Transcript

An bóthar ó thuaidh, an bóthar ó thuaidh,
An bóthar ó thuaidh chun Trá Lí.
An bóthar ó thuaidh 's an cóngar aduaidh
'S an bóthar ó thuaidh chun Trá Lí.

An bóthar ó thuaidh, ó thuaidh, ó thuaidh,
An bóthar ó thuaidh chun Trá Lí.
An bóthar ó thuaidh 's an cóngar aduaidh
'S an bóthar ó thuaidh chun Trá Lí.

Translation

The road north, the road north,
The road north to Tralee.
The road north and the short cut south
And the road north to Tralee.

The road north, north, north,
The road north to Tralee.
The road north and the short cut south
And the road north to Tralee.

Commentary

Fionán Mac Coluim, under the pseudonym 'Finghin na Leamhna', first published this song in a collection of children's songs entitled Cosa buidhe árda do’n aos óg (Dublin, 1916), 7. It was also included in an enlarged pamphlet by Fionán Mac Coluim and Pádraig Pléimionn entitled Cosa buidhe árda: cuid a haon (Dublin, 1922), 23-4. Mac Coluim can be heard singing one verse followed by the chorus on the present recording. The printed versions have four verses and include tonic solfa notation. Another version can be found in Donnchadh Ua Braoin, An cuaichín ceoil (Dublin, Belfast, Cork, c. 1930), 9-10, which has a different fourth verse than the one printed in Cosa buidhe árda. Humorous or ráiméis ('nonsense') verses in both English and Irish have been added to some versions of this song. For example, the singer Elizabeth 'Bess' Cronin sang verses such as the following: 'Tidy womaneen, tidy womaneen, / Tidy womaneen sásta, / That would milk her cow in the tail of her gown / And drink it out of a saucepan'. See Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, The songs of Elizabeth Cronin, Irish traditional singer (Dublin and Portland, 2000), 52-3. Two variants of the melody, entitled 'The Northern Road to Tralee' and 'An Bóthar ó Thuaidh go Trágh-Lí', respectively, appear in the Charles Villiers Stanford, The complete Petrie collection (London, 1902), nos. 448, 1318. The melody, as sung by Mac Coluim, is often played as a slide by instrumentalists in west Kerry. For a printed version of the song as a slide, see Breanndán Ó Beaglaoich and Niamh Ní Bhaoill, Ceol Duibhneach: ceol agus ceoltóirí ó Chorca Dhuibhne (An Daingean, 2009), 36. A recording of the slide by Paul McGrattan may be heard on his album The frost is all over (Claddagh Records, 1992), track 9.