A Thread For Talking About Irish Things

[Laudate_Dominum]

I just went through something the other day that is very sad and painful. I think it is captured quite well by this song. It's funny how there is always something in Irish music or poetry that perfectly fits whatever is going on in my life.

This page has a clip from this song: [url="http://www.emusic.com/cd/10598/10598521.html"]http://www.emusic.com/cd/10598/10598521.html[/url]
Its track 4, this is the best I could find. I would you could hear the whole song.


[b]I Wonder What's Keeping My True Love Tonight[/b]

I wonder what's keeping my true love tonight
I wonder what's keeping her out of my sight
It is little she knows of the pain that I endure
Or she would not stay from me this night, I am sure

Oh love, are you coming your cause to advance?
Oh love, are you waiting for a far better chance?
Or have you got a sweetheart laid by you in store?
And you're coming to tell me that you love me no more?

Oh love, I'm not coming my cause to advance
And love, I'm not waiting for a far better chance
But I have got a sweetheart laid by me in store
And I'm coming to tell you that I love you no more

For 'tis I can love lightly and 'tis I can love long
And 'tis I can love the old love 'til the new love comes along
I just said that I loved you for to set your mind at ease
But when I'm far from you, I'll love whom I please

Well, I've gold in my pocket and I've love in my heart
But I can't love a maiden who has got two sweethearts
Your love, it lies as lightly as the dew upon a thorn
Comes down in the evening, goes away in the morn

Green grass, it grows bonny, spring water runs clear
I am weary and lonesome for the love of my dear
You're my first and false true love and 'tis lately I knew
That the fonder I loved you, the falser you grew

Edited April 3, 2004 by Laudate_Dominum

[SemperFi]

I am half Irish, and wow, this topic is great!...I just read through the whole thing :thumb:

Kate

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='SemperFi' date='Apr 3 2004, 03:34 PM'] I am half Irish, and wow, this topic is great!...I just read through the whole thing :thumb:

Kate [/quote]
Woohoo! I wish I could give you a t-shirt or something for reading the whole thread.

Feel free to post anything Irish that you like. Some popular things are poems, songs, blessings, pictures.. whatever.

God bless!

[WCC_Catholic]

this really is a good thread

[FiZzGiG]

Kiss me, I'm Irish!
jk, but ya, this is seriously a great thread. i'm half Irish. woohoo!
hey, random fact of the day:
My name's Kerry; My mom named me after County Kerry in Ireland
yay! Ireland REPRESENT!

haha, but i love ALL countries. no worries.

[friarMatt]

this is my first time posting here....I am 3/4ths Irish (and 1/4 Polish, byt what the heck if it is good enough for JP2 and St. Max Kolbe it's good enough for me) I love my ancestory I have been to the Motherland twice, and hope to go back soon....I love more modern irish music, especially The Corrs, and the Saw Doctors!

fr. Matt

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='FiZzGiG' date='Apr 4 2004, 12:05 AM'] Kiss me, I'm Irish!
jk, but ya, this is seriously a great thread. i'm half Irish. woohoo!
hey, random fact of the day:
My name's Kerry; My mom named me after County Kerry in Ireland
yay! Ireland REPRESENT!

haha, but i love ALL countries. no worries. [/quote]
Ah.. Good old county Kerry. Here is a picture of it:

[Laudate_Dominum]

[b]The Planter's Daughter[/b]

When night stirred at sea
And the fire brought a crowd in,
They say that her beauty
Was music in mouth
And few in the candlelight
Thought her too proud,
For the house of the planter
Is known by the trees.

Men that had seen her
Drank deep and were silent,
The women were speaking
Wherever she went -
As a bell that is rung
Or a wonder told shyly,
And O she was the Sunday
In every week.

[Laudate_Dominum]

Here is a poem by a woman poet so that the girls have something to relate with.

Irish literature is unique in world literature in that it has many celebrated women in its tradition.

[b]Open Rose[/b]
[i]By Medbh McGuckian[/i]

The moon is my second face, her long cycle
Still locked away. I feel rain
Like a tried-on dress, I clutch it
Like a book to my body.

His head is there when I work,
It signs my letters with a question-mark;
His hands reach for me like rationed air.
Day by day I let him go

Till I become a woman, or even less,
An incompletely furnished house
That came from a different century
Where I am guest at my own childhood.

I have grown inside words
Into a state of unbornness,
An open rose on all sides
Has spoken as far as it can.

[Laudate_Dominum]

Here is another one for all you dear, fair maidens out there.

[b]Gateposts[/b]
[i]By Medbh McGuckian[/i]

A man will keep a horse for prestige,
But a woman ripens best underground.
He settles where the wind
Brings his whirling hat to rest,
And the wind decides which door is to be used.

Under the hip-roofed thatch,
The bed-wing is warmed by chimney breast;
On either side the keeping-holes
For his belongings, hers.

He says it's unlucky to widen the house,
And leaves the gateposts holding up the fairies.
He lays his lazy-beds and burns the river,
He builds turf-castles,
And sprigs the corn with apple-mint.

She spreads heather on the floor
And sifts the oatmeal ark for thin-bread farls:
All through the blue month
She tosses stones in basins to the sun,
And watches for the trout in the holy well.

[Laudate_Dominum]

[b]The Last of the Fire Kings[/b]
[i]By Derek Mahon[/i]

I want to be
Like the man who descends
At two milk churns

With a bulging
String bag and vanishes
Where the lane turns,

Or the man
Who drops at night
From a moving train

And strikes out over the fields
Where fireflies glow
Not knowing a word for the language.

Either way, I am
Through with history -
Who lives by the sword

Dies by the sword.
Last of the fire kings, I shall
Break with tradition and

Die by my own hand
Rather than perpetuate
The barbarous cycle.

Five years I have reigned
During which time
I have lain awake each night

And prowled by day
In the sacred grove
For fear of the usurper,

Perfecting my cold dream
Of a place out of time,
A palace of porcelain

Where the frugivorous
Inheritors recline
In their rich fabrics
Far from the sea.

But the fire-loving
People, rightly perhaps,
Will not countenance this,

Demanding that I inhabit,
Like them, a world of
Sirens, bin-lids
And bricked-up windows -

Not to release them
From the ancient curse
But to die their creature and be thankful.

[Laudate_Dominum]

Come all you fair and tender ladies,
Take warning how you court young men,
They're like a star on a cloudy morning,
First they'll appear and then they're gone,

They'll tell to you some loving story,
They'll swear to you that their love is true,
Straight away they'll go and they'll court some other,
That's the love they have for you,

Oh don't you remember our days of courting,
You told me then that you loved me best,
You could make me believe with the falling of your eyes,
That the sun rose in the west.

If I had known before I'd courted,
I never would have courted none,
I'd have locked my heart in a box golden,
Fastened down with a silver pin.

Come all you fair and tender ladies,
Take warning how you court young men,
They're like a star on a cloudy morning,
First they are here and then they're gone.

[Laudate_Dominum]

[Homestarlover85]

i have an irish friend...does that count?
actually i havent even read the posts...so let me do that

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='Homestarlover85' date='Apr 13 2004, 09:57 PM'] i have an irish friend...does that count?
actually i havent even read the posts...so let me do that [/quote]
That counts. Also reading this thread is something of a rite of initiation.