Today's song is a person favorite of mine-- Eamonn an Chnoic, or "Ned of the Hill". This Irish ballad tells the story of Eamonn O Riain (Edmund or Ned O'Ryan), a Gaelic noble who becomes a ropaire (a political outlaw) after the Cromwellian conquest dispossessed him of his land.
According to tradition, Eamonn's career as an outlaw occurred not only because of the loss of his family's lands, but also because of his shooting of a tax collector during a brawl. Eamonn was, according to the story, trying to defend an old woman from having her milk cow confiscated. This is among many stories told of Ned that paint him as a Robin Hood like figure.
 |
| An image of a ropaire band, from the novel "Willy Reilly" |
How Eamonn's family lost their lands is a matter of some contention. Some versions of the story maintain that the lands were confiscated generations before his birth following the Desmond Rebellion. However, the circumstances of the time and the lyrics of the song seem to indicate that Eamonn grew up as a land-owner before losing those lands from the Acts of Settlement in 1652. This penal law imposed sentences including land confiscation and death to the participants of the 1641 Rebellion and subsequent unrest. The 1641 rebellion, which Eamonn evidently took part in, was an attempt by the Catholic members of the gentry of Ireland to seize power from the English colonial administation.
The conflict was sparked by fears among the Catholics of a Protestant invasion of the island by anti-Catholic forces within England and Scotland that were growing increasingly resistant to the Catholic monarchy of Charles I. The rebellion marked the beginning of the Confederate Wars between the Irish Catholic Confederation and the English and Scots Protestant settlers, and also contributed to the tensions that sparked the English Civil War- both of these wars, among others, being considered part of the larger Wars of the Three Kingdoms. The Irish Catholic Confederacy was able to briefly win control over large parts of the country in a vicious conflict that saw scorched earth tactics and ethnic cleansing used by both sides.
However, at the conclusion of the First English Civil War, the English Parliament sent reinforcements to Ireland, inflicting crushing defeats on the Confederate forces in a series of particularly brutal battles and massacres. A brief reprieve granted by the Second English Civil War was squandered due to internal conflicts in the Confederacy over the possibility of an alliance with the English royalists. Oliver Cromwell, emerging victorious in England, proceeded to invade Ireland with an exceptionally trained and funded army. The Cromwellian invasion took an immense toll on the Irish people through battles, ethnic cleansing, the famine and outbreak of plague that took place during the conflict, and the penal laws that followed the invasion.
 |
| Cromwell's troops take Drogheda |
Many defeat rebels and displaced landlords took to guerilla warfare and banditry during and after the Cromwellian invasion. These guerillas were known variously as ceithearnaigh choille ('wood kernes'), toraidhe (pursuer- the origin of the modern term "Tory"), or ropaire ('pike-man'). These bandits fought the English establishment, resulting in harsh counter-guerilla measures by the colonial administration. Eamonn, by all indications of the song and traditions, was one of these ropaire.
While the exact details of Eamonn's life immediately following the War of the Confederacy is mostly a matter of speculation and story, it is known that Eamonn served in the Williamite War of 1689-91. During this time, his name appeared in a pamphlet in which he and four other ropaire leaders call for the Irish to support the Jacobite cause and place the Catholic James II on the throne instead of William of Orange. James II was the heir of his brother Charles II, who had regained his throne following the death of Cromwell. He was deposed when anti-Catholic nobles in his own country invited his protestant son-in-law, William, to seize the throne. James II fled to Ireland, and there raised an army to reclaim his throne. However, these Jacobites were defeated at the Battle of the Boyne and subsequent battles, further cementing the English hold on Ireland.
While no records show what Eamonn did after the war, the words of the song indicate that he fled "eastward across the sea". This presumably refers to continental Europe, possibly as part of the Flight of the Wild Geese with other defeated Jacobites, or independently. Some accounts, however, report that he was murdered for the price on his head.
The original Gaelic version of the song is well-represented by the Wolfe Tones, in this recording:
The lyrics are as follows
"Cé hé sin amu
a bhfuil faobhar a ghuth,
a’ réabadh mo dhorais dhúnta?"
"Mise Éamonn a' Chnoic,
atá báite fuar fliuch,
ó shíor-shiúl sléibhte is gleannta."
"A lao ghil 's a chuid,
cad a dheánfainn-se dhuit
mura gcuirfinn ort binn de mo ghúna?
'S go mbeidh púdar dubh
'á lámhach linn go tiubh,
‘s go mbeidh muid araon múchta!"
"Is fada mise amu
faoi shneachta is faoi shioc,
‘s gan dánacht agam ar éinne.
Mo bhranar gan cur,
mo sheisreach gan scor,
is gan iad agam ar aon chor!
Níl cara agam—
is danaid liom sin—
a ghlacfadh mé moch ná déanach.
‘S go gcaithfe mé ghoil
thar fairraige soir,
ó's ann nach bhfuil mo ghaolta."
Translated directly, this comes out to:
"Who's that outside
whose voice is urgent,
pounding on my closed door?"
"I'm Éamonn of the hill,
drowned, cold and wet,
from endlessly traveling mountains and glens."
"Dearest love and treasure,
what can I do for you
but cover you with the lap of my dress?"
And black gunpowder will be
fired endlessly at us,
and we will both perish!"
"I've long been outside
in snow and in frost,
not daring to approach anyone.
My fallow unplanted,
my team in need of unyoking,
and I no longer have them at all!
I have no friend—
how that grieves me—
who’d take me in, early or late.
And so I must go
eastward across the sea,
for it’s there I have no kindred."
The song has been translated into English in two different main translations. One is nearly verbatim to the original's content, which is no small feat in translating a song. That version can be found here, performed by the Dubliners' own Sean Cannon:
Strangely, however, this version of the song is not widely sung. Instead, most performances I have found choose to use an adaptation of the song rather than a translation, with English words that do not attempt to confer the meaning of the Gaelic original, or even the feel. In the adaptation widely sung, the song is not so much a lament of the wandering Ned, as it is a rather fanciful love story of Ned courting a nobleman's daughter.
Though this adaptation has a great deal of merit in its own right, it is in truth simply a different song altogether than Eamonn an Chnoic- the meaning and tone of the original are replaced entirely. I greatly prefer the accurate translation, and find myself distraught that it does not the popularity of this more romanticized adaptation. Because the only recording I can find anywhere is Sean Cannon's version, I took it upon myself to record my own arrangement of the accurate translation.
As a final note on the song, I should include the following version by The Pogues, which is not so much a translation or adaptation as much as a..... reimagining. I once played this at a party, thinking the person requesting "Ned of the Hill" meant this one. From her reaction, I gathered that she was not expecting it!
No comments:
Post a Comment