Paddy’s Lament
Sinéad O’Connor
Thank you for joining me for this Sunday Special.
Comments and questions are welcome. Please be respectful of others’ opinions if they should differ from yours.
For Japanese students, vocabulary words in bold are provided in Japanese below.
The Background
(300 words)
This week, the world lost a beautiful Irish singer-songwriter named Sinéad O’Connor. There will be many tributes to her on Internet. Here, I will be focusing on one particular song that she sang, Paddy’s Lament.
The song is about Paddy, a man from Ireland in the 1800s. He was a victim of the Great Famine, a time when many people in Ireland were dying of hunger.
There was a disease in the potato crop that usually met 60% of the country’s food requirements. Other crops were not affected, and many of these crops along with beef and lamb were sold to France and Germany rather than to Ireland’s poor and starving farming families. Throughout this period, food and livestock exports continued as usual, but more and more Irish farmers were thrown off their land by the land owners. Even though there was no war at the time, the government did not help to distribute the food that was available in other parts of England. A million people died between 1846 and 1851, and two million left Ireland between 1845 and 1855.
This could have been the story of my great-great grandfather, Patrick Campbel, who left Ireland with his father (his mother may have died in 1837). They probably entered Canada first, and finally settled in Bear Creek, Wisconsin. I have not been able to find records of him serving in the Civil War, but my search is not yet complete.
Back to the song.
From the information I’ve read, the song is considered to be an Irish-Canadian folk song, possibly from the 1870s. It is written in a style of English that reminds the listener of an Irish accent. Here, I will explain the basic meaning of the lyrics. A father appears to be writing a letter to his sons.
The Song
(285 words)
The father is asking his boys to be quiet and to listen to his story. He tells of being hungry and living in poverty, and deciding to leave Ireland.
He sold his horse, cow, pigs and sow, and left his father’s farm. He said goodbye to his sweetheart, Bid McGee, knowing that he might not ever see her again, and that broke her heart.
“Listen, boys,” he says, “I don’t want you to come to America. There is nothing here but war and the sound of cannons that murder people. I wish I was at home in dear old Dublin” (the capital city of Ireland).
He sailed with a hundred other people to America, thinking that they would be able to have a better life there. Instead, when they arrived in “Yankee land”, they were given guns and told that they had to fight in the Civil War - on the Union side (Abraham Lincoln was the president).
General Meagher* told his soldiers that if they were shot or killed, they or their families would receive a pension. The man fought and lost a leg, so they gave him a “wooden peg”, in other words, a wooden leg.
Paddy thinks he would be lucky to be back in Ireland eating “Indian Buck”. This was a variety of corn that the U.S. shipped to Ireland during the famine, but the people didn’t know how to cook it, so they ate it raw, and they died because their starved bodies couldn’t digest it. He would rather be in Ireland than to be in the U.S. because he is fed up with their hard fighting.**
Thank you, Sinéad O’Connor, for your steadfastness, your courage, and your beautiful voice.
VOCABULARY
tribute 哀悼の気持ちを表す
Great Famine イアランドの大飢饉
requirement ニーズ 、必要条件
livestock 家畜
distribute 配る
great-great grandfather 曽祖父のお父さん
sow 雌豚
cannon 大砲
pension 年金
digest 消化
(be) fed up with あ 付き合いきれない
steadfastness 確固たる信念
Sources and notes
Irish in the American Civil War – Exploring Irish emigration in the ... Irish in the American Civil War. https://irishamericancivilwar.com/2020/11/13/the-best-anti-war-song-ever-made-on-the-trail-of-paddys-lament/ Accessed 29 July 2023.
Kleen, P. (2018, July 17). Civil War Ballads: Paddy’s lamentation. M.A. Kleen. https://michaelkleen.com/2017/04/13/civil-war-ballads-paddys-lamentation/ Accessed 29 July 2023.
* Thomas Francis Meagher was a revolutionary leader in Ireland who was fighting for Irish independence from England. He was arrested but escaped and went to New York where he studied law. He volunteered for the Union in the Civil War and eventually became a brigadier general (代将).
** Information about Indian Buck found in the footnote of Paddy’s Lamentation.mov posted by Niamh Ní Charra at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymCLh51FhpA