Mary Anne McGuinan

DESCRIPTION: Mary Anne McGuigan: if your "pritties" are good you must spray them again with bluestone. John James leads the dance with her and buys her a blouse of silk. Who will help her fix her house and thresh her oats? She is "swiggin'" her porter.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1979 (Tunney-StoneFiddle)
KEYWORDS: farming dancing drink humorous nonballad clothes home
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Tunney-StoneFiddle, p. 68, "Mary Anne McGuinan" (1 text)
Roud #17843
NOTES [307 words]: Each verse is independent of the others and of the chorus. Bluestone is sprayed as a potato fungicide. - BS
"Bluestone" in this case is not lapis lazuli, which is sometimes called by that name, but rather copper (II) sulfate, or chalcanthite, a copper mineral (CuSO₄.5H₂O), also known as blue vitriol. According to Emsley, p. 124, "Copper in the form of Bordeaux mixture(a blue gelatinous suspension of copper sulfate and lime in water) was one of the first agrochemical pesticides, developed to control downy mildew on vines."
Heiserman, p. 120, says that "Copper(II) sulfate, CuSO₄, is the best known and most popular of the copper compounds. It is a white crystal in its pure, anhydrous (waterless) form. It is better known in its pentahydrate form, CuSO₄•H₂0, which is a deep blue crystal. Sometimes called blue vitriol, the primary commercial applications of hydrated copper sulfate are in fungicides and algicides, and in ink pigments."
Schwarcz, p. 69, notes that copper sulfate was first used on grapes to discourage theft, but that Pierre-Maris-Alexis Millardet, a professor of botany at Bordeaux, observed that the material also prevented the growth of fungus. He went on to offer Bordeaux mixture as the first widely-used fungicide. (Had it been on the market in the 1840s, it could perhaps have prevented the Irish potato famine, according to Coogan, p. 54 -- but although some of the antifungal effects were discovered in the 1840s, it was not until 1882 that Bordeaux mixture was marketed.) It is also used to clarify and purify swimming pools.
Schwarcz also makes the ironic note that copper sulfate is no longer sold in home chemistry sets because it is considered dangerous -- but it is still sold to organic farmers who are allowed to use it as a fungicide!
For another song involving bluestone, see "Sergeant Neill." - RBW
Bibliography

Coogan: Tim Pat Coogan, The Famine Plot: England's Role in Ireland's Greatest Tragedy, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012
Emsley: John Emsley, Nature's Building Blocks: An A-Z Guide to the Elements, Corrected edition, Oxford, 2003
Heiserman: David L. Heiserman, Exploring Chemical Elements and their Compounds, TAB Books, 1992
Schwarcz: Joe Schwarcz, Dr. Joe & What You Didn't Know: 177 Fascinating Questions & Answers about the Chemistry of Everyday Life, ECW press, 2003

Last updated in version 5.0
File: TSF068

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