Blind Mary’s Serenade

Blind Mary’s Serenade

When first Turlough met her, In the darkness where they played, She struck the note on which he wrote Her own dark serenade.

And her chords embraced him, Touched his heart Where the music etched and stayed, To record her name, and her own dark fame In a brief sweet serenade.

Down here in the darkness Mo Grá, Mo Craoibin cno* O the notes we touched, that we loved too much, Were as pure as driven snow.

Let the chords embrace you,
Touch your soul Like a web of time’s dark shade; And your name will ring when a voice may sing Blind Mary’s serenade.

And her chords embraced him, Touched his heart Where the music etched and stayed, To record her name, and her own dark fame In a brief sweet serenade.

— © Frank Callery October 2015.

*Mo Grá, Mo Craoibhin cno = Gaelic for: “my love, my maid of the nut brown hair or “my cluster of nuts”.

This would have been the language of Turlough O Carolan’s time and remained so up to and beyond the time of the Irish songwriter Edward Walsh (1805-1850) who wrote a song called: ‘Mo Craoibhin Cno’ (My Cluster of Nuts)

Carolan (1670-1738) Although the tune is unlike Carolan in style, we know from the Diary of Charles O’Connor (part 1, p. 63) that in October 1726 his two younger brothers were being taught the harp by a woman called Máire Dhall (Blind Mary – Dall being the Gaelic term for blind). She must have been well known to Carolan and it is possible that he composed this piece for her.

Thomas Davis, the Irish patriot, wrote a poem to this air, with the same title. It is printed, but without the music, in The Spirit of the Nation (1846) p. 235. Davis probably got the tune from his friend the music collector Pigot.