My whistle teacher taught me this tune and I can’t seem to find any info on it anywhere. Does anyone know it by a different name by any chance?
It’s a slow tune. Here are the notes (capital letter is 2nd octave and c- means c natural)
dddegab c-babaged
gfedgabc- DEDbagg
abDDbagg abDDbaga
bDDbagg abc-babaged
Sorry I haven’t learned proper ABC notation yet
Thanks
Mo ghille mear? Here’s a page:
http://www.celticartscenter.com/Songs/Irish/MoGhileMear.html. with the lyrics.
I’m not an Irish speaker but I remembered something about adding h to G after a word ending in o. Irish is harder than banjo but not as hard as golf!
Is this song also known as Sé Mo Laoch? I seem to recall a show on TG4 known by this title,He is my hero?
Wow that was quick. Thanks a million 🙂
Tony - Known more as “Mo Ghile Mear”, but those are the first words of the song.
The word ending in o is usually “mo” meaning “my” or “do” meaning “your”, and indeed they both take the aspiration “h” after the first letter of the next word (where that is feasible)
Interestingly, Sting recorded a version of Mo Ghile Mear with the Chieftains that he learned phonetically, and it sounds OK!
This is (in my opinion) one of the finest Irish traditional songs. However, while Sting may make a good attempt at it, you need to listen to the maestro, Séamus MacMathúna to hear the song in its full glory!
http://www.celticartscenter.com/Songs/Irish/MoGhileMear.html
The Irish rendition is reasonable, but not quite accurate. The translation is literal. Rather romantic rendition of the Stuarts in the opening too (!) Some Scots out there might clarify, but I had always thought BP Charlie was the “Young” Pretender - not the “Great” Pretender as rendered ?
You’ll also find a rendition here :
http://chrsouchon.free.fr/moghile.htm
The Irish is more accurate, and the translation, while considerably less literal, conveys the meaning, I think better.
and of course, Sting.
Poor Bonny Prince Charles
Julie Fowlis & Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh also sing the song A Riogain Uasail with the same melody on their excellent duet album, Dual. As far as I remember, in the liner notes they say the melody has been used for that song as well as Mo Ghile Mear for a long time:
https://thesession.org/recordings/3244
Track 12
It’s a lovely melody, whatever the song, and there’s some great versions out there (I have to admit the first time I heard it was from Sting’s version, so I am quite fond of it, even if he did only learn it phonetically!)
