Annotation:She lived beside the Anner

X:0 T: No Score C: The Traditional Tune Archive M: K: x

SHE LIVED BESIDE THE ANNER. AKA – “Irish Peasant Girl (The).” Irish, Slow Air. The title and melody of a still-popular song by Charles J. Kickham (1828-1882), a Fenian novelist from County Tipperary. The song is about emigration, with political undertones. The first two stanzas go:

She lived beside the Anner at the foot of Slievenamon
A gentle Irish peasant girl with wild eye’s like the dawn
Her lips were dewy rosebuds, her teeth were pearls rare
And a snow-drift ‘neath a beechen bough, her neck and nut brown hair

How pleasant ’twas to see her on a Sunday when the bell
Was filling with its mellow tones, lone wood and grassy dell
And when at eve, young maidens strayed, the river bank along
The widow’s brown haired daughter was the loveliest of the throng

Additional notes

Source for notated version: -

Printed sources : - Herbert Hughes (Irish Country Songs, vol.4).

Recorded sources: - Arran Records, Seán O’Sé – “Irish Heritage” (2009). Tara CD4011, Frankie Gavin – “Fierce Traditional” (2001. A great favorite of his father’s).

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