The Dublin Murder Ballad- Patrick Galvin (Cork) 1956 REC
[From: "Irish Street Songs" Riverside RLP 12-613 by Patrick Galvin, "The Dublin Murder Ballad." I do not have a copy of this LP, the text has been taken from McCurdy.
Curiously a cover of the ballad "The Dublin Murder Ballad" by Ed McCurdy on Electra (EEL 108 -Mono) was released the same year-- in 1956 on "Blood Booze 'n Bones." Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ll4oQvP4QFI
McCurdy's cover was published in Jack Horntip Collection (online). A similar Irish version was recorded by Frank Harte, which has a few changes-- mainly in the last stanza.
This ballad, loosely based on the early 1800's broadside "Polly's Love," or traditional versions thereof, surfaced in the early 1900s and was recorded in the 1950s-- both Ireland and Scotland. This is the first recording made --titled, "Miss Brown of Dublin City," by Scottish traveller, Jeannie Robertson and was recorded in September of 1953 at the time when Robertson, from Aberdeen, was staying at Alan Lomax's flat in London.
Robertson said in 1953 that she learned the ballad "over thirty ago" when she was about nine from and old woman in Aberdeen. Since Robertson was born in 1908 that would date the ballad about 1917. If I assume that the "old woman" knew the ballad when she was young, it would take it back to the mid-1800s.
The first two line of the last stanza are based on "Green Grows the Laurel."
R. Matteson 2016]
Notes: Patrick Galvin: Irish Street Songs; 1956 - Riverside RLP 12-613 LP
Born in Cork City, Ireland, in 1927, PATRICK GALVIN includes among his many talents those of story-writer, poet, critic, folk singer, song collector, and author. 1927-2011;
THE DUBLIN MURDER BALLAD — This curious ballad would seem to be an attempt to bring some ancient ritual magic ballad type up to date by inserting references to a specific crime. There appear to be relics of some fertility rite lurking in such references as "cut her in three," "the dark birds" and the blood flowing forever beneath the green tree. The song is fairly common in Ireland, but even more so in Scotland. (For a Scots version, hear the ballad of Miss Brown sung by Ewan MacColl in SCOTS STREET SONGS, (Riverside RLP 12-612.).
The Dublin Murder Ballad- From Patrick Galvin, 1956, "Irish street songs"
In Dublin's fair city, in Dublin's fair town,
There lived a young maid by the name of Miss Brown.
She courted a sailor for seven long years,
And from the beginning, he called her his dear.
One morning so early by the break of the day,
He came to her window and to her did say:
"Rise up, bonnie Mary, and come you with me.
Such things they will happen; such things you will see."
He took her o'er mountain; he took her o'er dell.
She heard through the morning the sound of a bell.
All over the ocean, all over the sea,
"You maidens of Dublin, take warning by me."
"O sailor, o sailor, come spare me my life!"
But out of his pocket, he took a penknife.
He stabbed her and ripped her and cut her in three,
And he buried poor Mary beneath a green tree.
Now green grows the laurel, and red grows the rose,
And the dark birds will follow wherever he goes,
Singing, "Sailor, O sailor, wherever you be,
The blood flows forever beneath the green tree."