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Handwritten notes and notation

Dusty Bluebells: Additional Resources

5 Texts • Currently viewing:

Dusty Bluebells : songs and rhymes for children taken from oral tradition in Ireland 1961-1975 / Hugh Shields ; Lisa Shields

The multimedia materials presented in the Dusty Bluebells exhibition were drawn from a number of different manuscript and sound recording sources in the Shields Collection.   As well as providing substantial editorial advice and hands-on preparation of materials for Dusty Bluebells, Lisa Shields also created this really practical 2019 PDF edition of the songs, rhymes and riddles in the collection.

More from this collection

Dusty Bluebells : songs and rhymes for children taken from oral tradition in Ireland 1961-1975 / Hugh Shields ; Lisa Shields

An original, handwritten version of Dusty Bluebells / Hugh Shields

The original typescript version of Dusty Bluebells / Hugh Shields

Original typescript for a proposed book of children's songs entitled 'Linnets like to sing' / Hugh Shields

What are mummers? / Hugh Shields

Bibliography and Discography prepared by Hugh Shields in 1975 for proposed publication Linnets Like to Sing.

REFERENCES

  • Broadwood, L.E. & J.A. Fuller Maitland, English county songs, London 1893
  • Child, F.J., The English and Scottish popular ballads, 1882–98, reprinted New York 1965 [download c. 1904 printing]
  • Cox, J.H., Folk songs of the South, New York 1967 (first ed. 1925)
  • Daiken, L., Children’s games throughout the year, London 1949
  • Daiken, L.,The lullaby book, London 1959
  • Daiken, L., Out goes she, Dublin 1963
  • Dean-Smith, M., A guide to English folk-song collections, 1822–1952
  • Douglas, N., London street games, London 1931 (first published 1916)
  • Durrell, G., My family and other animals, Harmondsworth 1963 (first ed. 1956)
  • Gailey, A., Christmas rhymers and mummers in Ireland, Ibstock 1968
  • Gailey, A., Irish folk drama, Cork 1969
  • Gomme, A., The traditional games of England, Scotland and Ireland, 2 vols, New York 1964
  • Halliwell, J.O., The nursery rhymes of England, London 1842
  • Henry, S., Songs of the people, typescript collection (copies at Cecil Sharp House,
  • National Library of Ireland, Belfast Public Library) [published later as: Gale
  • Huntington & Lani Herrmann, eds. with John Moulden, Sam Henry’s Songs of the people, Athens (Georgia) and London, 1990]
  • Index: see Shields Index
  • Jekyll, W., Jamaican song and story, New York 1966 (first ed. 1907)
  • JIFS: Journal of the Irish Folk Song Society, London and Dublin 1905–39
  • Newell, W.W., Games and songs of American children, New York 1963 (first ed. 1883)
  • O’Casey, S., Autobiographies, I, London 1963, pp. 74–80 ‘The street sings’ (first published 1939)
  • Ó Fotharta, D., Siamsa a’ gheimhrí, Dublin 1947 (first ed. 1892)
  • O Lochlainn, C., Irish street ballads, Dublin 1939
  • Opie, I. & P., The lore and language of schoolchildren, Oxford 1967, (first published 1959)
  • Opie, I. & P., Children’s games in street and playground, Oxford 1969
  • Ó Súilleabháin, S., Caitheamh aimsire ar thórraimh, Dublin 1961
  • Parry-Jones, D., Welsh children’s games and pastimes, Denbigh 1964
  • Quinn, H., in Rann: an Ulster quarterly of poetry no 16 (summer 1952) 1–8
  • Ritchie, J.T.R., The singing street, London 1964
  • Ritchie, J.T.R., Golden city, Edinburgh and London, 1965
  • Roud: Roud numbers identifying folk songs in English: devised by Stephen Roud and searchable on the website of the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library (English Folk Dance and Song Society)
  • Shields, H., ‘Old British ballads in Ireland’ in Folklife X (1972) 68–103
  • Shields, H. & L., ‘Irish folk-song recordings 1966–1972: an Index of tapes in the
  • Ulster folk Museum’, in Ulster folklife 21 (1975) 25–54 (referred to as ‘Shields Index

RECORDS (Sound Recordings)

  • Green peas and barley O, BBC LPS 3018, 1975, ed. D. Hammond
  • The lark in the morning, Tradition LP TLP 1004, New York n.d. (c. 1958), ed. Diane Hamilton
  • So early in the morning, Tradition LP TLP 1024, New York 1962, ed. Diane Hamilton
  • The singing streets, Folkways LP FW 8501, New York 1958, sung by Ewan McColl and Dominic Behan
  • Songs of Aran, Folkways LP P1002, New York 1957, ed. S.R. Cowell

A list of riddle titles which feature in the Dusty Bluebells project along with their relevant answers.

What goes over the water?: Answer: AN EGG IN A DUCK’S BELLY
What goes round the house? [one]: Answer: A HEN WITH HER CHICKENS
What goes through the wood?: Answer: SNOW
What goes round the house? [two]: Answer: A SHEEP
Riddle me, riddle me, randy-bo: Answer: INK AND PAPER
Wee Jinny with the red nose: Answer: A CANDLE
As white as snow: Answer: A BLACKBERRY
Teachtaire beag ó theach go teach: Answer: A FOOTPATH (Casán)
Tá bean beag amuigh ansin: Answer: A BEE (Beachóg)
There was a fiddler in Dublin: Answer: THE FIDDLER IN DUBLIN WAS A WOMAN
How many feet?: Answer: ONLY TWO (sheep have hooves and dogs have paws)
If there were twenty-six sheep–: Answer: NINETEEN (the questioner tells the victim that what he really said was ‘twenty sick sheep’
If a fella met a fella: Answer: THERE ARE NO Fs IN THAT (T-H-A-T)
As I went through yon guttery gap: Answer: A BOTTLE OF STOUT
As I went up a slithery gap: Answer: A CHERRY
As I went over Corny Hill: Answer: THE SPOKES OF A CART’S WHEEL
As I went ower Carnearney hill: ANSWER: ‘A cart-wheel . . . . The foremost one was the horse; he was the only one that could see. And the four and twenty wee things were the spokes in the wheels. As the wheel went round the one behind was coming to the front every time.’

A list of performers recorded for the Dusty Bluebells Project

Eddie Butcher
Grace Butcher
James Byrne
John Byrne
Mary Byrne
Bill Carson
Carol Carson
Linda Carson
Ruth Carson
Mary Cassidy
Peter Church
Ann Clarke
Brian Clarke
Nora Cooper
Arthur Coulter
Deborah Crowley
Raymond Crowley
Marion Cunning
Sheila Cunning
James Dillon
Maeve Dillon
Ann Fleming
Alec Foster
Ann Gillespie
Jack Golden
Mary Hart
Dennis Healey
Mary Heaney
Patrick Heekin
Daphne Hillis
Hazel Hornsby
Eileen Keaney
Dermot Leahy
Joe McCafferty
Hilda McCloskey
Jacqueline McDaid
Margaret McDaid
Olive McDonnell
Eddie McGinley
Charles McKibben
Mary Meenan
Tessie Molloy
Ursula O’Hara
Ena Osborne
Helen Osborne
Margaret Osborne
Rosemary Osborne
Seamus Osborne
Denis Shields
Hugh Shields
John Shields
Kitty Shields
Michael Shields
Norah Shields
Philip Shields
Joan Smith
Kevin Smith
Marie Smith
Ruby Sweeney
David Tracey
Paddy Tunney
Mary Wall
Mr. X
Orla [unidentified surname]

 

Material for Dusty Bluebells was collected from all over Ireland

ITMA is indebted to a wide group of individuals and organisations for their co-operation in creating the original Dusty Bluebells Exhibition.

Lisa Shields
Kitty Shields, homepage illustration
Carson Family, homepage Performers image
The 66 Performers
Current and former staff members at ITMA
Niall O’Leary, Consultant