Annotation:McKenna's Dream
X:0 T: No Score C: The Traditional Tune Archive M: K: x
McKENNA'S DREAM. AKA - "MacKenna's Dream." Irish. Francis O'Neill, in his Irish Folk Music: A Fascinating Hobby (1910, p. 69) notes:
"Farmer Hayes" and "Raking Paudheen Rue" are plainly derived from a common origin. Those airs known in South Munster at least, combined with typical Folk Songs, seem to have been overlooked by Bunting, Petrie, and other collectors. The airs were also known by other names such as "The Bold Undaunted Fox," "Raking Red-haired Pat" and "McKenna's Dream". In his recent work, Old Irish Folk Music and Songs, Dr. Joyce prints a version under the latter name.
P.W. Joyce printed the song "MacKenna's Dream" in his Old Irish Folk Music and Songs (1909, pp. 177-179), set to the air "Captain Rock," which was "otherwise called 'John Doe' and also 'The Grand Conversation' from a song about Napoleon...the air may be compared with two others--'The Green Fields of America' and 'Purty Molly Brallagan'. All are evidently varied froms of the same original." Joyce thought the air to "MacKenna's Dream" was the finest of all the variants. The words to the song, as collected by Joyce, begin:
One evening late I chanced to stray,
All in the pleasant month of May,
When all the land in slumber lay,
The moon on the deel.
'Twas on a bank I sat me down,
The soft breeze was rustling round,
The murmur of the ocean huzhoed me to sleep.
I dreamt I saw brave Brian Boru,
Who did the Danish race subdue,
The mighty man his sword he drew,
These words he spoke to me:--
'The harp melodiously shall sound,
When Erin's sons shall be unbound,
And they shall gather safe around the green laurel tree.'
