"Star of the County Down"

No personal notes.

A star, in Irish vernacular, is a beautiful woman (The Fiddler's Companion.)

County Down takes its name from Downpatrick, where St. Patrick is said to have been buried (Down is a variation of the Celtic word Dun, meaning a fortified place) (The Fiddler's Companion.)

The song is sung from the point of view of a young man who chances to meet a charming lady by the name of Rose (or Rosie) McCann, referred to as the "star of the County Down". From a brief encounter the writer's infatuation grows until, by the end of the ballad, he imagines wedding the girl (Wikipedia).

The Fiddler's Companion reports that this tune has had widespread use;

John Loesberg (1980) says the air originally was set to the sheet ballad "My Love Nell," but first appears under the "Star of the County Down" title in Hughes' Irish Country Songs, with words written by Cathal Mac Garvey {1866-1927}. However, this popular air seems to have been attached to numerous songs over the years. For example, P.W. Joyce (1909) prints a version of the air under the title "Mary from Blackwater Side" (No. 187), while George Petrie (Stanford/Petrie, 1905) collected it several times: as an untitled air from favorite source sculptor Patrick MacDowell (No. 196), "When first I left old Ireland" (No. 863), and "Paddy's Return" (No. 867). This tune is identified by Cazden (et al, 1982) as belonging to the protean and huge 'Lazarus' family of tunes, which includes, among numerous others in the Gaelic/British tradition, the Scottish "Gilderoy," Cazden's own Catskill Mountain collected "Banks of the Sweet Dundee," and Chappell's English "We Be Poor, Frozen Out Gardeners" as well as literally hundreds of other airs. Jerome Colburn points out that an American shape-note variant of the "Star" family appears in the tenor of the hymn "Help Me to Sing" (attributed to B.F. White) from The Sacred Harp (1859). The tune is also used for two poaching ballads (one from Scotland, one from Ireland, "Van Dieman's Land"), remembers Sean Laffey, and the forebitter/capstan shanty "Banks of Newfoundland."

Lyrics

Star of the County Down

Near Banbridge town, in the County Down
One morning in July
Down a boreen green came a sweet colleen
And she smiled as she passed me by.
She looked so sweet from her two white feet
To the sheen of her nut-brown hair
Such a coaxing elf, I'd to shake myself
To make sure I was standing there.
From Bantry Bay up to Derry Quay
And from Galway to Dublin town
No maid I've seen like the sweet colleen
That I met in the County Down.

As she onward sped I shook my head
And I gazed with a feeling rare
And I said, says I, to a passerby
"who's the maid with the nut-brown hair?"
He smiled at me, and with pride says he,
"That's the gem of Ireland's crown.
She's young Rosie McCann
from the banks of the Bann
She's the star of the County Down."
From Bantry Bay up to Derry Quay
And from Galway to Dublin town
No maid I've seen like the sweet colleen
That I met in the County Down.

I've travelled a bit, but never was hit
Since my roving career began
But fair and square I surrendered there
To the charms of young Rose McCann.
I'd a heart to let and no tenant yet
Did I meet with in shawl or gown
But in she went and I asked no rent
From the star of the County Down.
From Bantry Bay up to Derry Quay
And from Galway to Dublin town
No maid I've seen like the sweet colleen
That I met in the County Down.

At the crossroads fair I'll be surely there
And I'll dress in my Sunday clothes
And I'll try sheep's eyes, and deludhering lies
On the heart of the nut-brown rose.
No pipe I'll smoke, no horse I'll yoke
Though with rust my plow turns brown
Till a smiling bride by my own fireside
Sits the star of the County Down.
From Bantry Bay up to Derry Quay
And from Galway to Dublin town
No maid I've seen like the sweet colleen
That I met in the County Down.