Danny Boy:: The Legend of the Beloved Irish Ballad [Paperback]

Malachy McCourt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2, 2004

In this delightful volume, Malachy McCourt takes readers on a surprising and emotional journey, centered around one of the most enduring songs in history. Exploring the mysteries of 'Danny Boy,' a song with roots in distant centuries, this tribute features commentary from such luminaries as Seamus Heaney, Liam Neeson, and the author's brother, Frank McCourt.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"Danny Boy" is one of the best-known and most beloved songs in the Western world. Whether sung at funeral masses or by Elvis Presley, it nearly always raises a lump in the throat and brings a tear to the eye. The song itself may be simple and direct, but McCourt (A Monk Swimming) has written a lively and detailed cultural history of the tune's origins, cultural meanings and political import that is as fascinating as it is frequently provocative. While the tune of "Danny Boy" (also known as the Londonderry, or Derry, air) may well date back to Rory Dall O'Cahan, an Irish harpist who lived in Scotland in the late 17th century, the words as we know them today were penned by a British barrister and prolific song writer, Frederick Edward Weatherly. Having written the lyrics for another tune in 1910, Weatherly adopted them to the Derry air two years later and had an immediate hit, which despite its English origins became profoundly identified with Ireland and its struggle for independence. Unafraid of exploring all possibilities of the song's meaning is it sung by a grieving mother or a desolate gay male lover? is it about the great starvation and emigration? McCourt succeeds in making his case that the song is both specific and universal. Less sustained as cultural history than David Margolic's stunning Strange Fruit: The Biography of a Song, McCourt's reprise of "Danny Boy" is highly entertaining and idiosyncratically informative. (Mar.)Forecast: Running Press is going all out with a 100,000 first printing, hoping to attract all those who've wept to the song. A book by a McCourt brother will do just that especially because of the fortunate release around St. Patrick's Day.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

St. Patrick's Day is fast approaching, and millions of Americans will be gathering to celebrate their Irish heritage. Most of them would have difficulty naming any Irish song beyond "Danny Boy" which is ironic considering that the songwriter was an Oxford-educated English barrister who never set foot outside his native country. In a rambling but entertaining narrative, actor McCourt (Singing My Him Song) explores not only the 1913 marriage of Frederick Weatherly's lyrics to the Derry Air but also the origins of the music, the continuing attraction of the song, and even the mystery of the narrator. Who is bidding farewell to Danny? Is it his father? His mother? Perhaps his homosexual lover? All are weighed and evaluated with the kind of attention devoted to sacred texts. The work concludes with a select discography, including performances by Papa John Creech, Bing Crosby, and Elvis Presley, among others. One person who could name any number of Irish songs is ethnomusicologist and acclaimed Irish singer Moloney (Ph.D., Univ. of Pennsylvania). Drawing on Irish and Irish American songs to illustrate the tale, Moloney surveys the experiences of Irish immigrants to 1900. His brief book includes song lyrics and specific song histories and is accompanied by an 18-song CD. Using music as a framework, Moloney explores why Irish Catholics and Protestants left the old country and their respective lives once they landed here. Concentrating primarily on Irish Catholics, Moloney's text focuses on Irish encounters with prejudice ("no Irish need apply") and the post-Civil War transition into the middle class. It is an oft-told tale but one that Moloney hopes will inform contemporary Irish Americans confronting a new generation of immigrants. McCourt's book is recommended for popular song collections in public libraries, while Moloney's should find a place in history and popular culture collections. Christopher Brennan, SUNY at Brockport Lib.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 118 pages
• Publisher: NAL Trade (March 2, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451208064
• ISBN-13: 978-0451208064
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,143,492 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An entertaining, though relentlessly folksy, book, February 22, 2003

By 

Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Danny Boy:: The Legend of the Beloved Irish Ballad (Paperback)

Beyond question, the melody variously known as "Danny Boy" or "Londonderry Air" is one of the great tunes of all time. Its measured rising and falling cadences would grace the catalog of Franz Schubert or any of the other great classical vocal composers.

Malachy McCourt, brother of novelist Frank McCourt (ANGELA'S ASHES) and a well-known writer and radio-TV luminary in his own right, has produced a curious little book of less than 95 pages about the famous tune and its well-known lyrics. His book is part history, part speculation, part myth and part personal editorial essay. And it is not free from touches of Irish blarney.

McCourt's findings may surprise --- and dismay --- many. The great tune, long since adopted as a kind of unofficial Irish national anthem, may not be of Irish origin. A folklorist named Jane Ross supposedly first noted it down around 1851. She reportedly heard it played by a blind fiddler, Jimmy McCurry, in Limavady, Londonderry --- but there is at least a possibility that the melody may have originated in Scotland. No one knows for sure. At least one respected musical scholar claims that the tune follows no known metric scheme for Irish folk music.

Many different sets of words were attached to the tune after its first publication in 1855 --- but those that have become indissolubly identified with it ("O Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling, from glen to glen and down the mountainside....") were written in 1910 by an English lawyer and song-lyric cobbler named Frederick E. Weatherly, who probably never set foot in Ireland. They were actually intended for a different tune, but when Weatherly's sister-in-law sent him some years later the familiar melody from her home in Australia, he saw that it was a perfect fit for his earlier verses. Thus an "Irish" classic was created from a melody that may be Scottish and words by an Englishman.

McCourt gives us this information straightforwardly enough, but he fleshes them out with a good deal of barely relevant material. It seems strange to arraign a book of 95 pages on charges of padding, but the complaint seems justified. McCourt solicited opinions about the song from Irish celebrities (including brother Frank) and speculates at length on such side issues as who is singing the song and to whom it is addressed (one possibility among several: it is the song of Danny Boy's gay lover!). The author's tone varies between straight historical writing and folksiness, including occasional cutesy use of "tis" and "t'was." McCourt also grinds a personal axe or two. He thinks ill of those Catholic dioceses that have banned the singing of "Danny Boy" at funerals because it is "secular."

There are some fascinating bits of trivia here, however. Victorians hesitated to refer to the song as Londonderry Air because, to their prudish ears, it sounded too much like "London derriere." Irish nationalists never use that title either, because they want no mention of London in the title. Wordsmith Weatherly was once in legal partnership with one of the sons of Charles Dickens. And another of Weatherly's lyrics was the popular "Roses of Picardy," set to music memorably by Haydn Wood. Wood studied under the composer Sir Charles Stanford, who quoted "Londonderry Air" in one of his Irish rhapsodies. Make of that what you will. This is a curious little book, entertaining in its quirky way but almost undone by its relentless folksiness. "Londonderry Air" remains a musical treasure, regardless of its origin.

--- Reviewed by Robert Finn

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars OK magazine article, bad book, February 5, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Danny Boy: The Legend Of The Beloved Irish Ballad (Hardcover)

I'm a sucker for Irish history, lore, you name it. I grabbed this book without a second thought (or glance) and paid the price. It's just not good. The idea is great and it appears that the author was offered a sum of money for a minimum 100 pages about the subject of the origins of Danny Boy. Well, there's no real story behind it so that leaves 99 pages which he fills with name-dropping, Irish history (not bad, but for a different book), and then the capper is a 30 page list of people who have sung the song. On top of all that, there's several annoying typos.

Reread Trinity instead.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Very disappointing, January 15, 2002

By 

Mike Tredeau "DaddyMike" (Burlington, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Danny Boy: The Legend Of The Beloved Irish Ballad (Hardcover)

I was looking forward to a verbal journey. A talk with musicians and poets, historians and purveyors of folklore. And I got a little of that. Very little.
This is a very short volume, and more than I'd like is made up of excerpts of past books. This should be a little spice for the stew, not a major ingredient.
In the whole, it reads as a dry (and there is the main problem, it is dry) history lesson.
Again it is short. It would have worked as well as a long magazine article.