Phoenix Island

DESCRIPTION: Dialog. He says, I wish I had you on Phoenix Island where no one would find you; you might be my own. She answers, I'll ne'er be your own. He says, I wish I had you in your coffin, and Iwatching in the crowd. She says, You won't have me in my coffin.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 2003 (Mary Delaney)
LONG DESCRIPTION: Dialog. He says, I wish I had you on Phoenix Island where no one would find you; you might consent to be my own. She answers, I'll ne'er consent to be your own. He says, I wish I had you in your coffin carried on your friends' shoulder, and you (s/b I) watching in the crowd. She says, You won't have me in my coffin.
KEYWORDS: courting love rejection death mourning funeral
FOUND IN: Ireland
Roud #4720
RECORDINGS:
Mary Delaney, "Phoenix Island" (on IRTravellers01)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "O'Reilly from the County Leitrim" (PHOENIX ISLAND component of the "O'Reilly" chimera; see notes and references there)
cf. "The Brown Girl (I)" [Child 295] (theme of bitterness even after death)
cf. "A Rich Irish Lady, A (The Fair Damsel from London; Sally and Billy; The Sailor from Dover; Pretty Sally; etc.)" [Laws P9] (theme of bitterness even after death)
NOTES [723 words]: The two coffin verses that are found here and not in any "O'Reilly from the County Leitrim" make this different from any other "Phoenix Island" texts. Mary Delaney's version also misses one verse almost always found connected to "Phoenix Island":
In the morning when I can't come near you
My heart lies bleeding the whole day long;
And in the evening when I'll still be grieving
When we are bound we must obey
All other texts I have referring to "Phoenix Island" (or some version of the name) have fragments, at least, of other "O'Reilly from the County Leitrim" verses.
For those reasons, I have split "Phoenix Island" from "O'Reilly from the County Leitrim." - BS
Mary Delaney is an Irish Traveler from County Tipperary recorded in England.
Jim Carroll, in his liner notes, discusses the origin of the Phoenix Island reference.
"The reference to Phoenix Island in verses 1 and 2 appear in O'Reilly from the County Leitrim or The Phoenix of Erin's Green Isle (Roud 4720). The story there is that a sailor meets a young woman and attempts to persuade her to marry him. She refuses, telling him that she is waiting for her lover, O'Reilly.
"Somewhere in its development, Mary's Delaney [sic] version has shed the main part of the story and what we are left with is an extremely bitter dialogue. She was quite certain that the song was complete, and it certainly works as such.
"Irish singers have sometimes located the action of the song in Feenish Island, and one version has it in Mweenish Island, both in Connemara, Co Galway. However, remote as they are, the Phoenix Islands in the South Pacific Islands in the South Pacific Ocean, part of the Kiribati Group, would have been well known to sailors because of the whaling trade which was carried on in the vicinity."
(Carroll, liner notes of IRTravellers01, p. 32)
Carroll's note touches on both questions I have about the Phoenix Island verses of "O'Reilly from the County Cavan." Were the verses spun off from "Riley" or were they grafted on to "Riley"? Where is Phoenix Island?
"O'Reilly from the County Leitrim" texts I have that are dated 1828 or earlier have no Phoenix Island lines. There is a good reason for that if -- as I believe -- Jim Carroll is right in identifying "Phoenix Island" as the South Pacific Island group.
In answer to a query about the discovery of Phoenix Island Notes and Queries printed
PHOENIX ISLAND (4th S.iv.410.)"
"Les îles Farroilap, découvertes en 1827, et nommées alors Gardner (one of the Phoenix group), explorées par Lütke en mars 1828. Groupe de quatre ou cinq milles de circuit, avec trois îlots bas et boisés. Position 8⁰ 37' latitude nord, 144⁰ 16' longitude est suivant Cantova; vues dès 1696 par Juan Rodrigues." "L'Univers. Oceanie, par M.G.L.D. de Rienze. Tome ii. 126. Paris 1836
(B.M. 2060 C.)"
(C. Vivian, "Phoenix Island" in Notes and Queries, ser. 4, vol. 5 no. 123. May 7, 1870, p. 459)
Jim Carroll's connecting Phoenix Island to whaling is supported by Bryan's summary:
"We know from records in the U.S. Hydrographic office that Phoenix Island was discovered by an American vessel of that name prior to 1828; but just which one or the date is not certain. One ship, Phoenix, under command of Captain Moore, was in this region in 1794. A whale ship out of Nantucket (Captain David Harris) was in the Pacific between 1821 and 1824. Another, from New Bedford, was whaling under Captain Worth in 1822, and under Captain Stetson in 1824, according to Starbuck's History of American Whale Fishing.
(Edwin H. Bryan Jr. American Polynesia Coral Islands of the Central Pacific. (Honolulu: Tongg Publishing Co, 1941), p. 62
Following Carroll's reasoning, Phoenix Island verses [must] date from after the early "Young Riley" broadsides.
That SWAN (see NOTE "The 'Young Riley' Family of Songs" in "John (George) Riley (II) [Laws N37]") without PHOENIX ISLAND, is in the 1828 Rathvon verses. That probably dates the PHOENIX ISLAND verses to the first half of the nineteenth century. Mary Delaney's verses were added to an existing "Young Riley" text rather than extracted from "the main part of the story."
I haven't found any other "Phoenix Island" text or fragment that is not part of some "O'Reilly from the County Leitrim" text or fragment. But, as Jim Carroll acknowledges, Mary Delaney's song "works" as a complete song. - BS
Last updated in version 7.0
File: RcPhIsl

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