So I’m processing with the choir on Sunday morning, and going crazy because I know the tune for the hymn I’m singing is really familiar…and not in a liturgical context. Just as we enter the chancel, it hits me…it’s “The Star of the County Down”! I started to giggle, and didn’t get my breath back until after the first reading (I’d start to sing and my mind kept supplying “From Bantry Bay to Derry’s quay, from Galway to Dublin town; no maid I’ve seen like the fair colleen that I met in the County Down”
Have a listen here and tell me I’m not crazy (the tune name, by the way, for anyone who has ECUSA Hymnal 1982, is Kingsfold):
well… yes you could hear Star of County Down, but you could also hear, as I do at the end of the verse- “Upon the Gallows Tree”…from some old folk tune I use to know and have now forgotten. I’ve told my priest that every time I play this tune that’s what I hear in my head, so I know exactly what you mean. (that’s one of the reason’s I love Ralph Vaughn Williams tunes in our hymnal)
We sing two to Kingsfold–
“Come Join the Dance of Trinity” and
“My Soul Proclaims Your Greatness Lord” (based on the Magnificat).
Talking about Mary, or the Trinity, seems very Irish, so I enjoy those two.
But we also sing one called “O Christ the Same”, to Londonderry Air
Our former rector (otherwise known as “she who must not be named”) wrote her own hymn to “The Air from County Derry” and insisted that we sing it. I can forgive the choice of tunes, as the woman was (and presumably still is) utterly tone deaf (she also insisted on chanting the mass, and we used to take bets on how many times she’d change keys during the Sursum Corda), but her lyrics uafásach ar fad!
BTW, if you ever want to have a really good laugh, try singing any Emily Dickinson poem to The Yellow Rose of Texas.
Despite the fact that my Meetinghouse has silent worship, we have a large stack of hymnbooks, I think for the many ex-Mennonites who sometimes attend.
Anyway, I’ve flipped through the books and I’ve seen quite a few tunes I recognize as Irish or Irish-ish at the very least. The Lord of the Dance is in our hymnbook. I know it’s not Irish, but to me it sounds like it could be.
“Star of the County Down”
I never knew that was an English melody. It’s also the tune for a song called the Fighting 69th. The Wolfetones do a very good job with it.
I don’t think it is, actually. Vaughn Williams first heard it in the town of Kingsfold, which is why he named it that, but there’s nothing to suggest it originated there.
I’ll post when I do.
