Annotation:Dirge of Carolan (The)
X:1 T:Dirge of Carolan, The T:Fair Maid of Wicklow, The M:3/4 L:1/8 R:Air B:P.M. Haverty – One Hundred Irish Airs vol. 3 (1859, No. 214, p. 103) Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:Dmin (F>G)|[F2A2] (A>BA>G)|(A2d2) (F>G)|A2 (A>BA>G)|G4 (F>G)| [F2A2] (A>BA>G)|(A2d2) (d>e)|[A2f2] (e>d^ce)|[F4d4]||(d>e)| [A2f2] (e>d^c>e)|(d=c) A2 (d>e)|[A2f2] (e>d^ce)|[F4d4] (d>e)| [F4d4] (d>e)|[A2f2] (e>d^ce)|(d=c) A2 (F>G)|A2 (GFE>F)|D4||
DIRGE OF CAROLAN, THE. AKA and see "Fair Maid of Wicklow (The)." Irish, Air (3/4 time). D Minor. Standard tuning (fiddle). One part (Haverty): AB (Howe). "The Dirge of Carolan" is the name of a song in honor of Irish bard Turlough O'Carolan (1670-1738) by Scottish poet Robert Tannahill [1] (1774-1810), set to the air "Fair Maid of Wicklow" in The Works of Robert Tannahill (1838). The first stanza of Tannahill's poem goes:
Ye maids of green Erin, why sigh ye so sad?
The summer is smiling, all nature is glad.
The summer may smile, and the shamrock may bloom,
But the pride of green Erin lies cold in the tomb;
And his merits demand all the tears that we shed,
Though they ne'er can awaken the slumbering dead,
Yet still they shall flow--for dear Carolan we mourn,
For the soul of sweet music now sleeps in his urn.
In Tannahill's volume Poems and Songs, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (1815), the indicated air for his verses is "Ballimony/Ballymoney."
The melody is the vehicle for another song called "The Holly and Ivy Girl" (AKA "Come, buy my nice fresh ivy") by Irish poet John Keegan (1809-1849), printed in Graves' Irish Song Book (1922).