John Maguire feeding his pigs

 

• • One of the tracks on the Swinging Swine recordings that Padraig posted is a version of a traditional song called Molly Bawn Lowry.
    This stood out right away for my ears as one of the most interesting tracks on the tape. Maybe because I hadn’t heard it before, or maybe because the combination of Joanne’s vocal style and these words is so attractive.I always did find her accent a little strange, and I still don’t know the words of some of the swine songs. There was one phrase that really got my attention in the song though, – what sounded like the use of the word sizes. – “Don’t leave your country till assizes come on”.
  • There are of course, plenty of versions of auld songs out there, and searching around for the lyrics, you will find Molly Bawn, Molly Bán and Molly Bawn Lowry and the like. And that’s just the title. (Of all that I’ve read since this is the only version that maintains use of the word assizes, and it’s certainly my favourite).
    

    DISCARDED

    However I could not initially find any reference to assizes. In fact, I could not find anything close to what Joanne was singing. Then one day, the phrase appeared in a web search, in a book preview for “Come day, go day, god send sunday”. The text is almost exactly what Joanne is singing. A few weeks later there was no sign of it again online. However, I remembered enough of the title to go looking for the book and some months later I found a copy on eBay from a seller up north. A discarded Library copy. After having read a couple of paragraphs of the text following the song, (see below) I was feeling intrigued and fanatic enough to decide that this book was meant to come into my possession. I wondered if somehow somebody in the Swine had heard that version of the song, maybe it had made its way it Manchester at some point. Ooh my imagination went into overdrive…. (not really)

  • Now. I suppose I could have gone a shorter route from the beginning to find out about this song, and I did eventually put the auld social networks to use and get in touch with Eamonn. This is what he had to say:Molly Bawn….I recall Doug unearthed that. Paul Thomas was involved. I think he had sourced an old ballad book and thats where the lyrics came from. I cant remember if we had heard somebody sing it, but doug put the chords/melody together and Hugh fiddler came up with some parts as well. A great song I think.

• • Indeed, a great song – and there’s plenty of other great songs and crazy stories in the book. It’s full of insight into life in rural Fermanagh just a few years ago. I’m glad I found it in this roundabout way. It’s a lesson about “auld” and about “discarded”.I’m glad Doug found it too, and that John Maguire learned the song from his mother, sang it all his life, remembered it along with about 10,000 other songs, and that eventually Robin Morton took the time to go and talk to John and write it all down so that later on it could be fed to a bunch of scruffy pigs who would make it beautiful. I hope you will be happy about all that too, while listening. I’ll leave you with the song, and the inside front cover plate from the book, – up to you to figure out which pig is which.
  • The Swinging Swine – Molly Bawn Lowry
    (this is the version from Padraig’s upload – since getting in touch with Eamonn, i’ve received 25 auld Swine Songs, including a better quality copy of this one, and they will be making their way onto this blog.)
    

Inside cover Plate