Galway Bay
From the “Echoes of Erin 2008” Comhaltas Tour CD, the song “Galway Bay” is performed by Seán Ó Sé and the Comhaltas Tour Ensemble.
This fine song of emigration written by the Galway songsmith Francis A. Fahey (1845-1935) should never be confused with a later song of the same name made famous by crooner Bing Crosby. This particular recording of the song featured on the Echoes of Erin 2007 CCÉ US Tour Album.
It is a typical example of the thousands of emigrant songs, indeed practically each parish has one, to be found all over the country. The lyrics are Fahey’s but the melody is a version of one, which is fairly common in the Irish ballad repertoire. The best known of these is probably The Irish Soldier Boy. Seán Ó Sé learned this song from his father, Con Ó Sé. Seán remembers him always singing it around Christmas, a time of year when emigrants were very much in the minds of those who stayed at home. It was easy for a man from Adrigole in the Beara peninsula, ravaged by emigration, to empathise with the sentiments of a Galway man, or perhaps woman, in far off Illinois.
- Date
- 10 Oct, 2008
- Tune
- Galway Bay
- Created By
- Recorded by Breandán Knowlton
- Source
- Echoes of Erin 2008
| Performers/Subjects | Instruments |
|---|---|
| Seán Ó Sé | Singer |
| F.A. Fahey | Words |
| Comhaltas Tour Ensemble |
This
work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 License.
