The Bonny Boy- Seán 'ac Dhonncha (Carna) 1955
[From Séamus MacMathúna Sound Collection, 1955, one stanza (clipped). Complete text from Traditional Music of Ireland.
Listen to 1955 recording: https://archive.comhaltas.ie/compositions/1823#/tracks/2727
Dhonncha is from Carna just as Joe Heaney. Bio from Wiki follows
R. Matteson 2016]
Seán 'ac Dhonncha (alternatively, Sean 'Ac Donnca, Seán 'ac onna; 1919–1996) was a traditional Irish singer. Born in Carna, Conamara, Co. Galway, he won a scholarship to Coláiste Éinde and qualified as a primary teacher in 1940. He taught in County Cavan from 1947, and later spent twenty five years as principal of Ahascragh national school. He was the first traditional singer to record with Gael Linn; won a gold medal at the 1953 Oireachtas; and was awarded the Gradam Shean-Nós Cois Life in 1995. In 1971, Claddagh Records released An Aill Báin (The White Rock): Songs in Irish and English from Connemara. In 1994, Cló Iar-Chonnachta released a CD of his songs in Irish and English, entitled Seán 'ac Dhonncha: An Spailpín Fánach."
The Bonny Boy- sung by Seán 'ac Dhonncha of Carna, Ireland, 1955
The trees are growing tall, the grass is growing green,
The trees are growing tall, the grass is growing green[1],
And many a day night have gone, since you and I have seen,
The winter nights are coming, and I must lie alone
And my bonny boy he's young, but he’s growing.
"Now daughter, dear daughter don't mind what people say,
He will be a man to you when you are old and grey,
He will be a man to you when I am dead and gone,
He's your bonny boy, he's young, but he's growing."
"Now father, dear father, you've done what’s very wrong
To married me to this bonny boy being so very young
He being only sixteen years, and I being twenty-one
He's my bonny boy, he's young, but he's growing."
"Now daughter, dear daughter, I’ll tell you what I’ll do,
We’ll send your love to college for another year or two,
And all around his bonnet, we will tie a ribbon blue,
To let the ladies know that he’s married."
"As I strolled out one evening down by the college wall,
Was there I spied them college boys and they're all playing ball,
It’s there I spied my own true love, the fairest of them all,
Oh my bonny boy he's young, but he's growing."
Now at the age of sixteen he was a married man
And at the age of seventeen the father of a son
And at the age of eighteen years, o’er his grave the grass grew green,
Cruel death had put an end to his growing.
"I will buy my love a shroud of the ornamental brown,
And while I'm there a-weaving it, the tears they will roll down
For once I had a true love but now he's dead and gone
And I’ll nurse his bonny boy, while he’s growing."
"Now, come all you pretty maidens a warning take from me[2]
And never build a nest in the top of any tree,
For the green leaves they will wither and the root they will decay,
And the ashes[3] of your bonny boy will soon fade away."
1. Only first line is repeated
2. recording cuts out in this stanza- just guessing at text; cf. Harry Cox 1953
3. blushes?