"Foggy Dew" is the name of several Irish ballads, and
of an Irish lament. The song chronicles the Easter
Rising of 1916, and encourages Irishmen to fight for
the cause of Ireland, rather than for the British
Empire, as so many young men were doing in World War I.
"The Foggy Dew" as the name of an Irish traditional
song first appears in Edward Bunting's The Ancient
Music of Ireland (1840), where the tune is different
from that mostly sung today (also different from the
lament and the rebel song b...(+)
"Foggy Dew" is the name of several Irish ballads, and
of an Irish lament. The song chronicles the Easter
Rising of 1916, and encourages Irishmen to fight for
the cause of Ireland, rather than for the British
Empire, as so many young men were doing in World War I.
"The Foggy Dew" as the name of an Irish traditional
song first appears in Edward Bunting's The Ancient
Music of Ireland (1840), where the tune is different
from that mostly sung today (also different from the
lament and the rebel song below). Bunting's source for
the tune was a "J. Mc Knight, Belfast, 1839", but the
same melody already appears in O'Farrell's Collection
of National Irish Music for the Union Pipes (London,
1804), where it is called "Corraga Bawn".
Approximately 210,000 Irishmen joined up and served in
the British forces during the war. This created mixed
feelings for many Irish people, particularly for those
with nationalist sympathies. While they broadly
supported the British war effort, they also felt that
one of the moral justifications for the war, "the
freedom of small nations" like Belgium and Serbia,
should also be applied to Ireland, which at that time
was under British rule. The 1915 Gallipoli slaughter of
the young and mainly middle-class Irishmen who had
joined up in response to John Redmond's call turned
many people against the war.
In 1916, Irish patriots led by James Connolly and
Patrick Pearse, taking advantage of Britain being
occupied by World War I, seized some of the major
buildings in Dublin including the General Post Office,
while others came out in Ashbourne and Galway in the
Easter Rising.
The brutal response to the Rising, and the execution of
its leaders that followed, marked a turning point for
many Irish people. The public revulsion at the
executions added to the growing sense of alienation
from the British Government.
Canon O'Neill reflected this alienation when he wrote
The Foggy Dew commemorating the few hundred brave men
who had risen out against what was then the most
powerful empire in the world. In 1919, he attended the
first sitting of the new Irish Parliament, Dáil. The
names of the elected members were called out, but many
were absent. Their names were answered by the reply
faoi ghlas ag na Gaill – "locked up by the
foreigner".
These events had a profound effect on O'Neill and some
time after this he wrote The Foggy Dew telling the
story of the Easter Rising and reflecting the thoughts
of many Irish people at the time who now believed that
the Irishmen who fought for Britain during the war
should have stayed home and fought for Irish
independence instead.
O'Neill sums up this feeling in the line ‘Twas far
better to die ‘neath an Irish sky, Than at Suvla or
Sud el Bar.
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foggy_Dew_(Irish_ballad)
).
Although originally written for Traditional Irish
instruments, I created this Interpretation of "The
Foggy Dew" for Oboe & Celtic or Concert (Pedal) Harp.
SHEET MUSIC