Many readers will be familiar with the much-loved Cobh anthem and may have occasionally joined in singing its rousing chorus of Fine Girl You Are! in a welcoming hostelry.   However, my research suggests that this song so associated with our town could well be an immigrant, having come not merely over the bridge but to our shores across the Irish Sea, in the process supplanting a genuine native melody and lyrics!

For some reason, down through the years the melody seems to have exerted an uncanny fascination for musicians both in Ireland and England, my late father (Staf Gebruers) included.   From what I can establish, Dad’s first encounter with this fine girl you are was in 1926 when he noted down the song from the singing and playing of one Len Leary, a sea-going gentleman from the eastern end of the town who at that stage was a long-term resident in the local hospital.   In that first transcription he described the anthem as “Old Sailors’ Song – Tune: ‘Swansea Town’”.   The reference to the Welsh sea port is significant in that from the outset it acknowledges the existence of another similar though not identical version of this song.   The Swansea female interest is named as Nancy, whose favourite beverage is strong drinks and brandies but she is deprived of the adulation fine girl you are.   The Cobh damsel glories in the Old Testament name of Dinah and her favourite tiple is strong beer and porter.

Throughout his life my father made several arrangements for different vocal and instrumental combinations of the Fine Girl You Are song, culminating with the publication in 1962 of an edition for soloist and keyboard accompaniment published by Editions Metropolis of Antwerp (Belgium) still in print.   This included all four verses not only in English but also in Flemish under a title which translates Adieu My Fair-haired Love.   The cover illustration (see below) is by Marshall Hutson (1903-2001), the eminent English-born artist who at that stage was Vice-Principal of the Crawford School of Art in Cork.   An earlier private edition carried a different cover illustration (see below) by an unknown artist which in more innocent times was probably considered too risqué for public viewing!   There were also two special editions of the Metropolis publication, both issued with suitable overprints, presented to guests at a banquet in the Cork City Hall in May 1962 marking the 45^th anniversary of the Ford motor factory in the city and to the directors and friends of Irish Refining Limited of Whitegate attending a special Irish concert held at the company’s social club in Cork city on 9 October of the same year.                

The earliest printed copy of “Swansea Town” I’ve been able to track down dates from 1945 and is an arrangement for tenor and bass by the eminent English composer Gustav Holst (1874-1934), published by J. Curwen & Sons Ltd. of London.   Described as a folksong, the melody is stated as having been collected by George Barnet Gardiner (1852-1910), a celebrated folk-song collector and secretary of the English Folk Song Society.   Holst also arranged the melody for brass band which was subsequently made available on compact disc.   Perhaps this composer’s best-known composition is the Jupiter theme from his “Planets” orchestral suite which nowadays is frequently sung as the hymn “O God Beyond All Praising”.

Another famous English composer, Maurice Jacobson (1896-1976), made an arrangement of “Swansea Town”, this time for soloist and keyboard accompaniment, also published by Curwen in 1958, of which company Jacobson happened to be chairman at the time.   This describes the piece as a Hampshire folksong collected by Henry Balfour Gardiner (1877-1950)!   H. B. Gardiner was an accomplished musician, and indeed he and G. B. Gardiner (no relation) collaborated in folksong collecting, but whether the attribution is correct or the result of understandable confusion is not clear.

One of my duties as Organist and Choirmaster at St Colman’s Cathedral in Cobh was to organise social events for the gentlemen choristers.   There were no females in the choir in those days.   It was at one of these get-togethers that took place in a local hostelry in the late 1970’s that I first heard the song variously known as “The Holy Ground Once More”, “I’ll Go to Sea Once More” or “Shanghai Brown”.   The singer was the late Con Powell, an elderly gentleman who had only recently returned to his native Cobh, having spent most of his working life employed at the Royal Navy Dockyard in Devonport (Plymouth).   When the British departed from Haulbowline Island in Cork Harbour some fifty years previously, several of the local dockyard employees transferred to Devonport.   These Cobh emigrants continued to sing this shanty long after it had been forgotten back home.   Con told me that he had learnt it in Devonport in the 1940’s from Cobh native Ned Dunne, who was then in his 80’s.   He said that Dunne’s family had a pub in the Holy Ground and that’s where he originally learnt the song as a youngster.   Back in Cobh during WWII, Ned picked up further verses from an old-timer in Pluck’s Pub at the top of East Hill.   I subsequently made contact with the late Pilot Charlie Nash who had lived all his life in Cobh.   He was also familiar with the song which he had originally learnt from seafarer Jimmy Stewart, apparently a well-known local character.   Charlie claimed that the song dated from the 1870’s but was never that popular in Cobh.   He was also of the opinion that the local references may well have been added by Stewart.

I later wrote about the song to the editor of the monthly magazine “Sea Breezes”.   My letter, published in February 1977, aroused considerable interest.   Among the correspondents was master mariner Dermot Keogh from Dublin.   He recalled his time as a cadet in 1919 on a voyage outward bound on a sailing ship from Liverpool where the shanty man taught him several songs including “Shanghai Brown”.   There followed an article by James A. Whelan in the “Cork Evening Echo” of 27 June 1978.   It also transpired that the ballad group The Wolf Tones had issued a recording of a version of the song.

Unlike the “Fine Girl You Are” song, the melody of “Shanghai Brown” seems to me to be Irish traditional.   Indeed, in places the verse reminds one of “The Croppy Boy” and the chorus (see below) is reminiscent of “The Boston Burglar”, as recorded for example by Johnny McEvoy.   The lyrics tell the story of one Ben Bluer / Brace from the Holy Ground who sets sail for San Francisco.   Having been robbed in Frisco, he manages to persuade the boarding-house owner Shangri La Brown / Shanghai Brown to cash his advance and our hero then heads off for the Antarctic Ocean.

The Holy Ground Once More

Chorus

I made two recordings of the singing of this song, one of Con Powell on 4 January 1976 and the other of Charlie Nash in his home in the Holy Ground on 23 August 1977.   These, together with my related research notes, are now lodged in the Irish Traditional Music Archive in Dublin.

Below is my transcript of the lyrics taken down from the two recordings.   Though the two texts are basically quite similar, there are interesting differences.   It seems to me that Con’s version might be the older and hence more original while Charlie’s, with an additional verse, gives the impression of having been added to, possibly by Jimmy Stewart as he himself mentioned.   It’s perhaps also significant that Charlie also makes reference to Cape Horn, as he was one of those remaining intrepid mariners who had rounded that storied headland under sail.   I was particularly impressed how confidently these two senior citizens sang entirely off by heart, both Con’s fine baritone voice and Charlie’s light lyric tenor voice.   May the Lord have mercy on them both!