Irish Translation Forum

Déirín dé - a children's game spinning a burning stick

the brown goat's bleating in the heather
the ducks are quacking in the bog
the cows head west at daybreak
and my wain will go and guard them in pasture
moon will rise and sun go down
it's you are my child and my darling
i will let my child pick berries
but let him sleep till dawn


warm a drop…for the auld wan
put the old wan to sleep
and wash his legs and warm a drink for the auld wan
a hen's egg for the old one
a hen's egg and a bit of butter to give to the auld one
fresh meat for the old person
fresh meat and a drop of soup….




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Thanks for the translation! I'm not getting any email notices of replies to my threads, and it's causing me to not find them. Sorry about that.

scw1217 wrote:Déirín dé, déirín dé!

This was originally a game played by children using smoking sticks which they waved around in the air. The word Dé here refers too the smoke.

Endloser Winter wrote:and many Englishmen were also interested in Ireland's culture despite the tension between the two nations.

'Many' might be a bit of an exaggeration here. Those that liked the songs enough to record them were well educated enthusiasts who were few and far between. Immigrants from the countryside to Dublin with their 'inferior & foreign' Gaelic culture were not well received or appreciated by the City dwellers of the 18th &19th century.

According to Déirín Dé (the group of musicians) - Déirín Dé means the last puff of smoke.

fiairefeadha wrote:Many' might be a bit of an exaggeration here. Those that liked the songs enough to record them were well educated enthusiasts who were few and far between. Immigrants from the countryside to Dublin with their 'inferior & foreign' Gaelic culture were not well received or appreciated by the City dwellers of the 18th &19th century.

I am not sure where your information is coming from, but mine is generally at odds with it, at least in terms of the level of negative or positive reception. I am well aware of the negative reception and all that, and indeed quite a bit more of 19th-century Irish history than the average chap, but I have to disagree with the level you purport. However, for the purpose of this thread, I prefer to point only to what is relevant, which is that enough was printed to find pre-1860 Irish songs and lullabies, especially on Google Books, where I have found a lot of contemporary sources for my own work. That is the extent of what I hope to assert here.