Willie-O: Maggie Murphy (Ferm) 1982 Summers/Yates
[From The Hardy Sons of Dan, MTCD329-0, Summers. Yates notes follow.
R. Matteson 2017]
Maggie Murphy: was born in Tempo, Co Fermanagh, and has lived in and around that area all her life. Her singing was first recorded for the BBC in 1952 by Seán O'Boyle and Peter Kennedy at the house of Mr Bob Woods at Bellyreragh where she was working in service. "Sean was married to the daughter of Mrs Woods and he had heard that I sang while I was milking the cows and coming away from work."
Maggie spent her working life in service so it's maybe not surprising that she has several songs which feature serving maids/boys. Maggie says of her days in service, "That time you were hired at a hiring fair. Tempo fair wasn't a hiring fair - Trillick was a hiring fair and Enniskillen was a hiring fair. It was 10th of May and 10th of November, every six months and you worked then for six months in a place and if you left before the six months then they kept your wages. So you had to stay there whether you were starved or not.”
“My father was a good singer surely, but he wasn't as good a singer as my mother and you could never learn a song from him, but I learned the whole songs from my mother singing them, and that was at home. She'd sing them, then I'd sing along with her. Then if I'd get them wrong she'd write them down for me. She got her songs from her mother, but I never knew my Grannie.”
Willie-O: as sung by Maggie Murphy, Tempo, Co Fermanagh, 1982; recorded by Keith Summers in the singer's cottage.
Oh early, early all in the spring,
When my love Willie went to serve the King,
The storm high and the wind did blow,
Which parted me from my sailor boy.
It's get for me, love, a small wee boat,
That it’s on the ocean I mean to float,
From the lowlands low to the mainland sky,
That I might enquire for my sailor boy.
She just passed by one league or two,
When she met a captain with his ship crew.
Saying, “Captain, captain, come tell me true,
Does my love Willie sail on board with you?”
“What kind of hair has your Willie dear?
What kind of clothes does your Willie wear?”
“He wears a suit of the Royal blue.
And you'll know him by his heart so true.”
“Oh no, my dear, your Willie is not here,
For he was drown-ded last night I fear.
In yon green island as we passed by,
It was there we lost your fine sailor boy.”
She wrang her hands and she tore her hair.
Like a lady that's raked it in deep despair.
Saying, “Ha, ha, ho, what shall I do?
How shall I live when my Willie's gone?”
For she sat down for to write a song.
She wrote it broad and she wrote it long.
At every line she dropped a tear
And at every verse she cries, “Willie dear.”
It's dig my grave both long and deep.
Put a marble headstone at my head and feet.
And on my breast put a cream white dove,
For to show the world that I died for love.