Fidleir's Airs: Easter Snow

On any given Easter Sunday, I would normally gravitate to a church whether at home or abroad.  I feel privileged to have experienced wonderful sacred music on travels to Europe. In recent years, Misteria Paschalia, a festival of Baroque Sacred Music in Krakow in the city's sacred spaces was a highlight. In Munich, while opera was the draw, it was the wonderful liturgical music in the Bavarian capital's churches that  lives longest in my memory. This time last year, I found myself at the Basilica Notre Dame du Roncier in the picturesque Breton town, Josselin on the Nantes-Brest Canal. A little burst of the bells heard there https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jj9LatALZtY As a musician, it was wonderful to be part of the liturgical music at home be it in the parish church at Dunboyne, Ennis Cathedral and more recently at Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in the wonderful Georgian Cathedral in Waterford. This year, I couldn't quite reconcile myself to broadcasts from empty churches and contented myself with a gawk at the Archbishop of Canterbury's kitchen during his skype address on BBC TV.

For  my home recording on Easter Sunday morning 2020, I looked for a suitable air  and turned to no 105 in Traditional Slow Airs of Ireland .Easter Snow seemed on the face of it to be appropriate. The air, I learned was a favourite of piper  Seamus Ennis, and he named his caravan home in the Naul after this air. I listened to a recording that  his daughter Catherine made playing organ with  piper Liam Og O Flynn. I couldn't find a vocal version that closely matched the tune in my volume of Irish Airs in Tomás O Canainn's collection.  I particularly liked Hull based multi instrumentalist Wolfy O Hare's  brisk version on tin whistle and at the other end of the tempo scale, Fiachra o Corragáin has a beautiful languid  version on harp all available to watch on youtube. More information on the air from the Clare Library website here. http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/songs/cmc/easter_snow_jlyons.htm
The title however  has nothing to do with Easter but is an anglicisation of an Irish placename in Co. Roscommon. The original name Diseart Nuadhan (St. Nuadha's Hermitage) evolved through Issertnowne to Estersnowe and now quite frequently Easter Snow. Christy Moore wrote a song titled Easter Snow as a tribute to Seamus Ennis.

Fidleir's Airs: Caoineadh na dTrí Muire

With some time in hand, I have it in mind to embark on a musical project that has been percolating for a while. I have always enjoyed playing the slow airs associated with the Irish bardic tradition. I plan to take a closer look at this treasure trove with a view to expanding my own repertoire and delving a little into the provenance of the tunes and so on. My main source is Tomás Ó Cannain's Traditional Slow Airs of Ireland which has over a hundred airs . The first video specifically for this project was recorded on Good Friday and looking for a suitable air to chime with  the day, I chose No 10, Caoineadh na dTrí Muire. I think it was Séamus Ennis who said the key to playing slow airs was to know at least a couple of lines of the sean nós version. I tried to match the phrasing of Iarla O Lionaird's version. The song was particularly associated with Joe Heaney and I include an extract from the Joe Heaney's archive website. A different air appears under the title in the Veritas Hymnal but the tune turns up later in the volume in another Easter hymn, An tAiséirí. In a verse in the Veritas version, Mary calls on two women who share her name,   to assist in the keening "Gabh i leith a dhá Mhuire go gcaoine sibh mo ghrá liom"  

The video setting was a Marian Grotto in Tramore in my neighbourhood. I hadn't visited this garden before the corona virus made me look more closely at what was on my doorstep. The garden is a lovely tranquil space tended by Mr Tony Hanlon.

"As Angela Partridge points out, the title by which this lament is known in Joe’s native Carna is Caoineadh na Páise (The Passion Lament). However, he accepted the title Caoineadh na dTrí Muire, which was given to the song following his first public performance of it in Dublin (Partridge, op. cit., 31). Caoineadh na dTrí Muire was a title associated with the song/poem in County Mayo. Versions from Donegal, Clare, Cavan, Kerry and Cork have also been recorded.

The song is best understood as a conversation between a number of participants including Peter, Jesus, the Blessed Virgin, and the Roman soldiers. This device advances the story with the greatest possible economy, allowing us to focus on the emotional intensity of each moment, from the viciousness of the soldiers to the disbelief and distress of Mary and finally to the quiet stoicism of Jesus, offering comfort to his distraught mother.

This is surely the most famous of the songs that Joe brought to public notice, and one of his own favourites. Along with Amhrán na Páise and Oíche Nollag, this lament reveals his deep reverence both for the spirituality of the subject-matter and for the tradition that his grandmother and others like her held up for her grandchildren and her community every year. As Máirtín Ó Cadhain wrote following Joe’s first public performance of this song in Dublin, In Caoineadh na dtrí Muire he brings home to us the joys and sorrows of Mary with the intimacy and poignancy of a Fra Angelico painting (quoted in Angela Partridge, Caoineadh na dTrí Muire: Téama na Páise i bhFilíocht Bhéil na Gaeilge, Dublin 1983, 4)."

Detail of vVctorian stained glass church window in Fringford depicting St. Mary with two other women under the cross on the first Good Friday 

https://songsinirish.com/caoineadh-na-dtri-mhuire-lyrics/

A Pheadair, a Aspail,
An bhfaca tú mo ghrá geal?
Óchón agus óchón-ó!
Chonaic mé ar ball é,
Gá chéasadh ag an ngarda.
Óchón agus óchón-ó!

Cé hé an fear breá sin
Ar Chrann na Páise?
Óchón agus óchón-ó!
An é n-aithníonn tú do Mhac,
A Mháthrín?
Óchón agus óchón-ó!

An é sin an Maicín
A hoileadh in ucht Mháire?
Óchón agus óchón-ó!
An é sin an Maicín
A rugadh insan stábla?
Óchón agus óchón-ó!

An é sin an Maicín
A d'iompair mé trí ráithe?
Óchón agus óchón-ó!
A Mhicín mhúirneach,
Tá do bhéal 's do shróinín gearrtha,
Óchón agus óchón-ó!

Cuireadh tairní maola
trína chosa 's trína lámha,
Óchón agus óchón-ó!
Cuireadh an tsleá
Trína bhrollach álainn.
Óchón agus óchón-ó!
Óchón agus óchón-ó