Dreolín [Song]
St. Stephen's Day is the day following Christmas, and is the day that local boys in Cork, Kerry, and other places in the West of Ireland go "on the wren". The boys search through the bushes around their homes and in the countryside looking to capture a wren. Once the bird is caught, the troupe move from house to house soliciting money to bury the wren. The Wren Boys, and hunting the wren on St. Stevens' Day are very old Irish customs. Dreólín is the Irish word for wren.
5. Holly Bears a Berry [Song]
This is a Cornish carol which is alternatively known as the Sans Day Carol, since it was collected in St. Day (Sans Day), Gwennap, Cornwall. Evergreen plants represent life in the death (and depth) or winter, and holly is a popular Christmas evergreen.
6. “Christmas Eve Greenery” Christmas Eve / The Evergreen Reel / New Christmas Eve [Reels]
Another festive collection of tunes, this set of reels carries the spirit of the season.
7. Don Oíche Úd I mBeithil [Song]
A captivating melody not commonly known in the States, this song is native to Ireland. The two short verses revisit the events of "That Night in Bethlehem" that we still celebrate today.
8. “Christmas Apple Jigs” Christmas Day in the Morning / Winter Apples / Gillian’s Apples [Jigs]
A Victorian era tradition of gifting fruit to friends and family is recalled in this set of jigs. The gift of out of season fruit was expensive to obtain and treasured as a gift. Less affluent folks often used the still precious dried fruits in a confection from which many could share, such the (now often dreaded) fruitcake.
9. Oiche Chiúin (Silent Night) [Song]
“Stille nacht, heilige nacht” (words by Josef Mohr and music by F.X. Gruber) was first performed at mid-night Mass on December 24, 1818 in Oberndorff, Austria. This is probably the most translated and best loved carol in the world. Jim sings it as Gaeilge in this delicate setting.
10. Gaude Te [Song]
This sacred Christmas carol was likely composed sometime in the 16th century. Gaudete Sunday is the third Sunday in Advent, falling between the 11th and 17th of December. The language is Latin, the language of the Catholic Church and of international diplomacy throughout Europe from the time of the Roman Empire until it was replaced by Spanish and then French in the 16th and 17th centuries. Gaudete means ‘rejoice.’
11. “Christmas Reels” Drag Her Round the Road / The Star of Munster / The Holly Bush / The (Other) Christmas Reel [Reels]
12. The Boys of Barr na Sráide [Song]
Composed by Sigerson Clifford (1913-1985) a native of Cahirsiveen, County Kerry. Barr na Sráide (literally ‘top of the street’) but now Top Street in Clifford’s hometown in south Kerry. The song draws attention to the loss of old neighborhoods and the people who lived in them in the unrelenting rush towards ‘progress’. It is among these ‘boys of Barr na Sráide’ who fought in the battle for Irish independence, who kept alive the tradition of hunting the wren (pronounced wran in Kerry and West Cork), who fished the Cahran River, and who roamed the mountainside of Beenatee, that the poet not only wishes to spend his mortal life but his eternity.
13. The Wren in the Furze [Song]
Another song, perhaps the most known, for "going on the wren", Don sings the song with the tune version, "The Bird in the Bush" interspersed with the lyrics. We're not sure which came first, the reel or the song, but they are at least named for the same phenomenon! Justin and Valerie follow the reel with another, Francie John McGovern's.
14. “Wintry Jigs” The Snowy Path* / A Fig for a Kiss / The Frost is All Over [Slipjigs/Slide]
The Snowy Path was written by Mark Kelly of the band, Altan, followed by the traditional A Fig for a Kiss. Figs are one of those rare treats during the holidays, since they could be dried and enjoyed in the dead of winter! The last tune is a slide, which are one of the favored tune types in Cork and Kerry.
15. Amhrán an Steampaí [Song]
(Song of the Steampaí). Having failed to find any reference to this, obviously wonderful, dish in either Theodora Fitzgibbon’s Traditional Foods of Ireland or Darina Allen’s Traditional Irish cooking, Jim turned to his friend from college days at U.C.C., former owner and chef at Dwyer’s of Mary Street, Waterford, and now consultant chef Martin Dwyer. Martin rejected Jim’s initial possibility that ‘steampaí’ might be related to the British Naval/Jamaican dish called Stamp and Go, and went ploughing through his collection of Irish/English and English/Irish dictionaries and his vast gastronomic library to establish a connection to Boxty and to Sweet Potato Bread. The entire story, and a recipe for Steampaí Uí Fhlannagáin (Flanagan’s Steampaí) can be found on Martin’s Blog of November 5, 2007 (Martindwyer.com) and on Jim’s website (www.flanagansongs.com)
16. Auld Lang Syne [Song]
Hogmanay is a New Year's custom of Scotland with a variety of local expressions. The most widespread is the practice of first-footing, immediately after midnight on New Year's Day. The first person to cross a household's threshold is supposed to set the luck for the rest of the year. A dark-haired man was so strongly preferred that in some towns, a suitable man was paid to visit the housholds for the town. Perhaps the most popular practice of Hogmanay is the singing of Auld Lang Syne, a traditional poem that was rewritten by Robert Burns, and set to a traditional melody. This version uses a less common melody.
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