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242 A CENTURY Ob BALLADS
songs for a moment, the work of other composers in this direction must not be forgotten. Such are Hamilton Harty's "My Lagan Love" and "Black Sheela of the Silver Eye," Hubert Hughes's "The Ninepenny Fidil " and his collected settings of North of Ireland songs, Arthur Somervell's "The Little Red Fox," "The Gentle Maiden," and many others, and Charles Wood's "Over here," "The Jug of Punch," and his collection of arrangements of Traditional Irish Airs. In this connection a tribute must be paid to the work of Alfred Perceval Graves as a lyric-writer who is associated with nearly all the arrangements of traditional Irish songs.
To "Off to Philadelphia," which may be said to have started the vogue for the Irish song, there is something of a history attached. The melody was taken down from an old woman in County Cork by Plunket Greene's cousin, G. Fitzgerald Penrose, himself an admirable musician. He sent it to Greene, who showed it to Battison Haynes, and the latter arranged it, adding an excellent accompaniment. The words were written by another cousin of Plunket Greene's, Herbert Greene, at present Vice-President of Magdalen College, Oxford.
In a letter I received recently from Plunket Greene on the subject of Irish songs, he mentions |
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