Far From the Shamrock Shore: The Irish-American Experience in Song

Mick Moloney | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (February 12, 2002)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Shanachie
• ASIN: B00005Y1TP
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #325,295 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. The Boatman's Dance

2. Pat Murphy Of The Irish Brigade

3. Skibereen

4. The Irish Volunteers

5. Erin's Green Shore

6. Green Grows The Laurel

7. You Lovers All

8. When The Breaker Starts Up Full Time

9. No Irish Need Apply

10. My Uncle Dan McCann

11. Paddy On The Railway

12. The Mulligan Guard

13. Maloney The Rolling Mill Man

14. Clancy's Wooden Wedding

15. The Kellys

16. Sweet King Williamstown

17. Daisy Bell

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars passion, humor, tragedy, and music to match, March 27, 2002

By 

Jerome Clark (Canby, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Far From the Shamrock Shore: The Irish-American Experience in Song (Audio CD)

Far from the Shamrock Shore is an ambitious, expertly executed treatment of the mostly forgotten tradition of Irish-American song. The accents here are as much American as Irish, and so are the musical settings, which owe more to 19th-Century string bands than to Celtic flute-and-pipe orchestras. No one, in other words, will confuse what he or she hears with an Altan or Chieftains recording. Instead, Celtic-revival pioneer and folklorist Mick Moloney highlights the varieties of music sung and performed by a people finding their way in a New World; though they have not forgotten where they came from, the old country is receding into fond memory and sentimental mist.

The result is a wide-ranging selection of period folk ballads and popular songs. In those days, Moloney shows, these two genres often overlapped, and they freely plundered each other's lyrics and melodies. Though written by Dan Emmett (the Northern minstrel-show composer best known for "Dixie"), the terrific "Boatman's Dance" sounds as authentic a riverman's song as "Rock About My Saro Jane." Moloney, in fact, speculates that Emmett may have based "Dance" on a forgotten Ohio River song sung by African-American boatmen.

More representative of a purer, older Irish tradition are "Green Grows the Laurel," "Paddy Works on the Railway" (done in a variant you probably have not heard before), "You Lovers All," and "Erin's Green Shore." Several powerful Civil War-era songs -- including the irresistible patriotic rouser and barroom bellow "The Irish Volunteer" -- attest to the significant role newly arrived Irish immigrants played in that great and bloody conflict.

This is a splendid recording, an excursion into history full of the passion, humor, hard times, and wonderful music of those who lived it and made it.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Far From The Shamrock Shore, April 27, 2009

By 

Philip J. Murray Sr. "HiboPhil" (Allentown, New Jersey) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Far From the Shamrock Shore: The Irish-American Experience in Song (Audio CD)

As for fans of Trad...traditional Irish Music, Far From the Shamrock Shore by Mick Moloney, it just doesn't get any better than this CD. Each song will make you tap your toes and listen along to his musical story, "The Irish-American Story" in song. The first song, the Boatman's Dance, sets the tone for a great listen.

For fans of Irish Trad, this CD is a must!

4.0 out of 5 stars If you like this genre, October 27, 2010

By 

P. F. Molloy "PFMolloy" (NZ) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Far From the Shamrock Shore: The Irish-American Experience in Song (Audio CD)

Bought this to learn one specific track, and liked a lot more of it. Nothing makes it stand out particularly from the many other Irish albums, but it stands comparison with most. The musicianship is generally very good and some of the songs are less commonly found. This is not your Daniel O'Donnell or Fureys slightly-too-sweet stuff. It's much better than that.