The Very Irish Roots Of Sea Shanties (2023)

FAQs

What is the origin of sea shanties? ›

Shanties had antecedents in the working chants of British and other national maritime traditions, such as those sung while manually loading vessels with cotton in ports of the southern United States.

The oldest Irish song is the Dinnseanchas.

While somewhat fantastical in nature, this recounting of music, primarily sung but also including as many as nine musical instruments, including a harp, represents the oldest descriptions we have of the specific songs sung by the Celtic ancestors in the monarch of Ireland.

The traditional music played by the Irish came to Ireland with the Celts 2,000 years ago. The Celts were influenced by music from the East and, it is believed, the traditional Irish harp originated in Egypt.

There were three principal types of shanties: short-haul, or short-drag, shanties, which were simple songs sung when only a few pulls were needed; halyard shanties, for jobs such as hoisting sail, in which a pull-and-relax rhythm was required (e.g., “Blow the Man Down”); and windlass, or capstan, shanties, which ...

Many shanties had Irish tunes – dance, folk, and march – and not only were the words and phrases of many of the shanties of Irish origin but in some cases it was customary for the shantyman to sing the shanties with an imitative Irish brogue.

Blow the Man Down – Fisherman's Friends

Arguably the most famous sea shanty ever recited, Fisherman's Friends covers 'Blow the Man Down' as many other maritime-themed groups have done in the past. The song's title dates back to antiquity and deals with the type of ship prominent on the seas during the tune's creation.

Gaelic music (Irish: Ceol Gaelach, Scottish Gaelic: Ceòl Gàidhealach) is an umbrella term for any music written in the Gaelic languages of Irish and Scottish Gaelic.

The earliest written form of the Irish language is known to linguists as Primitive Irish. Primitive Irish is known only from fragments, mostly personal names, inscribed on stone in the Ogham alphabet. The earliest of such inscriptions probably date from the 3rd or 4th century.

The Fields of Athenry is often regarded to be Ireland's unofficial national anthem as it is one of the most popular and most famous Irish songs ever composed.

According to the genetic research, the Irish are at the extreme end of a genetic wave that washed across Europe, a wave of migrants that swept westward from above the Black Sea across Europe about 2,500 B.C.

Why is Irish music so unique? ›

Irish music is distinct from any other culture or genre, for a variety of reasons. It features specific instruments such as the fiddle, harp, flute, whistle, pipes, accordion, banjo, mandolin, bodhrán, and more.

Scottish and Irish immigrants brought fiddles with them to North America and successive generations in the South morphed their Celtic jigs and reels into tunes of their own. Many of the founding fathers of country music, such as Fiddlin' John Carson, mentioned above, and Eck Robertson, were solo fiddlers.

DESCRIPTION: Shanty, characterized by, "Away, haul away, haul away, Joe" (or "...haul away, pull"). Some versions tell a story: the sailor has trouble with his Irish girl and goes to sea, or suffers grief from a Yankee girl, or otherwise suffers at women's hands.

What is a capstan shanty? Capstan songs are associated with 'heaving' activities. They are named after the 'capstan' on a vessel, which is a revolving cylinder with a vertical axis that is pushed around by the crew in order to move heavy weights.

Still loved by modern sailors, the sea shanties are now rarely used as work songs since contemporary vessels do not require a large group of people to complete a task aboard.

Irish Sea, Irish Muir Éireann, arm of the North Atlantic Ocean that separates Ireland from Great Britain.

The Celtic Sea receives its name from the Celtic heritage of the bounding lands to the north and east.

The Celtic Sea is that section of the Atlantic off the south Irish Coast. The Irish Sea is the sea between Ireland and the UK.

It all started when Scottish musician Nathan Evans recorded a video performing a remarkably catchy rendition of “Wellerman,” a 19th century shanty of New Zealand origin. It blew up online, garnering over four million views on TikTok alone.

The strong rhythmic element is one reason sea shanties are so compelling to our brains — it's also why sea shanties exist in the first place. Shanties are work songs that combine English, Scottish, and Irish folk music with the call and response traditions of African music.

What does tonguing mean whales? ›

'Tonguing' refers to the tonguers, men who would cut up the whales on shore; they also often acted as intepreters with Māori communities, who also worked as part of the whaling crews.

Why Gaelic Isn't Irish. This is where things get a little complicated: specifically, Gaelic is an adjective that describes the people and culture of Ireland. The Irish language is sometimes referred to as “Gaeilge” (pronounced Gwal-gah), but it is not Gaelic; Gaelige is the name of the Irish language in Irish.

Irish is a Celtic language (as English is a Germanic language, French a Romance language, and so on). This means that it is a member of the Celtic family of languages. Its “sister” languages are Scottish, Gaelic, and Manx (Isle of Man); its more distant “cousins” are Welsh, Breton, and Cornish.

Gaelic refers to one of the Celtic languages and cultures, specifically from ancient Ireland, and to the languages developed from it such as modern Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx.

The decline of the Irish language was the result of two factors: the Great Irish Potato Famine and the repeal of Penal Laws. The Potato Famine led to a decline in the Irish-speaking population. The repeal of Penal Law made Catholics interested in learning English as a way to get ahead in life.

The ancient Celts weren't Irish. They weren't Scottish, either. In fact, they were a collection of people/clans from Europe that are identified by their language and cultural similarities.

Irish is a Celtic language which is closely related to Scottish and Manx Gaelic. It is also related to Welsh, Cornish and Breton. The first speakers of Irish probably arrived on these shores from mainland Europe over 2,500 years ago.

RTÉ 2FM listeners have named The Cranberries' 'Zombie' as the greatest Irish hit of all time. The news comes as the station aims to compile a list of hits for the Ultimate Irish Playlist.

Fields of Gold – a simply stunning Irish funeral song

The Eva Cassidy rendition of 'Fields of Gold', has been sung at many Irish funerals. It is one of the most moving of Irish funeral songs.

Who are the Irish most genetically related to? ›

They were also found to have most similarity to two main ancestral sources: a 'French' component (mostly northwestern French) which reached highest levels in the Irish and other Celtic populations (Welsh, Highland Scots and Cornish) and showing a possible link to the Bretons; and a 'West Norwegian' component related to ...

The earliest known Irish surname is O'Clery (O Cleirigh); it's the earliest known because it was written that the lord of Aidhne, Tigherneach Ua Cleirigh, died in County Galway back in the year 916 A.D. In fact, that Irish name may actually be the earliest surname recorded in all of Europe.

The United Kingdom, which includes Northern Ireland, has the greatest share of Irish migrants – meaning Irish citizens or those born in Ireland, according to the United Nations. The U.K has about 500,000 Irish migrants within its borders.

There are three main subcategories of dancing music; jigs, reels, and hornpipes. The reel is the most common form of irish dance tune, said to be brought to Ireland from Scotland in the 18^th century.

The Celts were sun worshippers who practiced a pagan dance within a circular formation of stones which has some commonality to the circular formation of Irish set dancing. Celts were also said to have danced clockwise in circles on happy occasions and anti-clockwise when mourning.

Instrumental Irish music tends to be fast, isometric music that accompanies dances such as jigs, reels and hornpipes (ITMA, 1991). Steady tempo and clarity are emphasized for this reason (Williams, 2009). Slow instrumental pieces for listening (song airs or composed pieces) are less common.

Roman Catholics

The religion of Irish immigrants was Roman Catholicism, although there were some Protestants. The Irish faced hardship and discrimination because they made up a small population of Roman Catholics in a sea of Protestant Americans.

Between 1845 and 1855 more than 1.5 million adults and children left Ireland to seek refuge in America. Most were desperately poor, and many were suffering from starvation and disease. They left because disease had devastated Ireland's potato crops, leaving millions without food.

Pushed out of Ireland by religious conflicts, lack of political autonomy and dire economic conditions, these immigrants, who were often called "Scotch-Irish," were pulled to America by the promise of land ownership and greater religious freedom.

All the way back in 1992, an unknown Matthew McConaughey starred in Trisha Yearwood's 1992 “Walkaway Joe” (ft. Don Henley) video. The 23-year-old McConaughey was just starting out as an actor when he was cast for the video.

What does just a joe mean? ›

countable noun. An average Joe is an average or ordinary man. [mainly US, informal] I'm just an average Joe.

From the book “Folk Songs of Old New England” we learn that this chantey was “sung by Capt. Charlton L. Smith, master mariner and yacht master since 1889, who remembers the chantey as it was sung in deep water ships, aboard which he sailed as 'chips,' or ship's carpenter.

Today, you hear the terms windlass and capstan interchangeably. The difference: typically a windlass has a horizontal axis (drum on the side, axis pointing to the horizon) whereas a capstan has a vertical axis. Essentially both a capstan and windlass achieve the same purpose, and the terms today are interchangeable.

Hoist the Colours, sometimes written as Hoist the Colors, was a sea shanty known by all pirates across the Seven Seas. The song was related to the action of hoisting of a pirate's flag, though it was mainly used as a call to arms for the members of the Brethren Court.

The main difference between a winch and a capstan is that the winch has a drum onto which a rope or steel cable is wound, while a capstan is a powered drum-shaped device used to assist in pulling a rope, steel cable or chain, but which does not actually roll it onto a drum.

One of the earliest references to shanty-like songs that has been discovered was made by an anonymous "steerage passenger" in a log of a voyage of an East India Company ship, entitled The Quid (1832).

Many shanties had Irish tunes – dance, folk, and march – and not only were the words and phrases of many of the shanties of Irish origin but in some cases it was customary for the shantyman to sing the shanties with an imitative Irish brogue.

In Slave Songs of the Georgia Sea Islands, Blacks working on plantations sang work songs called “shanties or chanteys.” These areas were near passable rivers and were heard in Georgia as early as the 1880s.

They evolved with British and northern European sailors during the 16th century. Shanties sung by American sailors include older European and American songs, adaptations of these songs, and original creations. The 1820s through the 1860s were the peak years for American shantying.

Hoist the Colours, sometimes written as Hoist the Colors, was a sea shanty known by all pirates across the Seven Seas. The song was related to the action of hoisting of a pirate's flag, though it was mainly used as a call to arms for the members of the Brethren Court.

Do sailors still sing shanties? ›

Still loved by modern sailors, the sea shanties are now rarely used as work songs since contemporary vessels do not require a large group of people to complete a task aboard.

One of the most popular sea shanties of all time is that which we've come to know as “What Shall We Do with the Drunken Sailor?” The original music reportedly comes from an Irish tune called 'Oró Sé do Bheatha 'Bhaile,' which means “Óró, you are welcome home.”

Sea shanties were one way sailors could keep themselves entertained while performing communal labor. Black sailors performed different tasks than white sailors, and for each activity, there was a different shanty. One prominent song among Black sailors was called “The Ward Line.”

But sea shanties traditionally take a very particular form: They are generally 'call and response' songs, with one singer (known as a 'shantyman') leading and everyone else replying with the chorus. They have a regular, heavy rhythm.

Sea shanties have long been an important part of British musical and maritime culture, and even if that seafaring heyday is now over, groups around the country still preserve the tradition, albeit safe on dry land.

Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean sails into Sea of Thieves for an all-new adventure! Captain Jack Sparrow and his infamous crew have sailed in from beyond the horizon to spark an epic original story. Join forces with Jack and venture across, below and beyond the waves as you battle to save the Sea of Thieves.

In the late 16th and 17th centuries, there were many pirates inhabiting islands across the Caribbean, particularly Jamaica and The Bahamas. The region was lucrative and convenient and served as the perfect hideaway thanks to the many islands and bays.

“They're very, very repetitive and fairly upbeat, uplifting tunes and melodies that people can very quickly join and sing together,” says Loveday. “The melody and the rhythm are designed to match the activities that are going on.”

Most shanties come in 4/4 time, an easy beat to keep track of, or sometimes the more typically Irish-Scottish folk song time of 6/8, which lends itself well to storytelling and seems to mirror the up-and-down movement of waves.