Peggy Bulger: Good afternoon everyone. Welcome. I'm Peggy Bulger, Director of the American Folklife Center here at the Library of Congress, and I wanted to welcome you to the very first of our -- I guess our contribution to a huge program called "Rediscover Northern Ireland", and if you're here in DC you will have hopefully seen that there are things going on from now all the way through the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, and we encourage you to pick up a program booklet from the back, which tells you everything that's going on. But, here at the Center, at the American Folklife Center, we're bringing some of the best proponents of folk culture, both artists and scholars, from Northern Ireland to Washington as part of this huge program and effort. And this is -- this program, I should say, is sponsored by several organizations, including the Department of Culture, Arts, and Leisure of Northern Ireland, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, and the Northern Ireland Bureau here in DC, all contributing. And we're very happy to be part of this partnership too. Today's event features the singer and folk song scholar -- we get two for the price of one; we get an artist and a scholar -- John Moulden, who is really kicking off for us our events. Northern Ireland events are going on with the Music Division here. I don't know if any of you were here on Friday for the John Irvine Ensemble at the Coolidge Auditorium; I hear it was just wild. Anyway, I again urge you to look at the schedule. Like all of the live events that we do here, we are actually -- we're going to be taping this for our collections so that 100 years from now someone can hear John's lecture and know what was going on in scholarship on Irish song and ballad way back in 2007, and researchers will be able to use this fairly soon. We hope to put many of these things up on our Web site, so do keep checking our Web site. We're very excited about this collaboration with the government of Northern Ireland and people who are making it possible, and I want to really now introduce the person who has been responsible for putting the whole shebang together for, you know, many, many months. We've been working with him, he's tireless, and he's an incredible person himself, and so please let me introduce Philip Hammond of the Greater -- he's the Creative Director for the Department of Culture, Arts, and Leisure for Northern Ireland. Philip. [ applause ] Philip Hammond: Thank you very much, Peggy. I have to say that it's a great honor to be asked by the Library of Congress to put together some events for them here at this wonderful building and, in fact, in the Coolidge Auditorium as well. When I came here the first time in December 2005, I little thought that we were going to be doing such a large number of events throughout Washington. What you have in front of you is a little brochure of the music at the Library of Congress, but in fact throughout Washington since March the 15th we have approximately 40 different events happening, all from Northern Ireland, all featuring artists of the caliber of John Moulden and others who are coming here to re-profile the rather difficult image that people have of Northern Ireland. I was speaking to some people in the audience here a earlier who were there in Northern Ireland maybe 30-odd years ago and I was saying things have changed quite considerably since then. I, of course, find it myself a great honor to be here in the Library of Congress. I'm a mere composer of classical music and for me to be standing here as part of the American Folklife Center, is in fact a little bit frightening to me. So I'm going to say very little more but to pass on -- pass you on to John Moulden. John and I go back about 30-odd years; when I was a very young person, I started teaching in a school and John Moulden was in fact one of the senior teachers at that school at that time. And he took me under his wing and I can actually remember going off with the boys camping on the weekends and John was, I think, always a little bit worried that I was perhaps too young to be let loose because I was always a little bit less than going by the rules. But John made sure that I didn't do anything wrong and I'm sure he would still do that. We actually haven't seen one another for nearly 25-odd years. So, he's of course put on a little bit of tummy, but I haven't. [ laughter ] Anyway, without any more ado, could I please pass you over to John Moulden? [ applause ] John Moulden: Thank you very much, Philip. I'll, I hope, manage to insult you later. Still, I should open by expressing my consciousness of the deep honor it is for me to address you today. I'm very grateful to the Northern Ireland Department of Culture, Arts, and Leisure and to the Center for American Folklife for the invitation to speak, and to the Library of Congress for playing host. However, when about to speak about folk songs, the songs people sing, it's well to keep people in mind, and I'm grateful to the many people, starting with Philip, who in fact -- he may not remember, but he introduced me to Jim Moore, who is an associate of Sam Henry's, and through him I learned that the lady whom I knew as David Craig's mother was in fact Sam Henry's daughter, so that the connection is quite clear. On this side of the Atlantic there are friends that I have known for some time and I must say that the members of the Folklife Center, the Archive of American Folk Songs, have always been enormously welcoming to me. And I'm slightly daunted that Joe Hickerson is in the audience because he possibly knows as much, if not more, about this than I do. All of these people are characterized by their deep loving regard for the music and songs of the people and for the people who make them. Some of them are people of formidable knowledge and I'm, as I said, daunted slightly that they're here. There's one person, though, to whom I am grateful, who is not able to be here, Olive Craig, daughter of Sam Henry, the maker of the collection I'm going to discuss here. She opened her father's collection, her home, and her family secrets to me. Olive died somewhat over a year ago and I wish to dedicate this talk to her memory and that of her father. I hope you've had the opportunity of reading the program note because I intend to take it as read, assuming that you're mainly aware of the origin of the story of Sam Henry, the collections that are associated with it, and the cultural mix that is Northern Ireland -- the cultural mix that makes things so difficult for us sometimes. I'll be making some reference to both of those matters, but largely I'll be concentrating on the extent -- as the first slide shows, the extent to which the Sam Henry Collection and the North Irish singing tradition at large was influenced by and from North America. We meet this influence in several forms, some of which are considerable, all of which are significant, but they are encapsulated in this collection of Sam Henry's, which is particularly closely located. There's a saying in the west of Ireland, it's a reference to the way in which immigration helped shape the Irish psyche, that "the next parish is in America". And this sense of being on the edge of things, yet in touch, is also significant for the song collection, which is the subject of my talk this afternoon. Ireland is at the extreme west of Europe and yet it looks towards its neighbors near and far. Northern Ireland is at its northeast corner and looks toward Britain, the northwest Atlantic, and the rest of Ireland. Almost at its extreme northerly tip is the town of Coleraine, situated on the River Bann, a river that due to silting at its mouth has always been inadequate for shipping. Its port was Portrush. This is a map of Portrush in 1831, the first ordinance survey of Ireland. Until recently I had lived in Portrush for 30 years, and this is a picture of its harbor in 1822. This was one of the five ports -- Nuri, Belfast, Larne -- shown on this slide -- Nuri, Belfast, Larne, Portrush, and Londonderry -- that between 1718 and 1775 were the starting points for emigration from the north of Ireland to colonial North America. At these five ports embarked some of the most troublesome entrants to colonial North America, people who became significant in its westward expansion and in its war of independence, the Scotch Irish. However, by 1822 -- to return to Portrush's Harbor -- the harbor was in need of expansion, and four years later, in order to accommodate the commercial needs of Coleraine, a scheme was commenced to enlarge it. A new harbor was needed for other reasons too. The coast was exposed; the old harbor was close to a rocky shore and very difficult to enter. A song will set the human framework: [ sings ] Come all of you seamen bold, who plowed the raging main, and likewise pay attention to these few lines I'll name, concerning four young heroes bold who were obliged to die, and on the foaming ocean their bodies fair do lie. 'Twas around the town of sweet Portrush, much pleasure they had seen. No more they'll roam the flowery hills where oft' times they had been. Their sweethearts and their parents dear will bid them all adieu. 'Twas the raging seas and stormy winds that parted them from you. The names of these four heroes you quickly now shall hear. There was James and John Gillespie, they were two brothers dear, like wise young William Stewart, his equals were but few. And Archie MacAlvernock [ spelled phonetically ] made up the jovial crew. It was not for want of courage or skill that they did neglect. A hard squall of wind came on and the boat it did upset. The winds they blew tremendously, and high did run the waves, and soon this stormy ocean became their watery graves. Oh, had you seen their doleful fate it would make your poor heart sigh. There was none to witness their distress but God who rules on high. The mermaids of the ocean to their funeral did repair, and on the banks of Carle their bodies laid with care. Now had it pleased Jehovah, their bodies had been found. Their parents would have conveyed them safe to their own burying ground. It would have eased your troubled hearts of sorrow, grief, and pain, but I hope they'll meet in Heaven, where they'll never part again. [ applause ] The earliest report of that song dates from the year of the event, 1826. A verse in the small eight-page songbook that contains it says, "On February the 24th 1826 their loving hearts and hands together they did mix. They left the town of sweet Portrush fishing for to go, but to their sad misfortune met sorrow, grief, and woe." It is said that the song was made by one Daniel MacAlrevey [ spelled phonetically ], a carpenter from Port Stewart four miles west of Portrush, and it was sung traditionally until only a few years ago. The version you've heard was collected from William Sloane from the townland of Down Duin, which is now on the edge of Coleraine. It appeared in a Coleraine published weekly newspaper, The Northern Constitution, on the 17th of May 1924, and it's not apparent from the slide that it appeared as part of a series. This is the first of them, printed in the issue of the 17th of November 1923. The song is "The Flower of Sweet Dunn Mull". The Songs of the People collection, as it was, was originated and edited by Sam Henry, seen here on the right with his brother and a friend at Portrush Harbor. It's not, however, really an Ulster or North Irish song collection, but a Coleraine one. Sam Henry, who was born in 1878 and died in 1952, was its longest serving editor and collector. He was born and lived in Coleraine, and worked from there. Its publication took place week by week from 1923 to 1939 in The Northern Constitution, and almost all of the songs were collected within roughly 20 miles of the town, within this approximate area. Yet, this local newspaper-based collection is the biggest ever yet published in Ireland. It is also the most fully representative. It contains most of the possible genre of song, children's song, animal songs, classic ballads, love songs, sea songs, emigration, murders, drownings, all of human life, with the exception of a couple of categories that would have been difficult of publication in a family newspaper in the 1920s and '30s, that is, political songs, and those with such sexual content. However, it also contains songs from the three major cultural groups whose failure to coexist in Ireland is well known. However, as in the words of one song, "The Shamrock, Rose, and Thistle Grow Along the Faughan Side", the cultures of Irish native and of English and Scottish settlers are intertwined. You'll already have spotted the Scottish and Irish influence in the names of the four men in the song about the Portrush fisherman, MacAlvernock [ unintelligible ], Stewart, obviously Scottish, and Gillespie. The translation of that is the "servant of the bishop", used either in Scotland or in Ireland as a surname. So we have obvious English influence. Here's child, too, "Every Rose Grows Merry in Time", from Ms. Harriet Brownlow, of whom there will be more later. This is "Divis Mountain", a clearly topographical song -- Dibbus Mountain is just above Belfast -- and it was sent by Sam Henry by James Carmichael, with his Scottish name, and it came from a file, which was among Sam Henry's papers, which was labeled "Library of Congress -- to prepare". More of that later. As well as showing a fairly balanced sample of the song traditions of the various cultural groupings that inhabited the north of Ireland, the collection is unique in another respect. It has a small but significant number of items that originated in North America. Small -- they amount to about 10 items of out 620, about 1.5 percent -- but significant because they amount to more that is published of similar items by all of Sam Henry's contemporaries in Britain or Ireland, so that the Henry collection is a good sample, and I've summarized what I've just said on this slide. But, a familiar problem with collections, especially published collections, of folk songs is that they tend to represent the collector's interest and that rarity is more frequently presented than the commonplace; especially, the collections tend to confirm their collector's view of what constitutes a folk song. Take one example; the Appalachian collection of the English collector Cecil Sharp almost ignored hymns. He collected few and emphasized in the publication the older ballads. Thus, the impression is given that the people didn't sing hymns and preserved really old songs. A more inclusive collection policy would have given a better impression of the people's lives and the various cultural influences they embodied, especially the local and the topical or contemporary. So that -- Sam Henry's collection is a good sample, and I want now to consider what factors led to this. How is it that the Songs of the People collection avoided this pitfall? I suggest that part of it was purely physical. In a weekly presentation, the material issued is controlled by what comes in. The choice of material is conditioned by what people are asking for. And the judgment of the song editor -- because that was Sam Henry's title -- the judgment of a song editor of a song's quality or appropriateness is relatively unimportant. There'll be an opportunity to publish another one next week. Another aspect was the local circulation of the newspaper. It hung upon its detailed coverage of local events. It's a truism that if you want your utterance to reach large numbers of people it must be of general interest and general in style. However, in this case, local songs provided a positive advantage. There are many more local or localized songs in this Songs of the People collection than in other collections made in Ireland. Part of the reason -- the other reason for the avoidance, was to do with Sam Henry. His work played a part. He was an old age pension officer, responsible for assessing the claims to entitlement of people of all religious denominations and classes. His own politics were a factor. Although a committed Presbyterian, an elder, a Sabbath School teacher, and an officer of the Boys' Brigade, and a Unionist, it was with a small U, and he was not sectarian. He was also capable of playing a tune on the fiddle or whistle, and of singing a small bit himself. The first -- the fiddle picture is of him as a relatively young man. The latter is taken on Rathlin Island to the north of Northern Ireland, playing the whistle with a group from probably the Root Naturalist Field Club. There's no doubt whatsoever that Henry collected songs from all sides of whatever divide was current in Northern Ireland. An analysis of the surnames of his singers shows that roughly 37 percent of them were probably of Scottish origin, and these were precisely balanced by those of Irish origin. Ten percent were English and 15 percent were indeterminate. Now, surname analysis is pretty uncertain, but this analysis was performed on a sample of almost 600 names and is at least an indication that his net was fairly indiscriminate. It'll be obvious that people of Scottish ancestry would tend to be Protestant and that Irish would tend to be Catholic. I could provide more information, but far more interesting and germane in the present gathering is, why should it have been so that Henry's collection was so representative? We've heard some reasons, but there was another; at least, I believe so. I believe that there was significant influence from North America, and especially from the United States of America. In March 1927 Henry replied to a request in the Queries & Answers section of The New York Times for a song called "The Bold Privateer". Now, he sent an English set, which jogged the memory of the inquiry and produced the version that is now on the screen. A short time later Henry received a letter of thanks: "Dear friend Sam, The Editor of the Book Review "Queries & Answers Section" New York Times forwarded me the Sussex version of "The Bold Privateer", which you so kindly mailed to me in his care, March the 15th" -- sorry, I can't read that -- "Well, friend Sam, you certainly are a good sport and please accept my sincere thanks and good wishes for your kindly act, as you filled a long-felt want." And this writer, Joseph McGinnis, was a retired seamen who'd already contributed articles or contributed songs to Joanna Colcord for Roll and Go and later to Songs of American Sailor Men and who was in correspondence with various people around America about old songs. But, the enthusiastic ebullience of that letter, "Well, friend Sam, you certainly are a good sport" charms me every time I read it. But importantly for Sam Henry, it came at a time when he seemed to need encouragement. Here he was being contacted by a man with similar interests and one who furthermore could appreciate Sam Henry's problems of time and tiredness. For he too had a job apart from his collecting and was convinced that he could achieve publication. There are no encouraging letters from fellow collectors of Sam Henry's prior to this one in the papers that were left by Sam Henry at his death. Although Henry had been in touch with the Yorkshire collector Frank Kitson, there's no evidence that any English collector knew or cared about Sam Henry at this time. A year later, Henry had to give up the column and much else due to illness, resuming it only in 1932 for a further seven years. There are nine letters from Joseph McGinnis in the Henry papers ceasing, with Henry's illness. Unfortunately, none of Henry's replies have survived. Only one hint of Henry's attitude to McGinnis do we have. The column dated the 18th of February 1928, number 223, has a note, and the slide enlarges the note at the right-hand side. "Contributed by our esteemed correspondent and folksong collector, Mr. Joseph F. McGinnis of 339 5th Street, Brooklyn, New York, who noted the aire from his cousin." These letters marked the first time Henry had been contacted and treated as an equal by someone who was on the inside of the song collecting business, but who importantly, having read some of Henry's articles in The Constitution, suggested that a book of them would go well in the States, but more in Canada. He was considering a book of his own, with illustrations such as this, that he sent to Sam Henry. Lovely. McGinnis also in the last letter of the series offered to put Henry in touch with Robert Winslow Gordon, who at the time was about to become the founding archivist of the Library of Congress Archive of American Folksong. Unfortunately, there's no record of any communication and I doubt whether any took place, again perhaps due to Henry's illness. But one lasting influence McGinnis gave to Sam Henry: he sent him books, or rather, songsters. This, Wayman's [ spelled phonetically ] 617 Irish Songs and Ballads, is a popular product, though I must admit I haven't seen Sam Henry's copy. It seems to have been lost. The other one which McGinnis sent was more like a book, but not an academic book such as were produced by the Irish collectors, with the songs already sifted and sorted, but really another songster, The Flying Cloud. And this is described by D.K. Wilgus on page 209 of Anglo-American Folksong Scholarship: "A wretchedly printed pamphlet containing 163 texts of well known popular songs at the turn of the century. A non-descript, unorganized mass. The texts are suspiciously complete, but the book certainly seems to be a slice of the repertoire of the northern folksinger. The purist may be shocked to find a book containing "My Own Kentucky Home" and other similar pieces treated as a folksong collection, yet the contents conform almost exactly to Barry's test of folksong, a song which most people -- or most folks -- are fond of singing, except that the Songs of the People is more selective, slightly. In the main, the music called the popular, the parlor songs, have been omitted." That description might be of Songs of the People. It is significant that almost all of the American originated or provided material, even that which applies to the songs collected before 1928 in the Henry collection, dates from the receipt of this book, The Flying Cloud. As I said, shortly after his association with McGinnis, Henry gave up the collection and took it up again only after a lapse of four years. When he does resume it, it seems to be imbued with a new confidence. He seems content to print what arrives, not attempt to emulate the English. Where in the five years before the gap he refers deferentially to English collections on about 20 occasions, in the seven years afterwards he mentions English collections only about five times, and seems proud of what he himself is doing. He regards himself as the authority. To illustrate this point, let me quote one of the five times he refers to English materials: "In the program on Tuesday evening to celebrate the coming of age of the FDSS --English Folkdance and Song Society -- the song 'Lord Bateman', as sung by Joseph Taylor, traditional singer, was an outstanding item. It will interest our readers to know that this is an English version of the song 'Lord Beacon', published last week in this column, and was a very close rendering. Only five versus were given out of the 13 contained in our version. The aire was not the same." He remarks similarly on other occasions. At the same time, the collection seems to slightly more perfectly reflect the tradition than it had between 1923 and 1928. Another American songster had come his way, Mannis O'Connor's [ spelled phonetically ] Irish Come-All-Yes. This especially contains songs much more like those which Henry was encountering in the Irish tradition than are to be found in the English collections. And convinced that these American books became to some extent his models, he followed them in printing what he heard. And if you look at the right-hand side lower part of the slide, you see that in fact Henry has annotated "Morrissey and The Russian Sailor" on the 23rd of May 1927, that "James McNickol Crebarky [ spelled phonetically ] has it," and there are many more references. So, I think it's likely that it's due to American influence that the Henry collection is truer to the Ulster tradition than anything else; that is, that it's content to be itself. It thus offers us a bonus, which other accessible collections from Northern Ireland do not. It's a sample, and we can extrapolate from it. It allows us to generalize about the tradition, as I've already argued. Rather than our conclusions applying only to the Henry collection, they are conclusions about the singing tradition, which we can come to because the Henry collection is a good sample. Well, how does this help us assess and quantify the extent of the influence of North America upon the North Irish tradition? There are about 93 items out of 620 that show North American influence, about 15 percent. Almost all of them are about emigration. I didn't count the number of items which are about emigration but not specifically to America or Canada. Even so, the proportion of emigration songs in the collection is substantially greater than I, before having any evidence, would have expected. However, to return to D.K. Wilgus, he says in an article called "The Early American Influence on Narrative Songs in Ireland: I'm Not the First Person to Have Noticed This" -- says that later in the emigration period the number of emigration songs increased. If we extrapolate from the 62 songs that directly concern the emigrant experience in the Henry collection, it seems that such songs comprised around ten percent of all songs in the Irish tradition in the early years of the 20th Century. However, as I said, the most remarkable aspect of this influence is the number of songs that traveled against the prevailing wind and against the Irish migrant tendency, songs of American origin that finished up in North Irish tradition. It's extraordinary that one of these is absent from the record of what was sung in the sub-continent of its origin. [ sings ] You mates of Columbia, wherever you be, I beg your attention and now pity me. My heart is surrounded by love's burning pain, and this mate has got me wounded on sweet mountain plain. The lands of Columbia I've traveled all o'er, and a match for this fair one I ne'er saw before. Two eyes like bubbles that glide on yon main, and in letters I'll mention this fair lady's name. So, he uses an acrostic within the song. It's a common device in Irish songs that emanate from traditional ballads. [ sings ] I wish I was Adam and my love was Eve. Some plan I would form my love to receive. In the Garden of Eden not long would she stand. I would take this fair mate to her own native land. If I don't gain her I'm forever undone. The green fields I'll wander and frantic I'll run and when I think on her I'll always explain, fair ye well lovely Mary on sweet mountain plain. That's a very Irish song, and I suggest that it may be the reason that it didn't survive in Canada or the United States, or maybe it was produced in an isolated mining area and didn't get outside except to be remembered by the Alex Henderson, who taught it at a lumber camp at Chippewa Lake in North Ontario to the Bushmills man who some ten years later communicated it to Sam Henry. Another song with odd features, which wasn't published in the Songs of the People collection, though Henry did send it to the Library of Congress, is called "The State of Arkansas". And the oddest feature of this is that the first verse given by Henry is, "Come all ye true bed Irishmen and listen to my chant. 'Tis all about the lamentation of an Irish immigrant who lately crossed the ocean for a fortune; thought he saw 500 men were needed in the state of Arkansas." This verse is unique in that no traditional American set has it; all are American through and through. So, again it looks as if we got a song which is in transition from being an Irish-American song to being an American song, leaving out that verse to do it. But these songs were almost invariably brought into the north of Ireland by returning migrant workers, people like Mickey MacAtamney [ spelled phonetically ] and others who had traveled or -- had traveled in or immigrated to America. These pictures are self-explanatory, in their captions, in that the two old people flanking a very well-dressed man -- the impression is that this returned emigrant wanted to impress them with the quality of his dress. Mickey MacAtamney, living in this hut, had returned from America not entitled to any kind of welfare, and the reproduction of a tin type photograph in Boston around 1850 is of the man who later became the Harbor Master in Portrush, Willie Adams. But, Mickey MacAtamney wrote this lovely squib piece: "At the time I was a Yankee, my heart was full of joy. You wouldn't call me swanky but a rather nifty boy. And the worst was in my noodle against any King or Queen, was to whistle Yankee Doodle and the wearing of the green." [ laughter ] Most of the songs in the Irish tradition that show North American influence are those of emigration. Although these are of great interest to those who would like to establish what the emigrant experience was like for those who suffered it, it's of less interest in our context, although I do want to establish one thing, that as it is a better illustration of the Irish tradition than other collections, it's interesting that the Sam Henry collection has a lot of songs in it which deal with leaving the country in minute detail. They seem to be more inclined to regret parting from familiar territory than to lament parting from families and friends. There are entire songs which lament an especially personal topography. "The Brays of Carnan Bain" [ spelled phonetically ] and "McGuire's Bray" [ spelled phonetically ], "Glen Elly" [ spelled phonetically ] and "Farewell to Sweet Glenn Ravel" [ spelled phonetically ], and the last one I want to consider is "Gelvin Burn" [ spelled phonetically ], and you see at the right-hand the litany of names that this contains. Even songs which are better known in generalized forms are given in the Sam Henry collection with local detail. This is "The Shamrock Shore", known possibly best from the singing of Paul Brady, but here it has all these names, Londonderry, Moville, Benevenough, Greencastle, Warworth, Drumnesaw, Ballykelly, Mallonhead, and Enastraho [ spelled phonetically ]. It's a whole topography in song that people are lamenting. Now, the map shows the parts which are particularly in this area around here, just Loch Foil and McGilligan [ spelled phonetically ], around there that the song is concerned with, Derry, and the other side Moville on the other, on the western shore of Ennishone. But a very -- also a very surprising number of these songs are by known authors, at least 15 of the songs mentioned. And it's hard to know whether this is a feature of the Irish tradition as a whole, but this song, which is called "Monk McClemont's Farewell to Articlave" [ spelled phonetically ] -- and that's local enough for anybody -- is to a Scottish tune. [ sings ] 'Twas in the year of '40 and the year of '42, the time I do remember when I bid my friends adieu. Our noble ship provincial, well fitted for the sea and commanded by our captain bold, bound for Americee. 'Twas on the 4th of April we sailed from Derry-K, our vessel being well manned, bound for Americay. Contrary to our wishes, our sails did scarcely fill, and by our captain's orders we anchored at Moville. But early the next morning, when I on deck did stand and looking all around me I saw my native land. 'Twould mind you of a desert, your eyes with tears would fill, when I looked towards sweet Articlave and the Castle of Downhill. So this is all about -- oh, I'm sorry -- inefficiency. This is all about the area with a little spit of land just to the right-hand corner, the western corner of Loch Foil, and is all about that very small area in there. It even goes down to praising the second mate because he's a local man. [ sings ] Our second mate, Scabina [ spelled phonetically ], his station well does fill, like his father with Sir Harvey in the Castle of Downhill. When he was young and tender he bound himself to sea and he gained that promotion before that he was free. And so on with the praise of the ship, the place; everything is personalized. So, to summarize, an examination of the Songs of the People suggests that a new look at the categorization of emigrant songs would be fruitful, also that American influence on the Irish tradition exists in much more direct ways than through immigrant songs. The songs themselves migrate backwards against the flow. At the same time, it's possible that Sam -- that American influence upon Sam Henry has produced some of these more unusual features; it would be wise to check. And actually, the influence was much, much stronger than I've already indicated. It had a second phase towards the end of the newspaper series and beyond the newspaper series. It involved a chance encounter. This is -- "After a perfect stranger onboard a MacBrayne's Steamer going to the Isle of Skye had told me, HHF, of the folksong collecting of Mr. Sam Henry, Sandleford County, Coleraine, Northern Ireland, I struck up a correspondence with him in early 1939 sharing several Irish songs found in New England lumber camps and elsewhere. He was kind enough to send me the printed song forms of all of the songs he had published over a couple of years in a Belfast, actually Coleraine paper under the title Songs of the People. At my suggestion he sent the same gift to the US Library of Congress appointing me his attorney. He hoped to use some of that collection were he to lecture in America, so restricted all use of it at the time." The person whose initials were HHF was Helen Hartness Flanders, the redoubtable wife of a Senator from Vermont, and herself a song collector of high reputation. Sam Henry was very encouraged by this contact. Mrs. Flanders was in charge of the Archive of Vermont Folksong, and author of several books. He replied: "Dear Mrs. Flanders, I feel that I have made a valuable contact in folksong research and trust that we can be mutually helpful in our studies. I have pleasure in presenting you with a selection from my collection." And then he goes on down, "As to my broadcast from Dublin, the wavelength is 551 meters. I wish I could go over to America and let the people hear the treasures of our Ulster songs. Many people have suggested it, but I am not a man of means and could only undertake a series of folk recitals if some organization financed it. I do a lot of that here, illustrating my talks with lanternslides of my own photographs. I thank you for your kind offer to send me various books." And, he sends her a copy of his Ulster folktales with every respect and best wishes. So, a few months later Henry was to receive a further letter, and this says: "I visited Mrs. Flanders in Vermont recently and she showed me a part of your exciting collection of Irish songs and ballads on broadsheets. This is one of the most interesting folksong projects I have ever come across. In fact, a number of us here in this country had thought of doing it ourselves but it never got any further than the talking stage. We're building here in the Archive of American Folksong a collection of field records of American material; the collection is already the largest of its kind." Next paragraph: "I wondered if it would be possible for you to gather a complete file of your broadsheets for presentation to the Archive. It would be one of the most valuable working tools we could have. I am constantly running into versions of many of the ballads that you have brought out, and you know yourself how difficult it is to find them in the conventional folksong collections." Now, that is noble praise from a representative of the Library of Congress to an insignificant North Irish folksong collector. Mrs. Flanders also approved of and placed a high value on his collection. It's probable that this approval of his collection and methods confirmed Henry in his pride, in his achievement, the value of which was by no means properly recognized in his native province. I outlined this in the introduction to the selection of Sam Henry's songs I published in 1979. He looked in vain for the academic recognition he felt he deserved. He sought book publication and failed, and was bitterly disappointed; however, the approving remarks of the American collectors sustained him in his collecting beyond the end of the series of articles in The Northern Constitution. There are about 500 items, unpublished songs, aires, and variants, among the Henry papers, and these we almost certainly owe to American encouragement. Among the papers that he left at his death in 1952 was a folder marked "Library of Congress -- to prepare" containing songs he intended to prepare for dispatch but unfortunately never did. I'll refer to this folder again at the end of the talk. Another result of American approval was that Henry agreed to give copies of his "Songs of People" articles, as Alan Lomax had requested, to the Library of Congress. Unfortunately, the arrangements concerning this did not run smoothly. There were two factors. Helen Hartness Flanders expressed some reservations about Sam Henry's gift of his collection to the Library of Congress. This is a letter from Helen Hartness Flanders to a Ms. Holden, in which the fourth paragraph I will quote. "I'm glad that through me Mr. Henry has corresponded with Mr. Lomax at the Library of Congress. I feel a responsibility in this when I learn he has been asked to send his folksongs to the Library of Congress. He should be warned to stipulate any restrictions he wishes to make, because movie scenario writers, radio broadcasters, and many another will take as their own what they please without giving him the credit of his work, unless Mr. Henry requires that permission be secured from him regarding his own material. I've even had the misfortune to have stipulated -- that material that I have stipulated" -- sorry, I've made a mess of that -- "the misfortune to have stipulated the material be regarded as mine until I have given permission for its use, and then learned Mr. Lomax has included it without my permission for radio use, undoubtedly with some commercial arrangement. Much as I like Mr. Lomax and wish to cooperate with him, I think he has slight honor when these opportunities come up, and feel responsible now that I learn Mr. Henry is sharing his findings with him. If they're all protected by copyright, as may be true because they were in a local paper, this warning is wholly unnecessary. I do feel that Mr. Lomax and Mr. Henry should have the joy and the excitement of comparisons in folklore regional findings, and it's a delight to think that this is going on, but it must not be misused." Mrs. Flanders' reservations were communicated to Sam Henry and he requested her to make arrangements concerning copyright in the songs for his collection. Mrs. Flanders wrote on the 29th of August 1941 to Harold Spivak, the head of the Division of Music at the Library of Congress, saying: "My good friend Sam Henry of Sandalford, Coleraine, Ireland, whose published songs I showed Mr. Lomax while he was in Vermont, writes he's made a gift of 600 songs to the Library of Congress. These of course were covered by copyright in his own country. He asked me to cover their copyright for him in the United States and her possessions, sending me the enclosed authorization. I in turn will send the proper check if this enclosure of $5 does not cover such copyright." A copy of this letter was sent on the same date to Sam Henry, endorsed by Mrs. Flanders. Here's a copy of a letter, "I feel easier already to know I have done what I deemed right when I discovered you'd entrusted all of the copyrighted British material to our Library of Congress." Also, although the presentation was essentially a gift to the Library of Congress, the second problem arose when Sam Henry, being what in the north of Ireland is called a careful man, not wishing to be out of pocket, he asked to be reimbursed $20 because he had no copies of some items left and needed to pay to get parts of his collections typed in order to send them to the Library. The correspondence is choice. On the 5th of September 1941 Harold Spivak wrote to Sam Henry apologizing for the non-arrival of letters acknowledging the receipt of his songs and explaining that several letters had been sent but that the war must have led to their destruction. This followed protracted exchanges about this matter, which involved Henry writing to a friend, Floyd Blair, the President of a New York bank, who knew and passed the message on to the Librarian of Congress, Archibald MacLeish, who then contacted Harold Spivak. Henry also contacted Mrs. Flanders and she wrote to Harold Spivak. Harold Spivak's letter of apology, however, also stated that if Henry wished to have the songs copyrighted, they had to be passed over free of charge to the copyright office, and once they'd been registered in Henry's name would be passed back to the Library. In this case, it would be impossible for the cost of typing to be reimbursed. Dr. Spivak also wrote to Mrs. Flanders: "Mr. Henry's desire to copyright his songs complicated everything exceedingly. He sent us these songs as a gift but asked us to reimburse him for his expenses. We were, of course, perfectly willing to do so, and had already instituted proceedings to accomplish it, but in order to get him reimbursed we have to treat the matter as a purchase and not a gift. Since receipt of you letter, however, I have called everything off, because if Mr. Henry's works are eligible for copyright, these will have to be deposited free of charge in the copyright office. I'm in no position to pass the matter, so I am referring the whole thing to the Register of Copyrights. As soon as I have a report I'll write to you." Sam Henry's reaction was conveyed -- sorry -- Sam Henry's reaction was conveyed in a letter to Mrs. Flanders. He made it clear that he didn't wish to give up his claim to the $20 for typing, and neither did he wish to make the copyright a constituent part of the gift; that is, he still wanted the material -- he wanted both things to be copyrighted in the United States. It's a pity, however, that a month earlier, unknown to him, the Registrar of Copyrights, C.L. Buvey [ spelled phonetically ], had informed Harold Spivak of the situation regarding the copyright of Sam Henry's collection under the United States law. And this letter, in short, stated that US law did not permit the collection to be copyrighted because of the form in which it had been presented weekly, in a newspaper. This was conveyed to Mrs. Flanders, and she passed it on to Sam Henry in early October 1941, commenting that: "It now looks like an impasse if either here or abroad you can only copyright songs made up into a complication. I don't see but what the gift you made to the Library of Congress will now be subject to how considerate they are of your expressed wishes to protect for yourself the rights a collector should have, but which are not a matter of law but of courtesy. I will do whatever you can think of to bring protection to your work." Henry's response to the letter from the Registrar of Copyrights is dated the 29th of October 1941, and is best described as a howl of protest. I just want to point out two things. The second paragraph: "You are under a complete misapprehension, which you could have easily avoided if you had looked at these songs. These songs are not a compilation of cuttings from newspapers and elsewhere, but a hitherto unrecorded collection of folksongs taken down by me from the living lips of the people over a period of over 15 years." And the final paragraph: "In simple equity my rights should be protected. I know the complications of the law, but to use my songs without recognizing my rights would seem to be a new form of legislation, a lease and steal act." A reference to the wartime Lease and Land Act, by the way. "Mrs. Flanders would act in giving any necessary notices on my behalf." However, it's slightly more complicated, because we now return to Mrs. Flanders's reservations about Alan Lomax and the security of material at the Library of Congress. Lomax did not take kindly to Mrs. Flanders's intervention in the matter of copyright and to Henry's devolving control of his material in the United States to her. His letter -- that is, Alan Lomax's letter -- first apologizes for the non-arrival of the letters mentioned above: "Dear Mr. Henry, It distressed me more than I can say that complications have arisen out of the fact that my two or three letters to you have never reached you. It distresses me again that you have, for some reason that I cannot understand, felt it necessary to put your collection under the aegis of some other person in America. I wish that you had just written to me about your worries, and there would have been a lot less trouble all around. However, this is just to let you know I have written you several times and the letters are probably on the bottom of the ocean or still in the hands of the censor. The Library is willing to respect your wishes about the use of the collection and I personally will try to see that they are carried out. Sincerely Yours." However, on the same day as he wrote his broadside to the Registrar of Copyright, Sam Henry wrote in slightly milder terms to Mrs. Flanders: "When I gave the songs to the Library of Congress I made no conditions except that I was to be reimbursed $20 for typing. They've muddled the thing by handing over the songs to the Registrar of Copyright, and they should get them back. Copyright is a secondary matter to the gift and I do not wish my copyright claim to hold up the gift. Instead of gratitude for the gift, they've given me a lot of worry, but I suppose rules are rules." Or orders are orders, or something of the kind at the time. This storm in a teacup, other than exposing different philosophies of copyright in America and Europe, probably simply reveals the degree of antagonism between Helen Hartness Flanders and Alan Lomax into which Sam Henry was dragged. However, it is a fact that Henry's wishes regarding the use of his collection were honored, as Alan Lomax assured they would. Actually, it appears that rather little use of the collection was made, because it wasn't until Gale Huntington was pursuing research for Songs the Whalemen Sang that any collection made much reference to it. As you probably know, it was following that use for reference purposes that Gale Huntington conceived the intention of editing the collection for publication. And this culminated in the issue in 1990 by the University of Georgia Press of Sam Henry's Songs of the People. American influence pervades the Sam Henry collection. It influenced the tradition, it helped shape Henry's attitude that he more perfectly reflected the tradition in his collection, and it helped sustain him beyond the end of the local market, and through periods of depression. It has also provided him with a substantial memorial. He did actually have a particular regard for the United States. He had traveled there with an uncle in about 1919, and during the Second World War, while he was preparing materials with the intention of sending them to the United States, he lectured and acted as guide at historically significant sites in Northern Ireland to American servicemen who were stationed there during the preparation for the D-Day landings. And this, of course, is not the end of the story, because the material that Sam Henry collected after the end of the Songs of the People remains unpublished. His photographs, his notes about singers, which are even more valuable possibly than the songs themselves, that remains unpublished. I hope when I retire -- I'm 66. I retired from teaching 15 years ago and have hopes now of being appointed to a research fellowship following my PhD, and when I retire again I'll get to edit this Sam Henry stuff and that I will be enabled to adhere to the same principles of inclusivity that were Sam Henry's and those of the American enthusiasts whose approval and affirmation gave his work its balance and sustained his faith in its value. In celebration therefore, and conclusion, here is a song from the folder I mentioned, "Songs for the Library of Congress -- to prepare". Those who know the Appalachian song will recognize it. The singer was the only one of Sam Henry's informants I was able to make contact with. When I met her, she was living at Down Duin, where our first song, "The Portrush Fishing Disaster", came from. Later, she became resident in an old people's home and it was there I recorded in 1980, her 80th year, just one verse of a song she'd sung for Sam Henry 40 years previously. This is our conversation and the song. [ begin clip ] John Moulden: There's a song of yours called [ unintelligible ]. Female Speaker: That was a nice sweet song [ unintelligible ]. John Moulden: Parting of your -- Female Speaker: Sing you that? John Moulden: You did sing me -- you sang me a wee bit of it, yes. Female Speaker: [ Unintelligible ] and embrace one another, like to be true. And that was a nice -- John Moulden: That's Sam Henry's, and there it is from Ms. Harriet Brownlow. Female Speaker: Oh, look at that. Watch my own love [ unintelligible ], I would work for her daily, I would gather my love's share. I speak from experience, my mind tells me so. Everyone knew -- of which knew [ unintelligible ] to go. That was a nice [ unintelligible ]. John Moulden: Do you mind a tune of [ unintelligible ], she's a bonny bird. Female Speakers: [ sings ] The cuckoo's a bonny bird. She sings as she flies. She brings us glad tidings and she tells us no lies. She drinks fair water to make her voice clear. And she never cries cuckoo til the summer draws near. John Moulden: That's nice -- a lovely aire, nice nice aire, indeed. Female Speaker: They're all nice aires. John Moulden: Yes. [ end clip ] Thank you all very much. [ applause ] [ end of transcript ]