Songs of the Gael
A Collection of Anglo-Irish Songs and Ballads Wedded to Old Traditional Irish Airs (Classic Reprint)
Description:... Excerpt from Songs of the Gael: A Collection of Anglo-Irish Songs and Ballads Wedded to Old Traditional Irish Airs As to the songs - I have aimed at selecting those which have in them the true national ring. We want in the Ireland of to-day an antidote to the Spirit of Anglicisation which is abroad. I know no more effective barrier against the encroach ment of that Spirit, next to the Irish Language and Irish Song, than the general singing at concerts and gatherings of good anglo-irish ballads and songs. The music hall and concert room may be made a very powerful agency in de-nationalising and even in debasing our people. From a national and moral point of View what effect can empty, Vulgar, mawkishly sentimental songs have And such songs are only too often heard at our so-called Irish Concerts. Or the song whose lewd allusions are thinly veiled? Or the songs that ignore and deliberately eschew the glories and noble deeds and sacri fices of our past heroes - what effect can such songs as these have on Irish youth It has been truly said that in a nation's ballads we find the history of its struggles and pro gress and triumph. A nation's habits, too, and its traditions and recollections are enshrined in its ballads. The wandering bards and minstrels became the keepers of the records of the nation and hence they were hunted down by the oppressors.
A well-known collector of Irish ballads claims for Ireland as high a rank in ballad literature as that of any other nation. In this collection which I now give to the public, Irish men and women will find songs which are all racy of the soil.
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