Paddy's Lamentation

Lyrics to one of the saddest songs I've ever heard.

"There is nothing here but war
Where the murderin' cannons roar
And I wish I was at home in dear old Dublin."

This Civil War era song is just tragic. It's the story of an Irishman who heads off to "Americay" because he wants to start a better life, but (somehow) he ends up with a rifle in his hand. "Paddy, you've come to fight for Lincoln." So off goes the hapless fellow to fight the South, and he ends up with a wooden leg warning fellows: "To Americay I'll not have you goin'!"

This, by the way, fits the definition of tragic songs with haunting tunes and lyrics that I absolutely love. You can sing them when you're happy and bring a little happiness to it, you can sing them when you're sad and feel like you're either not alone or else you've got it so good compared to these folks, and sometimes they take on new shades of meaning. So, I'm putting "Paddy's Lamentation" up there with "Kilkelly" "West Virginia Mine Disaster" "There Were Roses", etc.

Funny, I just looked back and realized that all three of those are original songs (i.e. by someone, not traditional). "Paddy's Lamentation" is traditional, so it's a start. Anyway, I suppose this shows my regard for Peter Jones, Jean Ritchie, and Tommy Sands...

Potatoes

I haven't been writing lately, I know, because I'm making a plug-in for EV Nova, a computer game from Ambrosia Software that my father likes a lot and is my absolute favorite. It's basically a space game where you get involved in these "storylines" which involve doing everything from outrunning the bad guys and landing on a planet to shooting the bad guys. Anyway, my plug in just makes a new storyline and adds another three planets at the end. Pretty simple, if I could make that one planet landable...

...but that's not what I wanted to write about. You probably guessed that from the title, unless you were wondering how soon I was going to say: "But that's just small potatoes." I'm actually quite proud of the thing, but it's been severely cramping my blogging time. I have a deadline for this plug-in, as you shall soon see.

Potatoes. They're not native to Ireland, but they came to Ireland after the New World was discovered and quickly became a staple. And then the blight came. I read about it rather callously before now because it didn't quite make sense and it just didn't seem real. I have problems like that with history. Lately--either I've grown up some, or my emotions have been heightened by the impending move--history has become a lot more real, and some accounts are just devastating.

Then came school. And Nory Ryan's Song.

That book, by the way, is by Patricia Reilly Giff, and if you're prepared to be depressed, I highly recommend it. I would have devoured it had I not been forced to read a certain amount of chapters a day. As it was, I read it quickly and reread certain parts of the day's reading all day long. I have been fascinated by Ireland since I got into Celtic music, and I always wished that my ancestors from the British Isles were Irish, not Scottish! I didn't know much about Scotland, but more about Ireland, I confess, but the thing is, it seems there are a lot more Irish-y things where I live. Maybe my British Isles ancestors were Scots-Irish! There's a concept for you...

Anyway, I haven't read much about Ireland fiction-wise, and that's part of the reason I devoured the book. On Thursday, I was to write a newspaper article about the Potato Famine in which I might have interviewed Nory Ryan herself. So I had to do a wee bit more research. I looked up the Potato Famine, and found a comprehensive site on it. I turned on my Irish tunes (I do everything better while listening to music) and dived in to do my research.

What I found horrified me. The desolation a blight combined with some rather stupid-sounding English could bring. But I was transfixed. Pictures from the period showing what was going on heightened the reality.

The "Kesh Jig" echoed eeriely in my ears as I read about families dropping dead from hunger by the side of the road. Was this song, so airy and joyous, and this account, so tragic and horrifying, from the same place? Never mind about times. I continued to read, and I was astounded by the story. Planting small potato crops simply because there weren't enough potatoes, and why plant to have a foul rot set in, anyway, and all that--then having the crops turn out fine. But then when the farmers set a risk and planted their big crops again--BAM--that blight set in again.

I continued to read about coffin ships, poor immigrants, and those left behind. Then I came to the section about "after the famine". In Ireland. I was sitting there, thinking, "What? There were actually folks left in Ireland? Oh." I know that Ireland is still around today, and I've heard radio direct from Ireland. I've heard about the Sinn Fein, the Fenians, the IRA and the PIRA. I've finally cleared up in my mind the difference between Dublin and Belfast. But after reading these devastating accounts, my mind shut down, and I was legitimately surprised that there was anybody left.

"Rosin the Beau" was playing, and I realized that, yes, there are Irish left in Ireland, and, yes, I'd love to go there someday. Yet I know I'll never look at the Potato Famine the same way. How would history in Ireland--and America--be different if that had never happened?

P.S. I did get a pretty high score on my "article". Daddy gently added, though, that he could accuse me of "biased Journalism". Oh, well--I'd like to think that the English were just plain stupid. "Laissez faire" when people are dying by the truckload?!?! Come on, people....

Welcome, Royal Charlie!

Note: I am assuming you know about the Jacobite cause, here. Here is a link that should give you necessary background.
My English neighbor would probably kill me. It's all I can do to keep from singing Jacobite songs in the hallway. But I love Jacobite songs, and I sing them all the time. I checked to see which side the clan that maybe some of my ancestors came from was on. I found out they were neutral. They live just at the border of the Highlands and Lowlands according to the map I found, so I guess neutral was a good thing for them. But then I found "Bonnie Dundee"--a Jacobite guy from Charlie's father or grandfather, I forget. If you weren't on his side (and he had some religious skirmishes going on), he was "Bloody Clavers". History (of which I don't know the bias) seems to favor the "Bloody Clavers" side of this things to this neutral, peace-loving American hundreds of years later, but there is a song about "Bonnie Dundee". While: 1.) I don't like the song, and 2.) It's unlikely that "Bonnie Dundee" and I are related, it is fun to look at a song and wonder if the guy in the song is related closer than everybody is.

But my favorite Jacobite period is that of 1745, Bonnie Prince Charlie's time. My impression is that "Royal Charlie" was a class B jerk and the loyalty of his Highland men was undeserved, but, then again, who deserves loyalty? But I also see him as a fellow who was just 24 years old and probably somewhat spoiled, who probably wasn't too mature (but who am I to talk? I'm fourteen and act about half my age!), who never thought he could loose and never thought that there were folks (besides the obvious, I mean) who didn't like him. He had to be led away from Culloden Moor, shocked at his own defeat.

Anyway, I am working on a project to learn songs either from Charlie's time or a long time after (like Lady Nairne's songs) which are about him or the cause at that point. It's coming along slowly, as I bogged down in a song with a long list of--what? Clan names? Names of places? Famous people? I don't know!

I hope to post it here when I'm through, and it should be more interesting than my pondering about a cause I doubt many kids my age are even interested in!...

Why is everything at elevens?

I shouldn't be writing this now. I should sit on my duff like a good little girl and wait until September, at the sixth anniversery. But I'm writing a song for then, and I was just thinking about it, so I'm going to write the prose now.

I was not directly affected by 9-11. I never lost anyone I knew and loved; I never knew anyone who was affected by it; and I lived in Washington State. Not only were there no victims from Washington State, but my very protective parents made sure I saw no footage, no pictures--in short, what I've learned has been from my own resources, grapevine fashion (driven from desperation, because I had a need to write about it). I wasn't really affected.

But in a way, every American was--the first attack on our soil in years. And so many innocent civillians dead--though death of any kind is horrible, the thought of angry, twisted folks killing soldiers isn't so bad. But civillians...just ordinary folks living their lives, who did nothing wrong but work at a tall, beautiful building or board an airplane to California. And so we were are affected, because we are civillians. And it could happen us, if we were at the wrong place at the wrong time.

I lived through a historical moment that my grandchildren are going to be reading about in school. So someday, I wonder, will they know or wonder what was going on at that time far away? Will they care? Will they care that Grandma Cait was busy playing with paint samples with Great-Aunt Rivka when they heard the news? Is it important?

I read a book about Pearl Harbor. It was historical fiction about a girl about my age who lived in Hawaii during that time and saw some of the attacks. Heavy stuff. But it took place in Hawaii, not San Jose or Seattle or Chicago or something like that. That's because Hawaii was where the action was. San Jose, Seattle, and/or Chicago was boring. Those folks were either not awake or not bothering. Then the news came 'round, and they were all shocked.

Like it happened here. I guess a lot of peoples have drawn parallels and that's because there are parallels. My homeschool curriculum is big on "comparing and contrasting", so if I really thought and studied on it, I could probably come up with some of the biggest differences and all that. But...hm, still.

I don't know. It was a big tragedy, 9-11 was, that we haven't quite come out of yet. Friends and family still mourn. Caring people still sympathize and cry over the old stories. The New York Skyline is still missing its buck teeth. There's a big hole where once hundreds of people worked, cried, laughed, and lived normal lives. We still have security measures that would be unneccessary were it not for the horror that people seem to want to inflict on others.

I think that's what makes history. Joys and sorrows that many, many people face that are preserved for generations by their long-time healing, their effects that change--if not the world--entire cities, states, nations. And it's scary to think that, not only will I one day reminisce about the "good old days" with my cronies as we sit in the nursing home, but my children and grandchildren will be wondering what I was doing at the time that was history. Because I was alive at the time, and I have memories.

I only hope that it doesn't give them too many sleepless nights. Or nightmares. Or fear of the dark.