Éamonn an Chnoic

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"Éamonn an Chnoic" ("Ned of the Hill") is a popular song in traditional Irish music. It is a slow, mournful ballad with a somber theme and no chorus.

The song concerns Éamonn Ó Riain (Edmund Ryan), an Irish aristocrat who lived in County Tipperary from 1670 – 1724 and led a bandit or rapparee gang. Although there is no positive proof of Ryan's existence, he is mentioned in a pamphlet of 1694, in which he and four other raparee leaders called for the overthrow of William of Orange in favour of the Catholic James II.^[1]

The background to Ryan's career was the confiscation of Irish Catholic land in the Act of Settlement 1652 after the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland when many dispossessed landowners became outlaws, known as "tories" or "rapparees". Their ranks were swelled after the Williamite War of 1689-91, when many of the defeated Catholic Jacobites turned to banditry. It is likely that Ryan himself served in the Jacobite army.

It is said that Ryan became a rapparee or outlaw after shooting a tax collector dead during a quarrel over the confiscation of a poor woman's cow. Various other stories are told in which Ó Riain plays the role of the rebel hero who battles authority in the mode of Robin Hood and countless others.

The song is usually sung in Irish, but various English versions are popular as well. Here is one:

Oh dark is the evening and silent the hour

Oh who is that minstrel by yon shady tower?

Whose harp is so tenderly touching with skill

Oh who could it be but young Ned of the Hill?

And he sings, "Lady love, will you come with me now?

Come and live merrily under the bough.

I'll pillow your head where the light fairies tread

If you will but wed with young Ned of the Hill.

Young Ned of the Hill has no castle or hall,

No bowmen or spearmen to come at his call.

But one little archer of exquisite skill

Has loosed a bright shaft for young Ned of the Hill.

It is hard to escape to this young lady's bower

For high is the castle and guarded the tower.

But where there's a will there's always a way

And young Eileen is gone with young Ned of the Hill.^[2]

Other versions also highlight the failure of Ó Riain's countrymen to come to rally to his defense and more strongly emphasize that Ó Riain had been a man of wealth and influence. For example:

"Oh who is without

That with passionate shout

Keeps beating my bolted door?"

"I am Ned of the Hill

Forspent wet and chill

From long trudging marsh and moor."

"My love, fond and true

What else could I do

But shield you from wind and from weather?

When the shots fall like hail

They us both shall assail

And mayhap we shall die together."

"Through forest and through snow

Tired and hunted I go

In fear both from friend and from neighbor

My horses run wild

My acres untilled

And they all of them lost to my labor

But it grieves me far more

Than the loss of my store

That there's none who would shield me from danger

So my fate it must be

To fare eastward o'er sea

And languish amid the stranger"^[2]

"Éamonn an Chnoic" has been recorded by countless artists in both English and Irish. Some versions, such as the "Young Ned of the Hill" recorded by The Pogues, adapt the lyrics to a fast-tempo song with only a passing similarity to the original folk song. Completely instrumental versions are also common. "Éamonn an Chnoic" is one of few contemporary Irish folk songs to which a harp can easily carry the tune.

[edit] See also

• Irish rebel songs

[edit] Notes

Eamonn A Chnoic==References==

• "Ned of the Hill" (2006). Sing Out! The Folk Song Magazine. Retrieved February 26, 2007.