Talk:Londonderry Air

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Properly, "Londonderry Air" can also refer to the music, not just this particular set of lyrics (one of many). The song "Danny Boy" is also set to the same music. Julian May describes a good deal of the song's history in an appendix to her The Many-Colo[u]red Land (it's page 410 of my 1982 Pan paperback, ISBN 0-330-26656-X) and gives a number of more scholarly references. I suspect that there is even more recent scholarship on the tune than that.

The tune, says May, was first published in 1855 by George Petrie in a collection entitled Ancient Music of Ireland. The version in Petrie's book did not yet have a title. 18.24.0.120 02:30, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Danny Boy

I suspect that the title, DANNY BOY, would be an anglicisation of the Gaelic, DOMHNAILL BUI, referring to Donal (in modern Irish) with the fair hair (BUI meaning yellow). Any comments?

It seems unlikely given that Danny Boy written by an Englishman, Fred Weatherly, long after the tune was published, but before he had heard it.--Henrygb 03:56, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Alternate Title?

I seem to recall owning a CD some years ago that listed Danny Boy as set to the music of the "Air from County Derry"? Should this be mentioned? I suspect its a RC/Protestant thing.Hornplease 06:14, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Probably also trying to avoid a schoolboy snigger at derrière. I wouldn't make concessions to sectarian prudes. --Henrygb 02:27, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Terry Wogan calls it 'Derry Air', and that's good enough for me. The Audley article linked also quotes that name once. Townmouse 19:42, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

"A Derry Air" is not the name of the song. This is supported by doing a google search which lists 3 results relating to the song - one is on a German page, one is on a homepage of a user named "gael"-something (now redundant with a 404 not found error), and the last one is on a Japanese page.

The song's name should not be changed simply because of pointless sectarian wranglings over Londonderry/Derry Jonto 14:41, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

The name of the tune is Londonderry Air, whatever the name you want to call the City\County, it doesn't change the name of the song. Keith 17:25, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Having said that, I would say its name is rather unfortunate as we can expect there will be strong arguments from both sides if and when it becomes an official or at least more common anthem

In that case it becomes "Please stand for the tune from Danny Boy". There isn't any argument that is the name of the melody. theKeith 11:16, 1 April 2006 (UTC)