Engels on Irish music

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

[These notes for the Preface to a Collection of Irish Songs were written by
Engels on the suggestion of Jenny Marx]

Some of the Irish folk-melodies are of ancient origin, others have emerged
in the last 300-400 years, a good number as late as the last century, many
of these composed by Carolan, one of the last Irish bards. These bards, or
harpists?poets, composers and singers in one person?used to be very
numerous: every Irish chieftain kept his own at his castle. Many also
travelled around the country as wandering minstrels, persecuted by the
English, who quite rightly saw in them the main bearers of the national,
anti-English tradition. The old songs about the victories of Finn Mac
Cumhal (whom Macpherson stole from the Irish and turned into a Scot under
the name of Fingal in his Ossian, which is entirely based on these Irish
songs), about the splendour of the old royal palace of Tara, about the
heroic feats of King Brian Borumha, and the later songs about the struggles
of the Irish chieftains against the Sassenach (English) were preserved by
these bards in the living memory of the nation; and they also celebrated in
song the deeds of contemporary Irish chieftains in their struggle for
independence. But when the Irish people were utterly crushed in the
seventeenth century by Elizabeth, James I, Oliver Cromwell and William of
Orange, robbed of their land holdings in favour of English intruders,
outlawed and turned into a nation of pariahs, the wandering minstrels were
hounded as fiercely as the Catholic priests, and towards the beginning of
this century they gradually died out. Their names are forgotten, of their
verses only fragments remain; the most beautiful legacy which they
bequeathed to their enslaved but undefeated people are their melodies.

Poems in the Irish language are all composed in stanzas of four lines. For
this reason, most of the melodies, especially the older ones, are based on
this four-line rhythm, although the link is often somewhat obscured. This
rhythm is often followed by a refrain or a coda on the harp. Many of these
old melodies are known only by their Irish names or opening words, even
though in most of Ireland Irish is now only understood by old people, or
not at all. But the greater part of the melodies, being more recent,
already have English names or texts.

The melancholy that prevails in most of these melodies is even today the
expression of the national mood. How could it be otherwise among a people
whose rulers are always inventing new, more up-to-date methods of
oppression? The latest method, introduced forty years ago and carried to
extremes for the past twenty years, is the mass eviction of the Irish from
house and home, and that?in Ireland?is tantamount to deportation. Since
1841 the population of the country has decreased by two and a half million,
and more than three million Irishmen have emigrated. All in the interests
and at the behest of the large landowners of English origin. If this goes
on for another thirty years, the only Irishmen left will be those in America.

Written on about July 5, 1870

Louis Proyect
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