I’m trying to help someone find the Irish lyrics to a traditional carol: Leanbh Ghil Mhilis. I’m not having much luck searching myself, so I’m hoping someone out there will either know the song or have access to liner notes that have the lyrics. Most people appear to have heard the song on an album by Dordán CD called “The Night Before…A Celtic Christmas,” and I’m wondering if there might be lyrics in the liner notes.
This is going to be for an Irish Christmas concert and CD, and it would be a great help if the artist could work from the lyrics directly rather than try to decipher Dordán’s dialect.
I’m posting this on the Traditional Music forum as well, and on IGTF.
There’s an Irish hymn (not necessarily xmas) about the Three Maries. That’s a wonderful tune. I’ll bet a choir could do something really nice with it. I think I heard it on one of Treasa O’Driscoll’s albums.
That would be Caoineadh na dTrí Muire (Keening of the Three Marys). It’s a lovely song, but it’s a Passiontide song…not really suitable for Christmas. We had a wonderful time with it at the Irish Mass for St. Patrick’s Day, though…a bunch of us started improvising harmony on the “Ochons” and it was so beautiful, the entire congregation turned around to look up at the choir loft!
CHasR I wouldn’t think the Oxford would have it…at least not in Irish. My version doesn’t have it either…in fact, it has no songs in Irish or in Scottish Gaelic at all.
The CD in question is a Christmas compilation by Mary McLaughlin. It will be a solo album with layered tracks, and should be out sometime before Christmas. The same songs will be sung in performance by the “Cór Áinglí” Christmas choir, of which Mary is the director.
Thanks for all the input, folks. I’m beginning to think I may need to start contacting Irish universities, in the hope that there’s a copy hidden somewhere in their archives. Unfortunately, Dordán doesn’t appear to have a website, or I’d try contacting them directly, as they seem to be the only people who have recorded it.
