Come Day, Go Day, God Send Sunday

The songs and life story, told in his own words, of John Maguire, traditional singer and farmer from Co. Fermanagh.

Robin Morton

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781317300878
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Media Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Originally published in 1973. Folk-life and folk-culture, usually the preserve of the scholar, have been brought vividly and entertainingly to life in these recollections and stories of one man's life in the Irish countryside. This book tells the life story of John Maguire, who died in 1975, including over 50 of the songs he sang, with full musical transcriptions. He was a fine singer, firmly within the Irish tradition, and his songs are the record of a people, their history and traditions, their joys and sufferings, their comedies and tragedies.

John Maguire's fascinating story, skilfully and unobtrusively collated by Robin Morton, is full of material that will interest singers and students of folksongs. His songs and music will be of value to all those interested in traditional music and song.

1

As the cocks they began to crow …

Molly Bawn Lowry

Come all you late fowlers that carry a gun,

Beware of late fowling in the dark of the sun;

Beware of late fowling, when what happened of late,

It was Molly Bawn Lowry and a-hard was her fate,

She being coming from her uncle’s, when a shower came on,

Went under a green bush the shower to shun;

With her apron all round her, I took her for a swan

But to my misfortune I shot Molly Bawn.

I stepped up to her with my gun in my hand,

My limbs they grew feeble and my eyes could not stand.

I wiped her fair temples till I found she was dead

And a fountain of tears for my darling I shed.

I ran home ’til my father with my gun in my hand

Saying, ‘Father, dear father, do you know what I’ve done?

I shot Molly Bawn Lowry the pride of Athlone,

That lovely wee lassie I intended my own.’

She being coming from her uncle’s when a shower came on

She went under a green bush, the shower to shun.

With her apron all round her I took her for a swan,

But to my misfortune I shot Molly Bawn.

Out bespoke my old father, his old locks were grey,

‘Oh! son, dearest son, you do not go away.

Don’t leave your own country till the assizes comes on,

You ne’er will be hanged for shooting a swan.’

Oh! the day of her funeral, it was a grand sight

To see four and twenty of them and all dressed in white;

Bore her on their shoulders, laid her in her clay;

They turned their backs and they all walked away.

But take four and twenty of them, put them all in a row,

And her beauty shines round them like a fountain of snow.

Now since it’s decreed for that I was her doom,

That I was her butcher instead of her groom;

There is no other breathing that e’er I will take,

I will travel this world my soul for to make.

That was a song I got from my mother. She had a lot of songs you know. Had I learned half of them I wouldn’t sing them for a whole day! Her name was Bridget McMahon recently, and she came from a place called Corbann, a townland not so far away from where we were reared. My father was Hugh Maguire and he came from Co. Armagh, near Markethill somewhere. To some friends of he’s he came to at first, and stayed with them and bought a wee place.

My father died young. He took a bad pain down his leg and into his big toe. He didn’t live very long altogether now when he took it. He was fifty-six or seven. It would be about fifty years ago, or just over it. I just remember him and nothing more; I think I was about ten or twelve years old. Of course I was the youngest and he died fairly sudden … Only I remember him singing. They were very jolly and he was a fair good singer and so was she. My father had a lot of old songs too. He used to be singing them at night when we’d be sitting round the fire, so I picked up this one that I was fairly interested in. It was about a boy that was born in America and he had Irish feelings. His father and mother both was Irish and he had great feelings for Ireland. I wouldn’t be more than twelve or thirteen when I heard this, so this is the way it went on:

Columbia the Free

Columbia the free, it’s the land of my birth;

My pack is all over American earth.

My blood is as Irish as Irish can be,

And me heart’s in green Erin far over the sea.

I have tops of green shamrock, I have sods they brought o’er;

I have shells that they picked up when leaving the shore;

I have books that I treasure, the fondest I hold

With their melody [metallic] clasp all nigh covered in gold.

I will sing their old songs, I will call them my own;

They are true to old Ireland in style or [and] in tone.

I will dance the dear dances and cheer them with glee;

Each touch are for Ireland far over the sea.

Oh if I was in beautiful Dublin today,

’Til that sainted old spot I would soon find my way.

I know where O’Connell and Curran are laid,

And beloved Robert Emmett sleeps cold in the shade.

Oh if I was in Wexford, it’s fondly I’d trace,

Each field I would mark on my map of the place,

Where the brave ’98 men poured, hotly and free,

Their blood for green Erin far over the sea.

Oh but land of my fathers I hold you to blame;

My cheeks do at times take acrimson with shame.

Has the sad tales not shone on that narrow stained line,

That the might of these tyrants were greater nor thine.

She has soldiers many abroad and at home;

Her ships on all oceans are ploughing the foam;

Her wealth are untold but no equal is she

For our poor plundered Ireland far over the sea.

Now I have a rifle that’s true to a hair,

A brain that can plan, or a hand that can dare;

There summonses will scarce have died out when I’ll be

On the green hills of Ireland far over the sea.

I didn’t know any of the father’s friends. They were all dead before I came, but I remember my mother’s side. There was Peter McMahon. He lived in Corbann where he was reared, but he had another place up about Clones at Duncrew, and he had a place at Drumgross too. And I mind my Uncle Brian. He went away to America when he was fairly young, but he came back again. I remember him telling a strange story about a comrade of he’s from Clones. He was along with Uncle Brian and there was another man, drunk and wanting them to fight. This man that was along with my Uncle Brian struck him. So he fell and he hit the kerbstone with his head and it killed him. So my Uncle Brian went away to America a while after that. The other was brought down to Armagh and tried for murder, but the medical evidence of the doctor freed him. The bat on his head, on the kerbstone, killed him. It wasn’t the man striking him at all, it wasn’t that caused the death, so the medical give. So he wrote to Brian about going out to America, for he said he was annoyed in this country. No matter where he went this character that he struck at Clones was following him. Every night he went out he’d be walking alongside of him, so he thought he’d get rid of him if he was out there. He landed out with Brian, but it was nothing better if it wasn’t worse. He was there too and walked alongside of him till the day he died.

I do believe at that time there was evil spirits because I have heard and knowed about the ‘Cooneen Ghost’, and I’m nearly perfectly sure that that was right. Several people I had been talking to went to that house and they knowed all about it. The first was knowed about it was when the children of the house used to be sleeping in school. The master used to beat them for it and then some of them, when they got up middling, were fit to tell that they were annoyed at night by ‘the Ghost’. It used to pull the clothes off the children in bed and roll them out on to the floor. And even the man and woman could get no rest with it either, a terrible noise all the night through. So they went to America to get rid of it, but they say that it was just as bad on the ship going over, and in America too.

Then I mind an old man, he used to usually ceilidh to our house in my young days. He was always telling about ghost stories, about ghosts that people seen and what happened to them afterwards if they interfered with the spirit that appeared. He told about an old man, the name of Cassidy, who was coming home from a wee place called Corranay. He saw a man in front of him on the road and he thought to himself it was some individual man that was out like himself. So he passed no remarks till he came up close to him. He found out that he was a very big man. So he went to slip on by quietly but he wouldn’t let him by. He moved in front of him from on one side of the road to the other, as hard as he could move. He was a very big, strong, able man. So he went to dash through this figure that was in front of him on the road, but he got a slap and he fell on the road. The next morning the people got him, he was terribly beaten. So he went to the hospital for a while, but he never got over it, it killed him.

The place where this happened was at a place where an old blacksmith at one time shoed horses and donkeys. There is nobody to this day likes to go past the forge. You see the people thinks the blacksmith is the ghost. He was a very heavy drinker and something happened to him at the forge, and he died over the head of it. At them times they said it was a mule or a jennet. He got a kick from it and he never got over it. They think to themselves that that was the cause of the evil spirit being out after that. Well I suppose them that’s not at rest, or they have some purgatory to put in in this earth, are wandering about after they die. They don’t get to heaven. I suppose there’s some characters that bad that they might never get to heaven. There’s no way to set them free I’m afraid, it’s just the Man up above can do that.

There was a song that I used to hear my mother at – it was about ghosts – but I have only a bit of it:

As Mary lay sleeping, her lover came creeping,

To the bed chamber where she lay

Then there was a lot more that I can’t mind and then:

Willie’s Ghost

Oh Willie dear where are the blushes

That you had some time ago?

Oh Mary dear the cold clay changed them,

For I’m the ghost of your Willie O.

That night they spent in deep discoursing

Of the courtships they had some time ago.

They kissed, shook hands, with a sorrowful parting

As the cocks they began to crow.

That’s all I mind but you see it was an old word that when the cocks crew all ghosts was off the pad. You wouldn’t meet a ghost then up above. I always heard that.

My mother lived to be over seventy years of age now. She was in fair form with a touch of brownchatis do you see. In fact I think it bid be that killed her at the latter end. It would be about thirty-three years ago. She always sung when she was in a wee spot of trouble. She’d just strike up a wee verse for us round the fireside. And if there gathered a few in, she would probably give them a song too and sometimes at a wedding party or anything like that. I remember her singing in the kitchen when there was ceilidhers in at night, and work was all done, she sung this song:

Behind Yon Blue Mountain

Oh, behind yon blue mountain where the summit stands high,

I watched the sun rising so proud in the sky.

Where the great clouds were drifting and the sun-beams ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• 1 As the cocks they began to crow
• 2 Here’s a health to Tommy Kelly
• 3 If you want your praties sprayed
• 4 Oh grass may grow and waters flow
• 5 On Clyde’s bonny banks
• 6 Now, when that we were married
• APPENDICES
• Glossary
• Index of Songs
• Index