Annotation:Dawning of the Day (2) (The)

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DAWNING OF THE DAY [2] (Fáinne Geal an Lae). Irish, Slow Air (4/4 time). F Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). One part. Writing in 1873 Joyce remarked that the song was "still well known in the southern counties." Phillips Barry suggests this melody was the origin for the standard melody of the famous Irish song "The Wild Colonial Boy," though Cazden (et al, 1982) sees little actual resemblance and opines the connection is "needlessly conjectural." The air was published by Edward Walsh (1805-1850) in Irish Popular Songs (1847), with words translated from an anonymous 18th century love poem:

Maidin mhoch do ghabhas amach
Air bhruach Locha Lein;
An samhradh ag teachd, 'san chraobh re n'ais,
'Gus lonnradh teith o'n ngrein;
Air taisdiol dham tre bhailte-puirt
'Gus banta mine reidh,
Cia gheabhainn le'm ais acht cuilfhionn deas
Le fainne geal an lae.

(One morning early I walked forth
By the margin of Lough Lene;
The sunshine dressed the trees in green,
And summer bloomed again;
I left the town and wandered on Through fields all green and gay,
And whom should I meet but Coolenn-Dhas,
By the dawning of the day.)

Walsh was born in Derry and was a private tutor and schoolteacher, serving at the Spike Island convict station (Cobh) and later in a Cork workhouse. He died in County Cork. See also the closely related "Dawning of the Day (4) (The)".

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Heymann (Legacy of the 1792 Belfast Harp Festival), 1992; p. 34. Joyce (Ancient Irish Music), 1890; No. 8, p. 8. Joyce (Old Irish Folk Music and Song), 1909; No. 774, p. 379.

Recorded sources:

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