Transcript

A Róisín, ná bíodh brón ort ná cás anois,
Tá do phardún ón Róimh is ón bPápa agat,
Thá na bráithre ag teacht thar sáile is ag triall thar muir,
Is ní ceilfear fíon Spáinneach ar mo Róisín Dubh.

Tá grá agam im lár duit le bliain anois,
Grá cráite, grá cásmhar, grá ciapaithe,
Grá do dh'fhág mé gan sláinte, gan rian, gan rioth,
Is go brách brách gan aon fháil agam ar mo Róisín Dubh.

Beidh an fharraige 'na tuilte dearga is an spéir 'na fuil,
Beidh gach gleann sléibhe ar fuaid Éireann is móinte ar crioth,
Beidh an saol 'na cogadh caorach dhe dhroim na gcnoc,
Lá éigin sula n-éagfaidh mo Róisín Dubh.

Translation

Róisín, don't be filled with sorrow or regret,
You have your pardon from Rome and from the Pope,
The brethren are crossing the sea and journeying the ocean,
And Spanish wine will not be denied to my Dark Róisín.

I have love in my heart for you for the past year,
An aching love, a regretful love, a suffering love,
A love that has sapped my health and vigour,
And I am for ever and ever without my Dark Róisín.

The sea will flood red and the sky will be like blood,
Every mountain glen and moor in Ireland will shake,
The world will be at blazing war from the mountainsides,
Someday before my Dark Róisín dies.

Commentary

'Róisín Dubh' is arguably the most popular song in the Irish tradition. George Petrie (1790-1866) wrote that "in the entire range of Irish melodies there is perhaps scarcely one of more widely spread popularity amongst the Irish peasantry than the air called 'Róis Geal Dubh', and sometimes 'Róisín Dubh'". See The Petrie collection of the ancient music of Ireland (Dublin, 1855), 125-8. The Irish-language scholar Eugene O'Curry, on whom Petrie had drawn in his discussion of the song, complained that the versions of the song which were published by James Clarence Mangan in John O'Daly, Poets and poetry of Munster (Dublin, 1849), 257, 261, and James Hardiman in Irish minstrelsy (London, 1831), 351, had been 'equally corrupted by interpolations from other songs, with a view to give them a political bearing, and to convert poor Róisín Dubh into an allegorical personification of unhappy Ireland in the reign of Elizabeth.' The version published by Petrie, in contrast, seems to be without allegorical allusion, and thus may be closer to the original love song.

Many versions of this song are found throughout Ireland and it is sung to a number of different melodies. Two settings of the air were published by Edward Bunting (1773-1843) in The ancient music of Ireland (London, 1840), 16-17. The melody to which Sean Ó Droma sings in this recording, has become the most recognisable and popular version of 'Róisín Dubh', since it was adapted and arranged by Seán Ó Riada for use in George Morrison's film Mise Éire (Gael-Linn, 1959).