FTX-161 - THE MAY MORNING DEW

Annie Jane Kelly & Sarah Makem

Arriving at Sarah Makem's house in Keady, Co. Armagh, she greeted the 2 collectors, Sean O Boyle & Peter Kennedy with: "You're as welcome as the flowers in May. Then she and her neighbour, Mrs. Green, Annie Jane, sang them some of the most lyrical love-songs they had ever recorded, outstanding being THE MAGPIES NEST and the Protest Ballad, DERRY GAOL, based on THE GALLOWS TREE ballad, the maid in the original being replaced by the condemned soldier.

1. THE MAY MORNING DEW (talk before) - 3'59"

2. BARNEY MAVOURNEEN (talk before) - 3'31"

3. THE MAGPIE'S NEST - 2'39"

4. DOBBIN'S FLOWERY VALE (talk before & after) - 5'15"

5. CAROLINE AND THE SAILOR - 4'41"

6. DERRY GAOL (or THE WEARY GALLOWS) (talk before and after) - 7'48"

7. MARY OF KILMORE (talk before) - 3'52"

8. JOHN MITCHELL - 2 verses only (title before) - 2'15"

9. WILLIE REILLY (or JOHN REILLY) - 4'48"

10. OUR SHIP SHE'S READY TO BEAR AWAY - 1'53"

11. IT WAS IN THE MONTH OF JANUARY (THE FORSAKEN MOTHER AND CHILD) - 5'21"

12. THE FACTORY GIRL - 4'19"

13. AS I ROVED OUT (SEVENTEEN COME SUNDAY) - 2 verses only - 0'50"

14. A MAN IN LOVE (talk after) - 1'40"

15. THE COT IN THE CORNER - 4'30"

Tracks #1-3 Annie Jane Kelly (Interviewer: Sean O Boyle) & #5-15 Sarah Makem recorded by Peter Kennedy at Keady in 1952. Edited by Peter Kennedy and first published by Folktrax 1975.

ANNIE JANE KELLY was born in 1910, and like Sarah, was employed as a weaver in the Keady linen mills. Her songs were learned mainly from her father, Johnny Green, and from Sarah's mother's brother. She and her dog were frequent visitors to the Makem household for a night of ceilidh-ing.

SARAH MAKEM was born 18th October 1900 and died April 20th 1983. When Peter Kennedy and Sean O Boyle were recording in Ulster in 1952, her kitchen became a central gathering point for singers and musicians from the area and her recorded voice singing her version of SEVENTEEN COME SUNDAY was heard weekly as the signature tune for the weekly BBC Radio series, AS I ROVED OUT, which ran from 1952 for over ten years.

Until she married, Sarah was a weaver in a linen factory which then stood in the centre of the village. Most of her songs were learned from her mother, but her uncle Jimmy and her uncle Johnny Green, Annie Jane's father, were also sources. One of her sons, Tommy, who played bagpipes and tin-whistle, became very interested in the fact that the collectors were paying so much attention to his mother's songs, and, after these recordings were made, he went to the States where he joined an Irish theatre company in New York and teamed up with the three Clancy brothers and became part of a famous folk group of singing actors.