Annotation:Let Us Be Drinking

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LET US BE DRINKING. AKA and see "Beid Maoid ag Ol," "Beidmaoid ag Ol," "Let Us Be Drinking and Kissing the Women," "I Court the Fair Maidens," "My Name is O'Sullivan," "O'Sullivan's Frolic." Irish, Air (6/8 time, "playfully"). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. An air that was transformed into a jig of the same title, albeit the jig begins with the second strain (the chorus) of the song melody. See also the related first part of the family of tunes that includes "Bemthe Goal," "Bímíd ag Ól (1)," "Dance Light for My Heart Lies Under Your Feet," "Drive the Cat from Under the Table," "Hush the Cat," "Humors of Parteen," "Ioc an Reicneail," "Jackson's Humours of Panteen," "Peas on the Hearth," "Pis ar an Iarta," "Whip the Cat from under the Table." O'Neill thought his setting much superior to Petrie's Kerry-collected one (Petrie prints three versions of the tune under various titles). O'Neill says (in Irish Folk Music, 1915) "The burden of the song describes the accomplishments of the so-called 'classical teacher' in his own words. In the first line he introduces himself with confidence:

My name is O'Sullivan, I'm an eminent teacher,

What follows this egotistical announcement I have forgotten, but in listing his questionable accomplishments he says:

I can write a fine letter on paper or parchment,
Construe an author and give the due sense;
I court the fair maidens unknown to their parents,
And thresh in their barns without evidence.

Then follows a chorus in Irish after each verse:

Beidmaoid ag ol, etc. etc."

Source for notated version: a favorite song of Francis O'Neill's father, in Bantry, west Cork [O'Neill].

Printed sources: O'Neill (O'Neill's Irish Music), 1915; No. 9, p. 14. O'Neill (Music of Ireland: 1850 Melodies), 1903; No. 479, p. 84.

Recorded sources:

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