Dónal Clancy

I'm going to play you an air that's about 170 years old or so.

A few months ago I was working on a score for a documentary on Daniel O'Connell of this parish.

There was obviously the famine happened around the same time as Daniel actually died during the famine.

But I was instantly drawn to this tune that I knew for a long time as my father was a Shanno singer himself.

And so I decided to read up about this piece of music and this song.

It's called Johnny Shoig or Johnny Joyce would be the English version.

And to my, the story goes is that it was written by a man about his experience going down to the local workhouse during the famine to collect his allocation of Indian corn only for the bailiff, for the agent, the landlord's agent who was distributing the said corn to turn him away because he didn't like him, they didn't get on.

So this man who was trying to feed a large family had to turn around with an empty pot.

And so he had nothing to do and had no agency except to write a song about the man, which he did.

And he wrote a song called Johnny Shoiga.

And it's satire.

And in the satire, he praises Johnny Shoiga's generosity

handsomeness.

And so it's quite a dark song.

And it went unplayed and unsung for many years because, obviously, ancestors were still alive.

And it was tricky territory.

But I'm just mindful to play it for you today, mindful of the fact that what is our history is other places' current affairs.

And so Johnny Show again.

Also, I'd add that when I looked into the song and the history of it, I discovered that the song is thought to have been written by one of two people, of one of which his name is Micheal Warkish Macanamara, so an ancestor of mine.

So .