manx celtic music and dance

RESEARCH - "Songs and Tunes Can Go Two Ways"

03 Oct 2016

"Songs and Tunes Can Go Two Ways":
The case of Manx Ushag Veg Ruy and
Scottish Gaelic Uiseag Bheag Dhearg
 
GEORGE BRODERICK
University of Mannheim
 
"Songs and tunes can go two ways". This was how Mona Douglas (1898-1987) characterised her experience in the Isle of Skye, she told me during a visit I made on her at her home in Ballaragh, Lonan, in the summer of 1974, in her capacity has Hon. Secretary of the Manx Branch of the Celtic Congress, which she held from 1917 to 1952. She said that this position enabled her to visit the Celtic countries of Man, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Cornwall and Brittany, where she would come into contact with the song and dance traditions of those countries.
 
Mona told me that on a visit to the Isle of Skye, seemingly around 1920, in the above capacity, she sung at a cèilidh song session the Manx traditional lullaby Ushag Veg Ruy ny Moaney Dhoo 'little red bird of the black turf-ground'.
 
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