Two Famous Songs Which Were Composed Using Old Irish Melodies

Dixie Elliot ✊I'm certain that everyone is well aware that Bobby Sands used the melody of Gordon Lightfoot's 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald' for his own song, 'The Voyage', which Christy Moore retitled, 'I Wish I Was Back Home In Derry' because he already had a song called 'The Voyage.'

But did you know that Gordon Lightfoot was asked why he hadn't sued Christy Moore for using his melody?

Lightfoot admitted that the melody was in fact from an old Irish folk song he had heard as a child and it stuck with him. He said he always intended to use it in a song some day and when he heard of the tragic sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald he used it to write that song.

So when Bobby used it, the melody had simply reverted to it's place of origin, Ireland.

There are quite a few instances of old melodies being used in songs which went on to become very popular. One being 'Danny Boy' which used the melody of 'The Derry Air.'

The 'Derry Air' was not in fact the original title of this melody. It was actually called 'O'Cahan's Lament' and had been composed by a blind harper called Rory Dall O'Cahan to lament the theft of O'Cahan land during 'The Plantation of Ulster'.

He believed that the fairies had played it to him as he slept under a tree near the River Roe.

Many years later Jane Ross, a collector of old melodies, heard a beautiful tune being played in the street outside her home in Limavady on a market day in 1855.

She went outside and discovered that it was a blind fiddler called Jimmy McCurry. She paid him the then princely sum of a florin to play the tune over and over until she got it taken down.

It is interesting that both the musicians connected to this melody were blind.

Jane Ross is remembered for her connection to the famous melody with a blue plaque outside her former home.

As for poor Jimmy McCurry, he is buried in an unmarked grave in Tamlaght outside of Ballykelly.

Isn't it about time that Jimmy is also remembered for his part in a melody went on to become one of the most played songs in the world, Danny Boy?

Thomas Dixie Elliot is a Derry artist and a former H Block Blanketman.

Follow Dixie Elliot on Twitter @IsMise_Dixie