Dear Emerald Isle

DESCRIPTION: "...an orphan will bless you If you'll help a poor boy from the dear emerald isle." His father died working the bad soil. The sheriff turned out the child and mother. Mother died and the boy left Ireland. He hopes to return when Ireland is free
AUTHOR: George W. York (source: Irish Song Book No. 1, 617 Irish Songs and Ballads)
EARLIEST DATE: 1893 (617 Irish Songs and Ballads); in tradition, 1951 (MUNFLA-Leach)
KEYWORDS: poverty emigration burial death farming begging hardtimes starvation Ireland father mother
FOUND IN: Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
ADDITIONAL: Manus O'Conor, Irish Com-All-Ye's (New York, 1901 ("Digitized by Google")), p. 110, "The Dear Emerald Isle" ("Kind friends, will ye help a poor, weary stranger") (1 text)
Wehman Bros. Pocket-Size Irish Song Book [of 175 Songs] No. 1 (New York, 1909 ("Digitized by Google")), p. 9, "The Dear Emerald Isle" ("Kind friends, will ye help a poor weary stranger") (1 text)
Six Hundred and Seventeen Irish Songs and Ballads (New York: Wehman Bros., n.d. ("Digitized by Irish Traditional Music Archive")), p. 108, "The Dear Emerald Isle" ("Kind friends, will ye help a poor, weary stranger")
Wehman's Collection of 163 Songs No. 38 (New York, 1893 ("Digitized by Internet Archive")), p. 2, "The Dear Emerald Isle" ("Kind friends will ye help a poor, weary stranger") (1 text)
Roud #30111
RECORDINGS:
John Connors, "The Shamrock" (on MUNFLA-Leach)
SAME TUNE:
I Always Shall Speak of Old Ireland with Pride
NOTES [97 words]: The book versions, but not the MUNFLA-Leach text, end with what hints at an earlier version as an aisling. The orphan -- addressing a person we haven't known of before -- says, "Don't say no more, boy, for I too am a daughter; And to think of her wrongs, oh it makes my blood rile; And I pray that the time is not very far distant When the green shall wave proud o'er the dear em'rald isle." This lacks the aisling introduction where the boy would have had a vision of Ireland as a woman. See the discussion of the aisling form in the notes to "Eileen McMahon" and "Granuaille." - BS
Last updated in version 4.4
File: ML3DeEmI

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography