For St. Paddy's Day: An Irish Classic

With a little help from Van the Man, Sinead, Fairport, Jimmy Page, Annie Briggs and back to John McCormack. Plus Sunday cartoons.

Mar 17, 2024

Greg Mitchell is the author of more than a dozen books (see link) and now writer/director of three award-winning films aired via PBS, including “Atomic Cover-up” and “Memorial Day Massacre” which are still up at PBS.org. Before all that, he was a longtime editor of the legendary Crawdaddy. You can still subscribe to this newsletter for free.

It’s one of the greatest songs of the century—whichever century you want to choose. The lyrics are pretty much from 1909 but versions of the melody date back decades before that, perhaps to “antiquity” as one expert puts it. (Sometimes it is sung as “She Moves Through the Fair.”) It is usually considered “Irish”—indeed, my first belated exposure to it was via a Van Morrison album with the Chieftains about 30 years ago—but has also been traced to Scotland. There are dozens of versions of it by well-known performers, including those who have “adapted” it and changed the title, such as unlikely candidates Led Zeppelin and the Yardbirds.

A sampling below, plus the usual political cartooning. Enjoy, then subscribe, it’s still free. If you already subscribe—and you want this newsletter to continue—a word to the wise: You really ought to share or recommend it to others widely to promote those free subscriptions….

So let’s start with Van the Man’s version, as mentioned.

To my mind, the finest “modern” version is from (no surprise) Sandy Denny and Richard Thompson back in Fairport Convention days. No less an “authority” than Charles P. Pierce once told me he agreed.