Come single belle and beau, unto me pay attention!
Don't ever fall in love, 'tis the devil's own invention.
Once I fell in love with a maiden so bewitchin',
Miss Henrietta Bell out of Captain Kelly's Kitchen.
. . . Her manners were sublime and she set my heart a-twitchin',
And she invited me to a hooley in the kitchen
Naturally, the hooley ends in tears, which was almost the fate of the song, Captain Kelly's Kitchen, itself. Over the past 30 years, while there's been a revival of Irish music at home and abroad, not all aspects of the tradition have thrived. Indeed, many of Ireland's once popular folk ballads have all but disappeared.
Songs such as Captain Kelly's Kitchen had their heyday during the era of RT╔ radio's sponsored programmes and will be remembered by a generation who grew up listening to Leo Maguire of the Walton's programme saying: "If you feel like singing, do sing an Irish song."
The demise of the sponsored programmes, however, meant that these songs no longer had a platform and, for the most part they survived only in old records and in the song sheets from Ireland's Own. Now, after decades of obscurity, they have found a new champion in Inishbofin singer and fiddle player Desmond O'Halloran.
Sixty-year-old O'Halloran, a former all-Ireland champion sean-n≤s singer with a distinctive low rugged voice, has just released his dΘbut solo album, The Pound Road, produced by D≤nal Lunny.
On it he sings Captain Kelly's Kitchen as well as other forgotten favourites such as Katie Daly, The Boys from the County Mayo, Patsy Fagin, A Soldier's Farewell and Eileen McMahon. These are interspersed with more modern songs such as Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain and gospel numbers including I'll Fly Away and May the Circle Be Unbroken.
The album also features the Cajun song Say You Love Me, which O'Halloran has been singing for more than 40 years but which became a cult hit last year when he sang it on Sharon Shannon's most recent album, The Diamond Mountain Sessions.
That album featured such musical legends as Steve Earle, Jackson Browne and John Prine, but it was O'Halloran who captured the public imagination with Say You Love Me and its catchy chorus:
I've waited for you to say you love me, say you love me,
And long for the day you'll take my hand.
I asked again last night your love so divine,
I've waited as long as I can.
He also plays fiddle on the song.
He sang this on The Late Late Show and UTV's Kelly Show, and it got extensive play on local and national radio. He has also toured worldwide with Shannon and her band, The Woodchoppers.
Such was the response to Say You Love Me that the accordion player and her manager, John Dunford, persuaded O'Halloran to record an album of his own.
"I'm not so sure how you'd describe the material," says O'Halloran of The Pound Road. "There's a good few old tunes and waltzes as well as a few gospel songs. Maybe something like this version of Courtin' in the Kitchen is a bit different from the original, but when people hear it, it should be OK."
"A bit different" indeed, because this is a reggae version of the song, arranged by Lunny, O'Halloran and Shannon.
A softly-spoken, charismatic man, O'Halloran has been a legend for years among traditional music fans and among visitors to the north Connemara island of 'Bofin, where he played with the local cΘil∅ band.
He usually sang sean-n≤s songs, but the firm favourite with audiences on 'Bofin was his signature song Say You Love Me, which he first heard while working in London in the 1960s.
Like thousands of his contemporaries, he had emigrated to England in the late 1950s - September 3rd, 1959 to be precise, he recalls.
Two of his brothers, Malachy and Vincent, took the same route. Shortly afterwards, Vincent and Dessie O'Halloran began playing on the Irish scene in London - in Camden Town, Fulham and Wimbledon. "We were working on the buildings and playing three or four nights a week," he says.
In the 1980s he returned to Ireland, settling back home on 'Bofin. Through the years, while other musicians had wanted to record with him, the time was never right until recently, he says.
Even after the success of The Diamond Mountain Sessions, he had no plans to record an album, but Shannon and John Dunford were determined that the time was right.
"It's long overdue," says Shannon in the garden of her Co Galway home, where O'Halloran recorded the album with The Woodchoppers and guest musicians and singers including former De Danann singer Eleanor Shanley and Cathy Jordan of Dervish.
"When he sings in the pub and even when it's just him, everybody takes notice," she says. "Desmond's voice is rugged and totally unaffected." She searches for words to capture its essence and agrees with Dunford when he steps in to assist: "In the same way as Shane McGowan and Tom Waits, he's not pretending to be anybody else and nobody can imitate him singing."
O'Halloran first learnt the fiddle on 'Bofin from local man Pat Cloherty.
"I was only 12 or 13 and it was my sister Bridie who wanted me to do it," he says. "She was very musical and was the national teacher on the island. She taught there for 19 years and when she died, my sister Mary Joe took over until she retired a few years ago. My mother used to play the accordion and my uncle used to play as well. Some of my father's people were good singers."
Throughout his childhood he was picking up songs from local people and several of the songs on the album are dedicated to the late Bernard Tierney from whom he originally learned Courtin' in the Kitchen and Katie Daly. Although he grew up hearing them, O'Halloran had stopped singing these ballads in recent times and consequently had forgotten verses. However, he received help from his neighbours in tracing the words and he also had a song archive dating back over 40 years.
"My sister Mary Jo used to cut out the songsheets from Ireland's Own and put the songs she liked in a scrapbook," he says. "The Boys from the County Mayo is a song I used to sing years ago on 'Bofin and I always liked the sound of it. I knew most of it but, just to make sure, I checked and the version I sing is from an Ireland's Own from 29th of April 1961."
Far away from the land of the shamrock and heather,
In search of a living as exiles we roam.
But whenever we chance to assemble together,
We think of the land where we once had a home.
Those homes are destroyed and our soils cultivated,
The hand of the tyrant brought plunder and woe,
The fires are now died and our hearths desolated
In our once happy homes in the County Mayo.
Thus goes the song of emigration which urges brotherly solidarity in exile, but O'Halloran has given his own twist to the chorus which originally went:
Now, boys, pull together in all kinds of weather,
Don't show the white feather wherever you go.
Act each as a brother and help one another,
Like true-hearted boys from the County Mayo.
Instead of "help", O'Halloran has substituted the word "sub". "That's what they used to do when we worked in England and they'd be waiting for wages. I hope they don't mind me having done that," he says with a smile.
On other songs, he has kept very much to the versions he grew up with and it's striking how many of them deal with emigration and exile.
Eileen McMahon, for which he is joined by Cathy Jordan, is an example of how Ireland got its reputation for "all her songs being sad", as 18-year-old Eileen explains her plight.
For the want of employment in ╔ireann,
I'm forced as an exile to roam
Far away from my home in Killarney,
Where in childhood I once used to roam.
But O'Halloran has also opted for lighter, upbeat songs, such as Patsy Fagin, about a rakish Irishman who is a big hit with the girls in Scotland. He recently started singing this again at Sharon's suggestion.
I'm working here in Glasgow, I've got a decent job
Carrying bricks and mortar and my pay is 15 bob,
Rise up in the morning, I get up with the lark,
When I'm going down the street I can hear the girls remark:
Hello Patsy Fagin, I can hear the girls all cry
Hello, Patsy Fagin, you're the apple of my eye
A decent boy from Ireland that no one can deny,
A harum-scarum devil-may-carum decent Irish boy.
"It's written by T.P. Keenan about a fellow working in Glasgow who came originally from Antrim. He was a big hit with the women - a bit like myself," O'Halloran says, laughing.
The album closes with Will the Circle Be Unbroken, which O'Halloran has dedicated to the memory of his brother Christy, who died earlier this year. The two lived together on 'Bofin. "Christy liked that song very much," he says. The album's sleeve notes acknowledge O'Halloran's musical debt to his birthplace, while its name, The Pound Road, is a direct link with home.
'"It's the name of the road that our house is on. It was where animals would be taken if people couldn't pay rent, and I think after a certain time there they'd be sold. It was my sister who suggested it."
The Pound Road is on Daisy Discs, distributed by the Grapevine label