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Garry Owen (Garad-Eogan Le Atrugad)
Scottish, English; Jig and (in England) North-West Morris Dance Tune; Found also in US.
ARTIST: Thomas Moore (1779-1882) wrote these lyrics to the tune Garry Owen.
CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes; DATE: The tune is first documented as Auld Bessy in 1788;
OTHER NAMES: “Gary Owen;” “Gary Owens;” "Auld Bessy," "Battle of Limerick," "The Bivouac (of the Dead)," "Bosom that Beats," "Daughters of Erin," "Finnegan's Dream," "Hurrah for the Women of Limerick," "Let Bacchus' sons not be dismayed," "O! Friendship will smile," "The Scotch Laddie," "We May Roam Thro' This World." Irish (originally),
RECORDING INFO: Faier, Billy. Art of the Five String Banjo, Riverside RLP 12-813, LP (1957), cut#A.04a (Garryowen); MacArthur, Margaret. How to Play the MacArthur Harp, Front Hall FHRBP 1005, Cas (1986), cut#p.24; Price, Truman; and Jane Keefer. Songs and Tunes of the Oregon Trail, True West TW C-21, Cas (1991), cut# 7b; Edison 50870 (78 RPM), Joseph Samuels, 1919 (appears as 1st tune of "St. Patrick's Day Medley").
SOURCES: Adam, 1928; No. 26. Aird (Selections), Vol. 3, 1788; No. 600 (appears as "Auld Bessy"). American Veteran Fifer, 1927; No. 59. Carlin (The Gow Collection), 1986; No. 502 (appears as "Gary Owen"). Cole (1001 Fiddle Tunes), 1940; pg. 63. Ford (Traditional Music in America), 1940; pg. 118. Gow (Complete Repository), Part 2, 1802; pg. 30. Harding's Original Collection, 1928; No. 7. Harding's All-Round, 1905; No. 187, pg. 59. Howe (Diamond School for the Violin), 1861; pg. 49. Jarman (Old Time Fiddlin' Tunes), No. or pg. 16. Kerr (Merry Melodies), Vol. 1; No. 17, pg. 37. Old Fort Snelling Instruction Book for the Fife, 1974; pg. 61.O'Neill (1850), 1903/1979; No. 971, pg. 180. O'Neill (1001 Gems), 1907/1986; No. 1001, pg. 172 (includes variations). Phillips (Traditional American Fiddle Tunes), Vol. 2, 1995; pg. 365 (appears as "Gary Owens"). Robbins, 1933; No. 69. Russell (The Piper's Chair), 1989; pg. 23. Saar, 1932; No. 5. Sweet (Fifer's Delight), 1964/1981; pg. 22. Trim (Thomas Hardy), 1990; No. 52. Wade (Mally's North West Morris Book), 1988; pg. 4. Winstock (Music of the Redcoats), 1970 pg. 103; Traditional Music in America, Folklore Associates, Bk (1940/1965), p118b; It also appeared in part two (1802) of Nathaniel Gow's four volume Complete Repository of the Original Scotch Slow Tunes; Kuntz, Fiddler's Companion, http://www.ceolas.org/tunes/fc;
NOTES: "G Major (Cole, Ford, O'Neill, Phillips, Trim, Sweet, Wade): F Major (Gow, Harding): A Major (Kerr): D Major (Russell). Standard. One part (Russell): AAB (Gow): AABB (Cole, Ford, Harding, Kerr, O'Neill, Sweet, Wade): AABB' (Phillips). "Garryowen," the name of a suburb of Limerick, was written c. 1770-1780 supposedly in honor of the moneyed young hooligans who ran riot in the Irish county at the time." (Kuntz, Fiddler's Companion, http://www.ceolas.org/tunes/fc).
Garryowen translates as "Owen's garden." Samuel Bayard, however, finds the first printed appearance of the tune in Aird's 1787 Collection under the title "Auld Bessy." Another early Irish printing is in O'Farrell's Pocket Companion. After its use in a pantomime called Harlequin Amulet, produced in 1800, the jig gained great popularity as a fife and fiddle tune. It is sometimes (mistakenly) attributed to 'Jackson of Cork', a reference to the famous 18th century uilleann piper and composer Walter "Piper" Jackson. Doolin, north County Clare, tin whistle player Micho Russell described it as a "very old jig," often played for the dance called the 'plain set' in Clare and surrounding Irish counties. (Kuntz, Fiddler's Companion, http://www.ceolas.org/tunes/fc).
In the United States it was adopted as a favorite marching air by General George Custer's 7th Cavalry, an association which helped to popularize the jig throughout country following Custer's demise. "It had been said that the 7th acquired the song through Captain Miles Keogh, an Irishman and a former member of the Papal Guard, but it seems unlikely that (its American use) can be ascribed to a particular person, since 'Garryowen' appeared in a number of Civil War songsters, and was therefore presumably well known to any number of American soldiers in 1861-1865 -- dates preceding Keogh's association with the 7th" (Winstock, 1970; pgs. 102-104). (Kuntz, Fiddler's Companion, http://www.ceolas.org/tunes/fc).
The melody was cited as having commonly been played at Orange County, New York country dances in the 1930's (Lettie Osborn, New York Folklore Quarterly) and it was used as a tune for a single step in the English North-West morris dance tradition. Queen Victoria requested the tune of piper Thomas Mahon (along with "St. Patrick's Day" and "Royal Irish Quadrilles") during her first visit to Ireland in 1849, and the piper was thus "surprised when he learned that not only the Queen, but the Prince Consort was familiar with the best gems of Irish music" (O'Neill, 1913). His performance pleased the Queen and she directed that he might thenceforth bear the title "Professor of the Irish Union Bagpipes to Her Most Gracious Majesty, Queen Victoria." (Kuntz, Fiddler's Companion, http://www.ceolas.org/tunes/fc).
LYRICS:
Let Bacchus' sons be not dismayed
But join with me, each jovial blade
Come, drink and sing and lend your aid
To help me with the chorus:
Chorus: Instead of spa, we'll drink brown ale
And pay the reckoning on the nail;
No man for debt shall go to jail
From Garryowen in glory.
We'll beat the bailiffs out of fun,
We'll make the mayor and sheriffs run
We are the boys no man dares dun
If he regards a whole skin.
Chorus
Our hearts so stout have got no fame
For soon 'tis known from whence we came
Where'er we go they fear the name
Of Garryowen in glory.
Chorus
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