1. |
When I Sleep
04:29
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My dearest William , I have received your letters
It fills my heart with joy this news to learn
Your precious life preserved amid a thousand dangers
I pray it will be so till you return
Snow bears witness to the depth of winter
And when I speak , a breath of frost does call
Your Father took a cold ,and bides by the fireside
Our own dear son grows healthy, strong and tall
And when I sleep I don’t realise your absence
I hear your step and see your cheerful face
The wind and waves subside
And all the house is silent
The day begins and quiet you steal away.
I threw some leaves into the brook this morning
To see them sail along the silver stream
I take more notice now of things pertaining
To water’s journey toward the open sea
And when I sleep I don’t realise your absence
I hear your step and see your cheerful face
The wind and waves subside
And all the house is silent
The day begins and quiet you steal away.
The barley flourishes, the corn is very large now
Our sweet ,sweet son is handsome and he’s strong
I took your overcoat , for to give it airing
In hope Dear William , that you are homeward bound
And when I sleep I don’t realise your absence
I hear your step and see your cheerful face
The wind and waves subside
And all the house is silent
The day begins and quiet you steal away.
The day begins and quiet you steal away.
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2. |
Petticoat Whalers
03:09
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2.Petticoat Whalers Lucy Ann 1847-1849
Words and Music : Eilís Kennedy
Captain Smith on his whaling voyage
Fair Martha had his heart beguiled
From every port that he touched in
He’d send a note, her heart to win
From Oysterponds to the Azores
From the Cape to Honolulu’s shores
Martha Brown the Captain’s wife
She has embraced seafaring life!
Chorus:
On land men toil from sun to sun
And woman’s work is never done
Petticoat whalers take a turn
Upon the ocean blue
From time to time upon the sea
They’d gam with a ship for company
They dined aboard the ship “Peru”
Roast pig, some pie and cheeses too
In raging seas when winds did blow
In her queasy cabin down below
Her journal filled each passing day
A time to write, a time to pray
Chorus
Home at last, from two years voyage
With Edwin and their dear wee boy
The cargo of the “Lucy Ann”
Three thousand barrels of whale oil
Martha Smith Brewer Brown
She sailed the mighty world around
On a whaling ship of high renown
They called the “Lucy Ann”
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3. |
Ciúmhais Charraig Aonair
05:13
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3. Ciúmhais Charraig Aonair Lusitania
Ciúmhais Charraig Aonair faoí chúr na dtonn
Deóraí bocht brónach na mílte crói go fonn
Tinteáin gheala fágtha go deo faoí bhrón
I muchóid na maidine monuar na mbog ochón.
Finné ar fheall tú a mheall gach éinne
Inis an scrios dúinn
Cé ‘shéid an Lusitania ?
Smaointe na scuainte mar cheo ód chrios
Scuabtha ag na teólaithe fán doimhin anois.
Báid chófraí chómhairís’ ar a gconair ón gCóbh
Danair , Don Juan is flatha sa taisteal dóibh
Sáirséal , San Ruth is fearaibh Tone faoí chéad
Chonaicís’ na Múraigh ag scriosadh Dhún na Séad
Finné ar fheall tú a mheall gach éinne
Inis an scrios dúinn ; Cé ‘shéid an Lusitania ?
The edge of Fastnet, froth rises from the waves
Pity the poor eager hearted exiles in their thousands!
Hearths left forever in sadness
Soft cries, in the morning melancholy
Witness - did you deceive
You who enticed them all
Tell us of the wreckage ;who destroyed the Lusitania?
Lines of thoughts like fog coming from your ocean belt
The divers of the deep have swept them away by now
You counted the coffin ships from Cobh
The Danes , Don Juan and sovereigns travelled
Sarsfield , San Ruth and Tone’s men in their hundreds
You who saw the Moors at the Sack of Baltimore
You who were witness and deceived them all
Tell us of the wreckage? Who destroyed the Lusitania?
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4. |
Love Was True to Me
04:18
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Love was True to Me
John Boyle O’Reilly
Music : Éilís Kennedy
Love was true to me,
True and tender
I who ought to be
Love’s defender
Let the cold winds blow
Till they chilled him
‘Shroud him – and I know
That I killed him.
Years he cried to me
To be kinder;
I was blind to see
And grew blinder.
Years with soft hands raised
Fondly reaching,
Wept and prayed and praised,
Still beseeching
When he died, I woke,
God ! how lonely,
When the grey dawn broke
On one only.
Now beside love’s grave
I am kneeling;
All he sought and gave
I am feeling
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5. |
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5. The Emily Anna (A Greenhand’s Tale)
Words and Music : Eilís Kennedy
I left my old farm in Vermont one fall morning
And made my own way to the Atlantic shore
A seeking employment the world I would travel
The call of the whaler I could not ignore
Down on the harbour the streets were a teeming
With grogshops and parlours and vices galore
I thought of my parents and surely my promise
And wisely took refuge in the Mariners Home
Chorus:
Coopering , carpentry, corking and mending
Blacksmithing , pitching and grinding the wheel
Making the Scotchman, picking the oakum
up for adventure abroad on the seas
With a young man named Hammond I soon made acquaintance
Late home after two years a -hunting the whale
He quickly appraised me of what I was facing
Saying the sharks they will bite before e’er you set sail.
We boarded the bark called Emily Anna
Her Captain and crew numbered sixteen and more
Bound for the Cape and the fabled Marquesas
They called “Greasy Voyage!” as we hauled off from shore
Chorus
Weeks turned to months on our watery prison
With triumphs and trials follow terror and glee
Twenty weeks out we had two hundred barrels
We lost poor young Jackson in fearful high seas
Four years have passed and our bark she hies homeward
Adieu to the hardtack the lobscouse and crew
To the ocean’s glass -calm to her mountainous fury
No man is her master , above or below
Chorus
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6. |
Franklin's Crew
04:00
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Franklin’s Crew Erebus & Terror
While homeward bound across the deep
Snug in my hammock I fell asleep
I dreamt these lines , which I think are true
Concerning Franklin and his brave crew
And as we neared old England’s shore
I saw a lady in deep deplore
She wept aloud and seemed to say
Alas , my Franklin is long away
It’s a long time now since those ships of fame
Bore my long – lost husband across the main
And a hundred seamen with courage stout
To find the Northwestern passage out
To seek a passage by the North Pole
Where storms do rage and wild waters roll
‘Tis more than mortal men can do
With heart undaunted and courage true
They sailed east and they sailed west
‘long Greenland’s coast which they knew the best
Through cruel dangers they vainly strove
And on the ice their ships were drove
In Baffin’s Bay where the right whale blows
The fate of Franklin no man may know
Ten Thousand pounds would I freely give
To know that on earth my Franklin lives
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7. |
A Sailors Trade
04:19
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A Sailor’s Trade Elizabeth 1847
A sailor’s trade is a roving life
It’s robbed me of my heart’s delight
Leaving me behind to weep and mourn
I never know when he will return
That short blue jacket he used to wear
His rosy cheeks and his coal black hair
His lips as smooth as the velvet fine
The thousand times he has kissed mine
Come father build me a little boat
That o’er the ocean I may surely float
And every ship that we pass by
There I’ll enquire for my sailor boy
She had not sailed long upon the sea
When a kings ship, she chanced to see
You sailors all please tell me true
Does my young William sail among your crew
Oh no fair maid he’s not here
For he’s been drown’ed we gravely fear
On yon green isle as we passed by
There we laid eyes on your sailor boy
She wrung her hands and she tore her hair
In all her grief and deep despair
And her little boat to the shore did run
How can I live now , my William’s gone
Come all ye women that dress in white
Come all ye men that take delight
Come haul your colours at half-mast high
And help me weep for my sailor boy
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8. |
The Catalpa Rescue, 1876
05:19
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The Catalpa Rescue, 1876
Words: Eilís Kennedy
Air : Traditional
Three men scoured the moorings in the port of New Bedford
In search of a whaler for a clandestine cause
In far off Australia there six Fenians languished
To grant them their freedom from servitude’s jaws.
A three-masted barque was the whaler “Catalpa”
Her tidy length had crossed oceans vast
The men went on board to test out her mettle
In planking and rigging in bowsprit and mast
No whale would compare to the enemy’s challenge
Her captain and crew would risk scaffold and more
But “Catalpa “was coppered, she was manned and ready
For a mission more daring than ever before
A letter was smuggled from Fremantle Prison
Devoy, in the New World, read its sanguine plea:
“Please do not forsake us, your own Fenian brothers
In this living tomb, we are friendless indeed”
It was late in the Spring that they sighted Australia
The whaling was over, but the danger began
Breslin sent word to the prisoners waiting
“Let no man’s heart fail, this will ne’er come again!”
Each man on the shore played his part with courage
There were two waiting wagons and the plan they knew well
But the British Georgette, she loomed as she lay to
Her twelve-pounder cannon could doom them to hell
The captain and oarsmen were anxious and ready
When the men were delivered in shade of gumtrees
Courage and madness in a race back to safety
While the enemy gunship gathered her speed
“Pull away “called the captain in gathering darkness
As he guided the whaleboat from Rockingham beach
Oh, treacherous waves would not scupper his mission
To deliver six men from tyranny’s reach
“Heave to!” shouted Grady the naval commander
“You shall not board us” Were Anthony’s words
“This is my whaler and the flag of my country
And it’s there we are bound with all free men aboard!”
Harrington, Hasset, Darragh and Hogan
Wilson and Cranston completed the crew
From ten years in chains to the whaler’s safe harbour
And ten thousand miles to their freedom anew.
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9. |
Row On, Row On
04:32
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Row On Three Brothers 1846
Clouds are upon the summer sky
There’s thunder in the wind
Row on row on and homeward hie
Nor give one look behind
Bear where thou go’est the words of love
Say all that love can say
Changeless affections strength to prove
But speed upon the way
Row on , row on another day
May shine with brighter light
Ply, ply the oars and pull away
There’s dawn beyond the night
Like yonder river would I glide
To where my heart would be
My bark would soon outsail the tide
That hurries to the sea
But yet a star shines constant still
Through yonder cloudy sky
And hope as bright my bosom fills
From faith that cannot die
Row on row on God speed the way
Thou cannot linger here
Storms hang about the closing day
Tomorrow may be clear
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éilís kennedy Dingle, Ireland
Singing , writing , composing ,learning, teaching.
,Amhráin , Béarla & Gaelainn from the South-West of Ireland.
New Album 'So Ends this day' out now
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