Sorry I didn't get a chance to post yesterday, some of the students in work were having their leaving do (hopefully me and a couple of the other students will get a separate one in a couple of weeks time but we'll see). Anyway, I wasn't in the house long enough to do much by the way of typing but I'll make sure the songs keep coming.

Today's song is The Green Glens of Antrim, composed in 1950 by Kenneth North. This is another song that I only heard about when someone suggested it as a Northern Ireland national anthem on the Our Wee Country website. When I first heard it it reminded me vividly of Graham's Record Shop (RIP) in Portrush. It's that old country/folky type music with accordians and what to my untrained ear sounds like an accoustic guitar in the background (at least that's the version I heard by Foster and Allen). If you want to know what sort of song it is, Daniel O'Donnell has also performed a version for at least one of his albums! Sure yer granny'll love it!

The song tells of a traveller who has left Ulster and longs to return to the beautiful scenery of the glens and to one particular person in particular ("the one that's been aye in my mind") that he left behind in Cushendun (or Cushendall depending who you believe).

Follow up:

The Green Glens of Antrim

Far accross yonder blue, lies a true fairy land
With the sea rippling over the shingle and sand
Where the gay honeysuckle is luring the bee
And the green glens of Antrim are calling to me

Sure if only you knew how the light of the moon
Turns a blue Irish bay to a silver lagoon
You'd imagine the picture of heaven it would be
Where the green glens of Antrim are welcoming me

Soon I hope to return to my own Cushendun
It's the one place on Earth that can outshine them all
Sure I know every stone, I recall every tree
Where the green glens of Antrim are heaven to me

I'd be where the people are simple and kind
And amongst them the one that's been aye in my mind
Oh I pray that the world would in peace let me be
Where the green glens of Antrim are calling to me.