Annotation:Downhill of Life (1) (The)
X:1 T:Downhill of Life [1], The M:3/4 L:1/8 R:Air B:William Forde music manuscript collection (mid-19th cent.) S:Piper Hugh O'Beirne (Ballinamore region, County Leitrim, 1846) Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion K:F (cde)|f2F2D2|F3GA2|c2d2[e2f2]|f4 ed|c2d2AG|A2F2D2|F4:| |:zc|c2A2c2|f2e2f2|{e}g2e2c2|c4{g}ag|f2e2d2|c2A2G2| (Ad3) cd|f2D2F2|F3G A2|c2d2e2|f4 ed|c2d2 AG| A2F2G2|(DF3) c2|(df3) AG|(Ad3) Ac|B2A2G2|A2F2G2|D-F3||
DOWNHILL OF LIFE [1], THE (Claonad Na M-beata). Irish, Slow Air (6/8 time). G Major (O'Neill): F Major (Stanford/Petrie). Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. Researchers Fr. John Quinn and Conor Ward have uncovered the background of this tune, which was collected by William Forde (1797-1850) in 1846 from uilleann piper Hugh O'Beirne of the Ballinamore area of Co. Leitrim, who, when Forde encountered him, was suffering from the effects of starvation due to the Great Famine. Anxious to collect as many of the "ancient Irish" tunes as possible before his source expired, Forde arranged for food to be brought and nourished the piper back to health--at least until the collector's funds ran out and he felt he collected as much of O'Beirne's repertory as he could. He may have been briefly aware that his ministrations worked, at that O'Beirne lived another forty years, finally passing in 1893 at the age of 91 and outliving Forde, who died four years after encountering O'Beirne.
One of the airs Forde obtained from O'Beirne was "The Downhill of Life [1]," which O'Beirne had 'passed off' as an ancient Irish air, but which Quinn and Ward find was actually a song popular in England, the music of which was perhaps written in the United States, entitled "Tomorrow," attributed to John Collins. Forde's collection was assumed by his friend John Edward Pigot (1822-1871) and shared with antiquarian George Petrie (1790-1866). Unfortunately, they were confounded by the structure of the O'Beirne's "ancient Irish air" which had unusual barring of measures (Fr. Quinn writes: "The first strain had 7 bars, and the second – wait for it – 19!)." Pigot and Petrie concluded it must be in error and set out to 'correct' it somehow managing to prune and force it into regular bar strains. In order to make this work, according to Fr. Quinn's analysis[1], they changed the time signature from 3/4 to 6/8, resulting in four bars in the first strain and ten in the second. Editor Charles Villiers Stanford 'accepted' this result for his issue of the complete Petrie collection, published at the beginning of the 20th century. When O'Neill scanned the tune for his Music of Ireland (1903) he "knew it couldn't be right", and, to make it conform to O'Neill's conception of Irish tunes, doubling the four bar first strain and jettisoning all but the first four bars of the second strain; the result being what must have been "the original way this Ancient Irish Air must have been composed" [2]
Except, as Fr. Quinn's inspired analysis yields, the words to the song written around 1804 by English actor and poet John Collins (1742-1808), of Birmingham, with music published by David Vinton[3] in 1816 to a different air that O'Beirne's, still fit the structure of O'Beirne's air (see "Downhill of Life (2)" for Vinton's air). Quinn concludes:
...crucially that air is written with the very same bar structure that Forde used to set O'Beirne's air. In O'Bierne's air the first strain is played twice and the second played once: thus the bar count is (7 + 7) + 19 = 33. Vinton's air has exactly 33 bars, made up of four 7s and a final 5. All of this proves that O'Beirne's air perfectly matches the words of the song, and that the Petrie/Pigot and O'Neill reconstructions were totally unnecessary and ruin the word music correlation.[4]
Collins' first stanza goes:
In the downhill of life when I find I’m declining,
May my fate no less fortunate be,
Than a snug elbow chair can afford for reclining,
And a cot that o’er looks the wide sea.
With an ambling pad poney to pace oe'r the lawn,
While I carol away idle sorrow;
And blythe as the lark that each day hails the dawn,
Look forward with hope for tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow,
Look forward with hope for tomorrow.
As an example of the contortions that 19th century collectors inflicted on Collins' song air, Fr. Quinn points to the disappearing "tomorrow's" in the musical accompaniment:
The final five bars of both the Forde and Vinton settings mark the “tomorrow, tomorrow” refrain followed by a repeat of the last line of the stanza. In the Petrie reconstruction, we see the loss of part of the “tomorrow, tomorrow” refrain, and in the O’Neill further reconstruction its entire loss. [Quinn, ibid].
