Folk Song: The Kerry Dance
In ‘The Kerry Dance,’ the singer remembers the summer days of his youth, when the community came together for dancing in the outdoors. He mourns not only the passing of his youth and the death of his friends, but the silence of the ‘wild and lonely glen.’ Had the younger generation forsaken the glad and simple traditions of their elders, who strengthened community bonds and enlivened long summer days with dance?
One aspect of my personal philosophy of health is time to dance and sing as a local community. ‘Health is membership.’ I have been reading Wendell Berry, and a recurring theme is the lamentable ‘axework of division’ which is a distinguishing mark of our modern culture. He says of the isolation of couples in marriage (following the disintegration of community and household):
‘The dispersal was nowhere more poignantly exemplified than in the replacement of the old ring dances, in which all couples danced together, by the so-called ballroom dancing, in which each couple dances alone. A significant part of the etiquette of ballroom dancing is, or was, that the exchange of partners was accomplished by a “trade.” It is no accident that the capitalization of love and marriage was followed by a divorce epidemic—and by fashions of dancing in which each one of the dancers moves alone.’
The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays, Wendell Berry
“The Body and the Earth,” p. 113
Desisting from my philosophizing and returning to ‘The Kerry Dance’.... James Lynam Molloy of County Offaly, Ireland, wrote and composed this nostalgic song in 1879. Although he studied law, he never practiced, but began writing and publishing songs soon popular in concert halls; his greatest success was ‘Love’s Old Sweet Song.’
The Kerry Dance
TUNE [a bit too fast for singing]
O the days of the Kerry dancing,
O the ring of the piper's tune!
O for one of those hours of gladness,
Gone, alas! like our youth, too soon.
When the boys began to gather
In the glen of a summer night,
And the Kerry piper's tuning
Made us long with wild delight.
O to think of it,
O to dream of it,
Fills my heart with tears!
O the days of the Kerry dancing,
O the ring of the piper's tune!
O for one of those hours of gladness,
Gone, alas! like our youth, too soon.
Was there ever a sweeter colleen*
In the dance than Eily More!
Or a prouder lad than Thady
As he boldly took the floor.
"Lads and lasses, to your places,
Up the middle and down again!"
Ah! the merry-hearted laughter
Ringing through the happy glen.
O to think of it,
O to dream of it,
Fills my heart with tears!
O the days of the Kerry dancing,
O the ring of the piper's tune!
O for one of those hours of gladness,
Gone, alas! like our youth, too soon.
Time goes on and the happy years are dead,
And one by one the merry hearts are fled;
Silent now is the wild and lonely glen
Where the bright glad laugh will echo ne'er again.
Only dreaming of days gone by,
In my heart I hear
Loving voices of old companions
Stealing out of the past once more,
And the sound of the dear old music
Soft and sweet as in days of yore.
When the boys began to gather
In the glen of a summer night,
And the Kerry piper's tuning
Made us long with wild delight.
O the days of the Kerry dancing,
O the ring of the piper's tune!
O for one of those hours of gladness,
Gone, alas! like our youth, too soon.
*colleen: a maiden Anglo-Irish
Friday, August 20, 2010