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The Old Bog Road

by Lewis Barfoot

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Lewis learnt The Old Bog Road from the elders at Dunmanway Hospital in West Cork where she ran music sessions with the inpatients and day-care patients:

”The Elders would share fragments of old songs and send me home with a long list to learn. They couldn’t always remember the whole song themselves, but would be brutally honest in telling me when I’d got it wrong. The shared experience of singing with and learning from these Elders was liminal and beautiful, I hope they will enjoy the recordings. It is an honour to keep these old folk songs alive. I never met my East Cork grandparents and I only learned their names in 2018. This project has helped me re-connect with that generation and also with my heritage”

The Old Bog Road is a poem written by Teresa Brayton. She was born in 1868 in County Kildare, Ireland and wrote under the pseudonym of T.B. Kilbrook. It was first published in her 'Songs of the Dawn and Irish Dittys" in New York in 1913. The original poem has 5 verses. It was set to music by Westmeath woman Madeline King O’Farrell.

lyrics

V1:
My feet are here on Broadway, this blessed harvest morn,
But o the ache that’ s in them for the spot where I was born,
My weary hands are blistered, from work in cold and heat,
And o to swing a scythe today, through fields of Irish wheat,
Had I the chance to wander back or own a King's abode,
’Tis soon I’d see the hawthorn tree, by The Old Bog Road.

V2:
My mother died last springtime, when Ireland's field's were green,
The neighbours said her waking was the finest ever seen,
There were snowdrops and primroses, piled high beside her bed,
And Ferns Church was crowded, when her funeral mass was said,
But there was I on Broadway, just building bricks for load,
When they carried out her coffin down the Old Bog Road.

V3:
Ah! life’s is a weary puzzle, as finding out by man,
I take the day for what it's worth, and do the best I can,
Since no one cares a rush for me what need to make a moan,
I go my way and draw my pay and smoke my pipe alone,
Each human heart must know it's grief, though bitter be its load,
So God be with you Ireland, and the Old Bog Road.

So God be with you Ireland, and the Old Bog Road.

credits

released November 8, 2024
Lyrics: Teresa Brayton (Neé Terasa Coca Boylan)
Music: Madeline King O'Farrelly
Photo by Joleen Cronin (Additional design by Lewis)
Produced by Lewis Barfoot
Recorded, mixed and mastered by Giles Barrett at Lightship 95 in London
Vocals by Lewis Barfoot

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Lewis Barfoot Cork, Ireland

”Vocals to melt the hearts of angels“ -FRUK
 
Contemporary Folk Artist Lewis Barfoot displays a fearless and disarming honesty in her lyrics, She works with an uncomplicated loveliness of sound, blending ethereal, evocative vocals with original compositions and reinventions of trad songs. Frequently compared to the likes of Kate Rusby, Sandy Denny and Maíre Brennan.
'A Terrific Debut' -  FATEA ... more

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