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Updated 01/22/2014

 


Danny Boy
Frederic Edward Weatherly  


Oh Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
. Anyone who plays Irish music must be ready to field countless requests for this song, particularly around St. Patrick's Day. There is no doubt about its popularity with those who know little about traditional Irish music, and even with the older generation of Irish-Americans. But newly arrived immigrants from Ireland have frequently never heard of Danny Boy! Where did the song come from? Is it Irish at all?

To begin with, Danny Boy is one of over 100 songs composed to the same tune; Londonderry Air.  This title has a certain political bias, since the name "Londonderry" is used to emphasize the ties between Northern Ireland and Britain (referring to the colonization of the area by English settlers in the early 17th century). Irish nationalists usually prefer to use "Derry", the original name of the Northern city and county. It appears that the title Air from County Derry was also used.  It is popular among the Irish diaspora and is very well known throughout the world. The tune is played as the victory anthem of Northern Ireland at the Commonwealth Games. 

The first appearance of the tune in print occurred in 1855, in Ancient Music of Ireland, published by the early collector George Petrie (1789-1866). The untitled melody was supplied to Petrie by Miss Jane Ross of Limavady, County Londonderry, who claimed to have taken it down from the playing of an itinerant piper. 

In 1974, Hugh Shields found a long-forgotten traditional song which was very similar to Gilchrist's modified version of the melody. The song, Aislean an Oigfear (recte Aisling an Óigfhir, "The young man's dream"), had been transcribed by Edward Bunting in 1792 based on a performance by harper Donnchadh Ó Hámsaigh (Denis Hempson) at the Belfast Harp Festival.

Bunting published it in 1796. Ó Hámsaigh lived in Magilligan, not far from Ross's home in Limavady. Hempson died in 1807. In 2000, Brian Audley published his authoritative research on the tune's origins. He showed how the distinctive high section of the tune had derived from a refrain in The Young Man's Dream which, over time, crept into the body of the music. He also discovered the original words to the tune as we now know it which were written by Edward Fitzsimmons and published in 1814; his song is 'The Confession of Devorgilla', otherwise known by its first line 'Oh Shrive Me Father'.

So…back to Danny Boy.  The author was an English lawyer, Frederic Edward Weatherly (1848-1929), who was also a songwriter and radio entertainer. In 1910 he wrote the words and music for an unsuccessful song he called Danny Boy. In 1912 his sister-in-law in America sent him a tune called Londonderry Air, which he had never heard before. Weatherly modified the lyrics of "Danny Boy" to fit the rhyme and meter of "Londonderry Air”, and published a revised version of the song in 1913. As far as is known, Weatherly never set foot in Ireland.

The most prolific poet of the Edwardian—and for that matter Victorian and Georgian—ballad, the genial and indefatigable Weatherly was virtually a one-man song factory. He wrote thousands of lyrics, of which at least fifteen hundred were published. The law was as much a love as poetry, and he studied and was called to the Bar at the age of thirty-nine, thereafter enjoying a comfortable career on the Western Circuit, often appearing in criminal cases, almost invariably for the defense. According to his own account, in court he was remarkably keen-witted and effective. Songs poured from him, he translated opera and he published quantities of verse and children's books. He reveled in his considerable celebrity. A little man physically, he had, as a friend put it, 'a blithe and tender soul'. He may have been self-satisfied but he was much loved and was certainly no fool, cheerfully dismissing his facility as a lyricist as no safe ticket to Parnassus. His most commercially successful ballad was 'Roses of Picardy' which became one of the great popular songs of the Great War, and it made its writer a small fortune.

There are various theories as to the true meaning of "Danny Boy". Some listeners have interpreted the song to be a message from a parent to a son going off to war or leaving as part of the Irish diaspora.  The 1918 version of the sheet music included alternative lyrics ("Eily Dear"), with the instructions that "when sung by a man, the words in italic should be used; the song then becomes "Eily Dear", so that "Danny Boy" is only to be sung by a lady". In spite of this, it is unclear whether this was Weatherly's intent.

Oh, Eily dear, the pipes, the pipes are calling
From glen to glen, and down the mountain side
The summer's gone, and all the roses falling
It's I, it's I must go, and you must bide.
But I'll come back when summer's in the meadow
Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow
And you'll be here in sunshine or in shadow
Oh Eily dear, oh Eily dear, I love you so.

Someday, may be, when all the flow'rs are dying
And I am dead, as dead I well may be
Ye'll come and find the place where I am lying
And kneel and say an Ave there for me.
And I shall hear, though soft you tread above me
And all my grave will warmer, sweeter, be
For you will bend and tell me that you love me
And I shall sleep in peace until you come to me.

Here’s my rendition of the tune.  You are welcome to edit it to your heart’s content.
 


 

Popular Lyrics

Oh, Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
From glen to glen, and down the mountain side
The summer's gone, and all the flow'rs are dying
'Tis you, 'tis you must go and I must bide.

But come ye back when summer's in the meadow
Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow
'Tis I'll be here in sunshine or in shadow
Oh, Danny boy, oh, Danny boy, I love you so.

And if you come, and all the flowers are dying
If I am dead, as dead I well may be
I pray you'll find the place where I am lying
And kneel and say an “Ave” there for me.

And I shall hear, though soft you tread above me
And all my grave will warm and sweeter be
If you'll not fail to tell me that you love me
*And I shall sleep in peace until you come to me.

      or I'll simply sleep in peace until you come to me.

      or And I shall rest in peace until you come to me.

      or Oh, Danny boy, oh, Danny boy, I love you so.