Annotation:Red Haired Man's Wife (2) (The)

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RED HAIRED MAN'S WIFE [2], THE ("bEan An Fir Ruad" or "Beann an Fhir Ruaidh"/"Bean an Fhir Rua"). AKA and see "Caves of Cong (The)," "Loch Lein," "Thios ag Beal Bearnais." Irish, Air (3/4 time). Ireland, Munster. D Major/Mixolydian. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. O'Sullivan (1983) states this well-known melody is perhaps the most celebrated of the 9/8 meter airs used for Irish folk songs (though the versions in the popular collections are noted in 3/4 time). One edition of the words is to be found in "Cathal Bui" (Breandan O Buachalla, 1975) under the title "Thios ag Beal Bearnais," attributed to Cathal Bui Mac Ghiolla and also to Riocard Bairead. Neither of the two versions printed in Stanford-Petrie (Nos. 115 and 1140) are the same as Bunting's version. The melody also appears in Poets and Poetry of Munster (1849). An English adaptation of the song begins:

A letter I'll send by a friend down to the sea shore,
To let her understand I'm the man that does her adore.
And if she'd but lave that slave I'd forfeit my life,
And she'd live like a lady and ne'er be the red-haired man's wife.

Sean Ó Boyle (1976) relates a story told by the 19th century Tyrone novelist William Carleton, who recorded that his mother was once asked to sing the English version of "Bean an Fhir Rua." She said, "I'll sing it for you, but the English words and the air are like a quarelling man and his wife--the Irish melts into the tune but the English doesn't." "An expression," states Carleton, "scarcely less remarkable for its beauty than its truth." The title appears in a list of tunes in his repertoire brought by Philip Goodman, the last professional and traditional piper in Farney, Louth, to the Feis Ceoil in Belfast in 1898 (Breathnach, 1997). See also “Roving Peddler (2) (The) for another variant.

Source for notated version: Bunting obtained the melody from another collector, George Petrie [1] (1790-1866), in 1839.

Printed sources: Roche (Collection of Traditional Irish Music, vol. 1), 1982,; No. 31, p. 16. O'Sullivan/Bunting, 1983; No. 83, pp. 126-128. Stanford/Petrie (Complete Collection), 1905; No. 359, p. 91.

Recorded sources:

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