Being the surmises of a musical amateur who has lately spent entirely too much time online trying to track down folk music lyrics.
Gen. 1. The Irish take on the British in a battle somewhere on Irish soil. Being seriously outnumbered, they are defeated utterly with great loss of life. Anonymous Irish balladeers compose lyrics honoring the courage of the dead, with individual verses devoted to units from each county involved and to fallen leaders. The result is about 40 verses long, though only six or seven are actually remembered by anyone after the debut.
Gen. 2. The simplified lyric becomes a popular drinking song.
1. Be maniacally happy.
2. Be maniacally sad.
3. Blame the English for everything bad that has happened to the Irish.
4. Celebrate an Irishman who left Ireland as soon as he was able.
5. A celebration of the charms of rural Ireland written by someone who would have sooner died than leave Dublin.
6. Mention the IRA, without mentioning that during the 20’s many Irish said the letters actually stood for I Ran Away.
7. Be about the death of a beloved pet or child.
8. Idolize near alcoholism.
9. Mention Saint Patrick or a leprechaun.
10. Throw in a few Irish gaelic phrases for the singer to mispronounce.
I guess this is the reason country music has to mention, dog, pickup truck, trailer, trashy women, the best of women, beer and/or guitar. They all have a little Irish in them.
Good chuckle out of this post.
The unkindest post I’ve ever seen here — not that any of it is untrue.
But keep in mind the Irish philosophy of History: anyone can be accurate, it just requires a lack of imagination.
I am pure Irish on my mother’s side, and Scot-Irish on my father’s, with a little Cherokee tossed in for seasoning. I learned all the great Irish songs at an early age and love them. We Irish of course have never let a little thing like truth, as TC artfully points out, stand in the way of a good story or a good song!