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Give Me Your Hand

  • (Rory O'Cathain / Brian Warfield)

    Will you give me your hand, is tabhair dom do lámh
    Just give me your hand and I'll walk with you
    Through the streets of our land, through the mountains so grand
    If you give me your hand

    Just give me your hand and come along with me
    Will you give me your hand and the world it can see
    That we can be free in peace and harmony
    From the north to the south, from the east to the west
    Every mountain, every valley, every bush and bird's nest

    By day and night throughout struggle and strife
    I'm beside you to guide you forever my love
    For love's not for one but for both of us to share
    For this country so fair for our world and what's there

    Just give me your hand, is tabhair dom do lámh
    Will you give me your hand, for the world it is ours
    All the sea and the land to destroy or command
    If you give me your hand

    Just give me your hand in a gesture of peace
    Just give me your hand and all troubles will cease
    The strong and the weak, both the rich and the poor
    All peoples and creeds let's meet their needs
    With a passion we can fashion a new world of love

    By day and night throughout struggle and strife
    I'm beside you to guide you forever my love
    For love's not for one but for both of us to share
    For this country so fair for our world and what's there

    (as sung by The Wolfe Tones)

Susannes Folksong-Notizen

  • [1974:] This tune, revived by Sean O'Riada, was originally a composition of the blind Derry harpist Rory 'Dall' O'Cathain. He wrote it while on a visit to Scotland where he had a disagreement with a Lady Eglingtoun. He composed the tune for her when she apologized. Brian's words are directed at the disagreements between the two peoples in Ireland today. (Notes Wolfe Tones, 'Till Ireland A Nation')

  • [1999:] It's got a story to it, dating from the 17th century. One of the blind harpers Rory Dall was dumped in the ditch while travelling between gigs in Scotland by his hostess for the evening, who took him for a blind beggar. The said hostess (a Lady Eglington) was told what she had done when she got home, so she fetched the harper home in style cleaned him up and apologised most fulsomely. To show he had no ill-will, he produced one of the finest harp airs "Da Mihi Manum" - Give Me Your Hand. The Latin text has been lost, and there'll be fame in the harp world for any archivist who finds it. (Jeremy Main, rec.music.celtic, 19 Sep)

  • [1999:] The version I heard is that he was a baron and called at the lady's house with his retinue, expecting to be put up for the night as one person of rank would expect from another in those days. She mistook him for an itinerant harper and demanded music in payment. He stomped off in anger at the slight. At a later date she being aware of her error and he feeling that his anger was excessive they became friends and he wrote the melody for her. At some later date he died in her house. I got this version of the story from "The Pennywhistle Book" by Robin Williamson. (Pete Schug, rec.music.celtic, 19 Sep)

  • [1999:] I quoted composer, period (which matches the tune, in a way your romanticised "baron" doesn't - it's not even a Scottish title), and background (including the Latin title: writing poetry in Latin was the fashion in the Scottish court in the early 1600s). For future reference, therefore, please come up with details, not generalities filled with anachronisms, if you want to contradict a detailed account, albeit couched in modern jargon to give the feel for what happened.

    Robin [Williamson] tells the same story as mine in performance, but apart from being a harper, he's also a teller of tales, which he sometimes embroiders - you've perhaps been had. I didn't get it out of a book - it's established in the harp circuit as such, and I believe someone in the Commun has identified the Lady in question - I haven't had a chance to find out yet, but I was told she was married to a laird somewhere around Dunblane (which covers the odds quite well, given that it only excludes the Islands, the Highlands north of the Great Glen, and perhaps the Carse). The only uncertainty is which of the two Rory Dalls known to have been active in Scotland at the time it was. Harpers in Scotland in those days were still respected at court, James VI/I played himself, and they could and did expect free bed-and-board in return for the prestige their playing gave their hosts - not unlike modern pop-groups. Turlough O'Carolan did the same in Ireland a good few years later. He even selected which host he was going to die with... (Jeremy Main, rec.music.celtic, 19 Sep)

  • [1999:] Rory Dall O'Caghan (c1570-c1650). It seems now that he should not be mistaken for the Rory Dall Morrison, (1660-1712?) of the Scottish tradition, the harper of the MacLeod house in Dunvegan. Himself left Ulster quite early to Scotland, where he achieved great fame, until his death. He is said to have attended many houses of the Scottish nobility, and the court of James VI. (SingsIrishSongs, rec.music.celtic, 16 Dec)

  • http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=2631
    http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=2678
    http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=10018
    See also : Lyrics: irish folk, Give me your hand

Quelle: Ireland / Scotland

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