Carrickfergus

The origins of ‘Carrickfergus’ may be disputed, but it has nonetheless achieved the status of one of the greatest and most enduring Irish folk songs. Named after the town of Carrickfergus, in Co. Antrim, it was officially lifted from obscurity by the folk singer, songwriter and playwright, Dominic Behan – brother of the Rabelaisian playwright Brendan Behan – who in turn credits the eight times Oscar-nominated UK-Irish actor Peter O’Toole with rediscovering the song and singing it to him. Behan published ‘Carrickfergus’ in 1965, adding a verse – and since then it has become part of the canon, sung by leading Irish musicians and international superstars alike, including Van Morrison, Bryan Ferry, The Dubliners, The Chieftains, Charlotte Church and Dexy’s Midnight Runners.

Van Morrison

The Story Behind The Song

Of one thing we can be sure. The song ‘Carrickfergus’ is written about the town of the same name, in Co. Antrim, on the North-Eastern edge of the island of Ireland. But there are mysteries, as yet not fully resolved, regarding the apparently fractured narrative in what has become one of the most loved, and covered, songs in the modern Irish folk repertoire.

It was the famous Irish actor Peter O’Toole – he insisted on his Irish-ness despite the fact that the birth records show that he was born in Leeds, England to an Irish father – who brought the song to the attention of the Irish songwriter, Dominic Behan. In fact, Dominic and his brother, the playwright Brendan Behan, were part of an extraordinary, artistic, republican, socialist family that included the songwriter Peadar Kearney, who – along with several well-known folk standards – wrote the lyrics to the Irish national anthem, ‘Amhrán na bhFiann (A Soldiers Song)’, which was formally adopted by the State in 1926.

Dominic Behan was himself a prolific playwright, author, songwriter and singer. He wrote celebrated songs like ‘The Patriot Game’ (which Bob Dylan drew on for ‘With God On Our Side’), ‘McAlpine’s Fusilliers’, ‘The Merry Ploughboy’ and ‘Liverpool Lou’, among other standards from the days of the Irish ballad boom of the 1960s and early 1970s. His 1965 version of the song given to him by O'Toole, which would become 'Carrickfergus', was immortalised on the album The Irish Rover, and titled ‘The Kerry Boatman’. Behan insisted that he had been given two verses by O’Toole and that he wrote an additional one to slot in between.

There has also been a suggestion, made by the US-based Irish writer Niall O’Dowd, that the song ‘Carrickfergus’ is more closely related to the Scottish tune, ‘Over The Water’. O’Dowd reminds us that there was far greater contact between places like Carrickfergus in Northern Ireland and parts of Scotland than with Kilkenny – arguing that the jump to the South-Eastern midlands in the modern version of the song seems to make no geographical sense. He makes the case well...

Bryan Ferry performing "Carrickfergus" for AVO Session, Basel, Switzerland — November 10, 2003.

“I wish I was in Carrickfergus,” the song opens, “Only for nights in Ballygran(t.)”

There is no Ballygran(t) in Ireland, but there is in the Isle of Islay in Scotland – which, O’Dowd explains, is located in a wider area known as Kilmeny. The theory, therefore, is that the second verse given by Peter O’Toole to Dominic Behan should have read: "And in Kilmeny/ It is reported/ On marble stones there/ As black as ink.” The argument that the song may have been written by an emigrant from Antrim living in Scotland is bolstered by the lines “I would swim over/ The deepest ocean/ The deepest ocean/ Just to be with you”; and, in addition, by fact that there is indeed black marble stone in the quarry in Ballygran(t), the mining of which was a vital industry in the area in the 18th and 19th centuries.

On the other hand, The Clancy Brothers had recorded a song in 1964, entitled ‘Carrickfergus (Do Bhí Bean Uasal)’. The reference here to 'Do Bhí Bean Uasal’ – meaning ’There Was A Noblewoman’ – is to a lyric which was written by the Gaelic poet, Cathal Buí Mac Giolla Ghunna, in the first half of the 18th Century and put to music. John Spillane does a fine job of making the connection, shifting between Sean Ó Sé’s version of the Gaelic lyrics to his own gentle interpretation of ‘Carrickfergus’ in a seamless musical tapestry, as part of his Irish Songs We Learned at School project. There is a brilliant version by Liam Ó Maonlaí, recorded for the Irish language TV station, TG4, which melds the two narratives.

That interweaving of the story-lines favours the reference to Kilkenny, as Cathal Buí Mac Giolla Ghunna takes us on a proper ramble around Ireland in search of a beautiful woman. “Do shúilaíos Éire is an Mhumhain le chéile,” Ó Maonlaí sings, (meaning: I have traversed the length and breadth of Ireland and Munster together), “Is cois Bean Éadair/ Ag long mná (and the region of Howth/ Searching for women).

If all of this seems too academic, perhaps it is. For what does it matter as long as the emotion in the song feels true? What we are left with either way, in the modern era – whether in the bi-lingual or the English version – is a beautifully expressed song, with a gorgeous melody that makes desperately sad sense. It captures the yearning of a once well-to-do man who has fallen into a life of disrepair and is left with the poignant memories of the love of a beautiful woman, who has long since eluded him. It is not such a stretch to think that the narrator – who spends his days in endless roving, rambling from town to town – might indeed have had his moment in the sun in the beautiful realm of Kilkenny. It is, after all, called the Marble City. And therein surely lies another counter-clue.

Joan Baez

There is a moment of defiance too in the final verse, a reassertion of the indomitability of the human spirit, perhaps, as the singer – always a real person in a real room – gets the opportunity to insist on his or her glass being filled again, before carrying on the sing-song, with the immortal lines: “But I’ll sing no more/ Till I get a drink.” It is a moment for last, good-humoured hurrahs in a session, before the tale ends on a note of resignation to the final fate that awaits us all, and the torch is passed on: “Well I am sick now/ And my days are numbered/ Come all you young men/ And lay me down.”

Richard Harris & Peter O'Toole sing Carrickfergus at The European Rugby Cup Final, 2000.

What we can divine from all of this is that a folk song is a living thing, passed on from one person to another, travelling with singers who take it to a different location and infuse it with their own sense of place and of poetry, changing words here or there, or adding a verse as Dominic Behan did.

However opaque the lyrics might seem, and whether they constitute a drink-induced reverie from an unreliable narrator, or otherwise, it is perhaps this innate sense of mystery which has enabled ‘Carrickfergus’ to capture the imagination of some of the greatest singers of recent times. Among those who have recorded cover versions are Van Morrison, Bryan Ferry, The Dubliners, The Chieftains, Celtic Woman, ex-Boyzone lead singer Ronan Keating, Loreena McKennitt, Loudon Wainwright III, 10,000 Maniacs, Dexy's Midnight Runners, US country music star Alison Moorer, Welsh classical-pop crossover hitmaker Charlotte Church, doyen of the US folk revival Joan Baez, and dozens more. There is even a fun video online of those two fabled, Irish drinking buddies, Richard Harris and Peter O’Toole duetting on an impressively affectionate and ramshackle version of the song.

‘Carrickfergus' has been translated into Russian, and recorded by the singer-songwriter Aleksandr Karpov. Its near relative ’The Water Is Wide’ has been recorded by Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, Peter, Paul and Mary, and members of The Byrds. But it is ‘Carrickfergus’ which has emerged strongest from the cross-fertilisation, taking its place emphatically in the Great Irish Songbook. That status is further emphasised when it is referred to in Ed Sheeran’s ‘Galway Girl’ – the video for which starred Saoirse Ronan.

It completes a circle. From Peter O’Toole to Saoirse Ronan. From one great Irish actor to another. Behind the dramatic story, there is, indisputably, this: a beautiful song with a melody to die for. There are many great versions. Have a listen to the different interpretations by Liam Ó Maonlaí and by Van Morrison and the Chieftains – and see for yourself the wells of emotion that it digs powerfully and unforgettably into.

A heartfelt rendition of ‘Carrickfergus’ often ends in tears. As it should be.