Innisheer

Inisheer

  

Innisheer means East Island. It is the 

smallest and most eastern of the three Aran Islands in Galway Bay, Ireland. 

The song, Innisheer, is a beautiful, 

lyrical slow air and is one of the most popular tunes played 

by traditional Irish musicians.  But…the tune is not traditional or very ancient.  

It was composed by accordion player 

Thomas Walsh from Dublin in the ‘70’s.   He said he composed 'Inisheer' after spending the best holiday of his life on the island.   To quote him, “There was no electricity on the island at that time, which was new to a Dub like me. 

I found the people and the island had something special which I never experienced before. I went for three days and came home three weeks later, due to a lack of money. I composed 'Inisheer' the next day while I was walking in the Phoenix Park dreaming of what I had left behind, and the peace and tranquility it gave me.”

The Salley Gardens

"The Sally Gardens" is a poem published in 1889 by Irish poet, William Butler Yeats.  (13 June 1865 – 28 January 1939). Yeats indicated in a note that the poem was "an attempt to reconstruct an old song from three lines imperfectly remembered by an old peasant woman in the village of  Ballisodare, Sligo, who often sang them to herself." The composer John Ireland set the words to an original melody.  See video below under Harp Demo.

The Salley Gardens

(Salley in Irish means Willow.)

Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet;
She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white
feet.
She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;
But I, being young and foolish, with her would not
agree.
In a field by the river my love and I did stand,
And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white
hand.
She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;
But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.