Annotation:Little Celia Connellan

Back to Little Celia Connellan

---

LITTLE CELIA CONNELLAN (Sile Bheag Ni Chonnalain). AKA - "Sheala Ni Chonallain," "Sheela Beg Ni Chonallain," "Celia Connellan," "Little Mary Cullinan." Irish, Slow Air (4/4 or 2/4 time). D Dorian (Joyce): F Minor. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Joyce). There are several versions of this once-popular Irish song, composed by the great Sligo harper Thomas Connallon, in either 1650 or 1660. "[The Irish collector William] Forde took a setting from [fiddler] Hugh O'Beirne and another from Paddy Conneely (p. 254). I give these two settings here, as they differ considerably from Bunting's two: notably they are plainer and less interrupted by instrumental ornaments and variations...I think it likely that these two versions from two skilled native players of (the composer Thomas) O'Connallon's neighbourhood better represent his original composition than Bunting's do. There is a simple and very pretty Irish song to tis air (Sighile Bheag ni Choindealbhain: Edw. Walsh, Irish Popular Songs, p. 94: Hardiman's Ir. Minstr. I. 220), which sings smoothly to the two versions of the air given here. But Bunting's two settings are so complicated --especially the first--that it is impossible to sing the words to them" (P.W. Joyce, 1909). Bunting's 1st version is probably a harp rather than vocal version. See also O'Neill's "Celia Connellan" (Bunting version).

Source for notated version: the first version in Joyce was noted in 1846 from Hugh O'Beirne, professional fiddler (Ballinamore, Co. Leitrim); Bunting noted his from harper Arthur O'Neill in 1792, according the the index of his 1840 collection.

Printed sources: Joyce (Old Irish Folk Music and Songs), 1909; No. 586, p. 306. O'Sullivan/Bunting, 1983; No. 49, pp. 78-79.

Recorded sources:

---