FIND OF THE MONTH, DECEMBER 2023
For the month that’s in it, here’s an intriguing broadsheet or slip ballad that I came across in a box of songs recently donated to UCD Special Collections. It’s a Christmas carol, in fact, it’s entitled ‘Christmas Carol’, but it’s not what you might expect with such a heading.
It’s clearly an Irish language text, printed in a phonetic rendering of Irish for an English-speaking audience, or perhaps for an audience literate in English but familiar with, or indeed fluent in, oral Irish. (Did you know that even Peig Sayers, that towering figure of Irish literature, was literate only in English, despite being a native Irish speaker?) I can find only two other records of this text. There is a copy in the Potter and Williams Collection on Irish Culture (Broadside Ballads) at Providence Public Libraries, and the ballad scholar Hugh Shields (1929-2008) offered reprints of this and two other Christmas carols in issue 22 of Ceol Tíre, the Folk Music Society of Ireland’s newsletter, in October 1982. I am trying to locate his source for the carol.
I tweeted about this text last Christmas and got a wonderful response from @aransongs, aka Deirdre Ní Chonghaile, an ethnomusicologist whose recent book, Collecting Music in the Aran Islands, A Century of History and Practice is a worth having on your song studies shelf or borrowing from your library. Deirdre generously sent me her brilliant ‘first pass’ on a translation of the text into modern Irish. We agreed that it is most likely Donegal or Ulster Irish, so if you’re a native speaker from the North, you might be able to lend us a hand or two! Here’s Deirdre’s work to get you started, you can see how it corresponds to the text of the broadsheet ballad above:
Don/Den Síor libh mé, a Chríostaí,
Bíodh saffara [samhrú? sámhú?] ar bhur gcroíth’ istigh
Go siúlfaidh muid an tslí seo
Go stábla vith a sin
‘S ansin a gheobhfaidh muid sínte
Rí na nAingeal Glórmhar.
Curfá – Chorus
Ó tháinig muid dá adhradh, tháinig muid dá adhradh,
Tháinig muid dá adhradh, ár dTiarna agus ár Rí,
Dheonaigh muid ár Slánaitheoir, dheonaigh muid ár Slánaitheoir,
Dheonaigh muid an Tríonóid Naofa mar aon Dia amháin.
Ansin a thiocfas Críost ar cuairt chun an chine admhacan [confessors?]
Beidh muid uilig a’ caoineadh agus ar ndóigh ní hé an t-am
Coinnigh an mhaith don tsíoraíocht (?) agus a fuadar(?) ní haon mhoill ort
Ní thiocfaidh aon ‘ do ghaobhar ach an Té úd a bheas ceart.
Curfá – Chorus
Ansin labhrós an Mhaighdean Dhílis: “Ó ‘mhic mo chroí, ná déan sin,
Nach ar shon an chine daonna a d’fhulaing tú an Pháis
Níl cnoc, níl gleann, agus níl a leoga nach mbeidh laistigh agus go attean theenn,
Go admhaigh na peacaí dídean mar/mura áitigh [?] siad faoi do sciath.”
Curfá – Chorus
“Is fíor dhuit sin, a Mháthair, da bí thú ins an sahur [sochar?]
Ach níl ní ar bith dar eadrainn nach bhfaighfir/bhfaighfear sásamh ann go fóill
Nach sheo iad mo vushee grahee [gnóthaí?] ans anocht a thiocfaidh na táirní
Agus tá mo thaobh uilig stróicthe agus an Choróin Spíne ar mo cheann.
Curfá – Chorus
Nach hí seo na sciúrsaí crable ansiúd go mór mo chnámha(í)
Ó bí thú ins a’ sochar agus ba dona afush sí dhuit,
Fuil mo chroí gar tháirní agus do mo chur a thug mé sásamh
Ní chodlóidh siad na hoícheanta ach a caint ar a’ gníomh feall [sic].
Broadsides in Irish are relatively unusual, and one of the attractions of this one is that, once it has been fully deciphered, it can add to the small store of Irish language Christmas carols.
Your challenge for this month is to help Deirdre and me to finalise the decoding of the phonetic Irish into actual Irish. Bainigí taitneamh as an amhráin ar aon nós! Enjoy the song anyway!
You can comment on the text with your transcription suggestions – or email me at catherine.cullen@ucd.ie – I’d love to hear from you!
Maybe it’s not quite as curious as it seems. To me it’s a sort of response to ‘Adeste Fidelis/ Come All Ye Faithful’ which appears to have been first translated in 1842 by a Catholic priest Frederick Oakeley some 20-30 years before this broadside was printed. It was not unusual in some sacred song/poems in the Irish tradition to have references to both the birth and the crucifixion in one piece. My reading of this is that it is in the same metre, more or less, as Adeste Fidelis and probably intended to be sung to that melody. It begins with the Adeste invitation, with a refrain response of having accepted that invitation, and then it continues with possible variants or borrowings from religious texts such as ‘Luan a tSléibhe’ or Crucifixion/Day of Judgement texts. I don’t believe it’s ‘traditional’, but a construct.
The first verse and refrain in modern Irish may read as follows:
Gabh aniar libh (mé) a Chríostaí
Bíodh scafaire ar bhur gcroí istigh
Go siúlfaidh muid an tslí seo
Go stábla Bheithilín
Is ansin a gheobhaidh muid sínte
Rí na nAingeall glórmhar
Curfá
Ó tháinig mé dod’ adhradh, tháinig mé dod’ adhradh,
Tháinig mé dod’ adhradh a thiarna agus a Rí
D’adhraigh muid ár slánaitheoir, d’adhraigh muid ar slánaitheoir
D’adhraigh muid an trionóid naofa mar aon Dia amháin
Go raibh míle maith agat, a Phadraigin, as ucht an eolas seo! Catherine Ann