Chords for County Donegal, Ireland - 1964

_ _ When the frontier between Northern Ireland and Eire was finally settled,
six counties were included inside the frontier of Northern Ireland,
and a seventh was left outside, windswept and stranded,
with the Atlantic Ocean all down one side,
and the Northern Ireland border all the way down the other,
connected by only a thin ribbon of land with the rest of Eire.
This county had far less chance of supporting herself
than any of the six counties of Northern Ireland,
the county of Donegal.
_ And yet here, unemployment is no great problem.
Having nothing else to export, Donegal exports men.
It exports them all over the world,
but in particular to the hard outdoor industries of England.
The industries where a man must stand up to the rain and the wind,
industries that need men with strong backs and thick weatherproof skins.
_ Industries that will pay a man well while he's working,
and which need to be able to pay him off as soon as the job is over.
_ So the men of Donegal come to England to build skyscrapers and power stations,
to build roads and to dig tunnels.
Wherever the work is hard and the weather rough and the pay good,
there you will find men from this county
thrust out into the windy ocean at the northernmost corner of Ireland. _ _ _ _ _
The living in Donegal has never been easy,
not for crops, not for animals, not for the trees either,
which lean for their [F] life against the wind,
and not for women either.
And it's the women who are the real natives of this land.
The men best are a mixture of Donegal and the world.
The women are pure Donegal. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [C] _ _ _ From the beginning of [Em] the summer [F] to the end of the winter,
they manage the family, [Dm] the home, and [Db] the land [G] _
alone.
_ _ [C] _ _ _ _ _
[F] _ _ _ _ _ They carry their children [C] alone, they bear them [Gm] alone, [E] and they raise [F] them alone.
_ _ _ _ [Gm] _ [C] _ [Bb] _
_ [Am] _ [Gm] _ They attend to the [Db] crops and to the animals,
often baking their [Dm] own bread, milking their own cow, and churning their own butter.
[Bb] _ _
[A] _ [Gm] _ _ _ [Dm] _ _ [E] _ _
_ _ [Am] _ _ _ _ [Dm] They [E] _ _ bring in the [Dm] hay and the potatoes,
they keep the peat fires burning, [A] they spin and they knit.
_ [Dm] _ _ _ [D] _ They [C] do all this not only with young children [G] about their feet,
but probably for ten years or so of [Cm] their lives with a child in the womb as well.
_ For out in [Gm] Donegal, though there was once a substantial Protestant [C] minority,
in the remote areas it is now Catholicism pure and [Dm] simple.
Every child is a blessing of God [C] and a comfort for his mother.
And one more [F] secure tie to the [Bb] Donegal heart.
[F] _ _ [C] _ _ _
[D] For this land, which [F] will yield so little in the way of fruits of the earth,
[Gm] is as rich in sons and daughters as [C] mainland China.
_ God and the Virgin bless every [F] home, and the greatest blessings they bestow are children. _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [D] The _ _ life of Donegal is found in perhaps its purest form
on the island of Arranmore in the far west. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [Bb] Here the surnames are so common, most of the inhabitants are named Rogers, O'Donnell or Gallaher,
that everyone is known by a nickname. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
The men don't stay away all the year.
Just about now, in fact, they're beginning to come home.
_ Around St.
Patrick's Day they come to repair and repaint the house,
the house they probably built themselves from foundations to chimney pot. _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Each spring they put on a bright new coat of snow-sem after the wet winds of the winter. _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ They come to dig the potato patch in their three acres of peaty ground ready for planting.
They come to plough for the corn sowing and to sow.
They come to cut and stack the [Fm] peat, always keeping a year's supply and reserve in case of a bad winter.
_ _ _ _ Whatever they may do [F] farther [C] south, the men of Donegal don't come [Dm] home to sprawl in a clay and waffle hovel
and drink Mountain Dew until they begin to [G] roar and beat their wives.
They [F] come to do the heaviest of the work about the homestead,
to prepare the wife for another nine months or so of separation,
and [C] probably to father another [E] child.
_ _ [F] _ _
_ _ _ [Bb] _ [C] _ [Bb] _ _ _
[Am] _ [Gm] _ _ _ _ _ [C] _ _
[F] _ [G] _ The Men [E] of Donegal are men all right.
[Am] What manner of creatures are the women?
What have the women who [Dm] live here to say about their lonely, busy, home and farm-bound [Bb] lives?
_ _ [A] _
_ Unused [Dm] to talking much with [Fm] strangers, usually [G] they don't say much,
and when they do, it is hardly ever to [E] complain. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ Mrs.
Galahad, you live here all alone for a good part of the year.
How long is your husband away each year?
Six months. _ _ _
[Ab] And when will he be coming back?
He'll be coming in March.
For the six months, do you miss him very much?
Oh yes, I do.
It's been very long.
Have you ever thought of going with him?
No.
No, I prefer to be here.
Why do you prefer it here?
Oh well, I think it's a better place here, you know.
It's quiet and healthy. _ _ _
_ _ How many children have you got?
I've got five.
What do you actually have to do here?
You look after the house and what else do you have to do?
The house and the land as well.
I work on the land.
Now in time, your children will be growing up, and they will be leaving the island, presumably.
Yes, no doubt about it.
How do you look forward to this?
Oh, I don't look forward to it at all.
_ I'd like to keep them small all the time if I could, but_ _ _ _
Will the boys and the girls go, do you think?
I'm afraid they won't.
What do you do with your spare time here?
You can't have very much.
Not very much.
What sort of social life do you have?
Do you go visiting very much, or do visitors come to you?
No, I don't hardly ever go out. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ Doesn't _ this loneliness worry you?
No, not at all.
I'm used to it now.
I don't mind loneliness at all.
Now, Mrs.
Ward, you've had eleven children here, and you've brought them up with no man about the place.
Now, what was the most difficult thing about this? _ _
Well, I said work with the hardest hand. _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
And then the people who passed on that one _ had to manage the household. _
All right, the children.
Now, of these eleven children that you've brought up here, how many are there left on the island?
_ Just one.
_ _ Is this a cause of great sorrow to you?
Oh, yes, it is.
It's very hard to see them going.
I'd love to have them _ _ near the way I could visit them _ on and off. _
How often do you see them?
_ Well, mostly at the July holidays and in the springtime.
One of them comes home every year for the spring, to help the parents. _
Do you think any of them will come back here to settle down?
[F] Well, I don't know.
_ It's hard to say that. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [C] _ _ _ [Gm] _ _ [E] _ _
[F] _ _ _ _ _ [Bb] _ [C] _ [Bb] _
_ _ [G] Now, as the headmaster of the school on this island, how much do you have to take the place of the fathers that are away?
_ Often we have to do little jobs like cutting hair and sometimes maybe driving a _ _ _ _ _ tractor _ with a coffin to the graveyard.
_ Do you find that the children here lack discipline, their fathers being away, and that you have to be more heavy-handed with them?
No.
In fact, when the father goes away, the older boys take on the greater responsibility and feel they're the men of the house.
And they work better.
They have to do lots of jobs in that [N] house.
They have to work on the land.
They all have small farms.
They work with turf and they work with the saving of the crops.
_ And they haven't much time for blaggardism, really.
_ Going away has been a tradition here for years and years and years, and the children expect that their _ fathers should go away,
and they sometimes do earn money to keep the house going.
And it doesn't upset the house at all.
Is there any insecurity from the fear that their fathers will never come back?
Ah, well, it doesn't happen.
The fathers always come back to their children.
There hasn't been any case of desertion on the island in my memory, nor _ _ _ before me.
I have never