The Frank Harte Song Collection <h4> A Living Voice

Songs are the voice of the soul

That's not a quote from anyone but myself. When I was six, a new bridge was opened in Lifford by Captain Terence O'Neill, PM of Northern Ireland and Neil Blaney, FF TD for Donegal north east. Around the same time, the Sunday Press ran a four page special on The Clancy Brothers' success in America. It included lyric sheets for Brennan on the Moor, Boolavogue and Wild Mountain Thyme. My father offered 6d to whoever learned them. Whether any of these things are even vaguely related is irrelevant because they were to me. Myself and my brother learned the songs and many more like them while we travelled the back roads of Donegal in my father's old Morris Minor. That began a lifelong interest. As a student in Dublin in the '70s I saw Planxty and Moving Hearts come together and fall apart. The Meeting Place on Parnell St was our Mecca, along with upstairs in Slattery's of Capel St. But it was in The Meeting Place where I first heard Frank Harte and he sang The Maid from Cabra West. There was a song with everything but particularly that sardonic, satirical, even cynical tone of the the best of Dublin balladeering, from Zozimus to the present day. As a poet, the descriptive word play is sparse but effective, the songs' bite like a comet's trail. Who wouldn't want to celebrate that tradition?

Must have for singing enthusiasts

Great book covering the entire collected works of Frank Harte.