Key signature: Dmajor
Submitted on July 11th 2003 by daithic.
This tune has been added to 91 tunebooks.
Also known as Caoineadh Na HInise, The Lament Of The Island, The Music Of The Fairies, Poirt Na BPúcaí, Poirt Na BPucai, Port Na Bpúcaí, Port Na Bpúcai, Port Na BPucaí, Port Na BPucai, Port Na BPuchai, Song Of The Pookas.
Recordings of a tune by this name:
X: 1
T: Pórt Na BPúcaí
M: 3/4
L: 1/8
R: waltz
K: Dmaj
| d>c A3 B | A{BA}G/E/ F2 G2 \
| A>B =c3{dc}B | A3/2{BA}G/ {AB}A4 |
| d>c {AB}A3 B | A{BA}G/E/ {A}F2 {A}G2 \
| A{BA}G/F/ G4- | G{AG}F G4 :|
|: A>B c2 d2 | e f/g/ {fg}f2 g2 \
| {b}a{ba}g/f/ g2 e>f | {ef}e{fe}d/B/ c4 |
| [1 {AB}A>B c2 d2 | {ef}e f/g/ {fg}f2 g2 \
| {b}a{ba}g/f/ g2 e>f | e{fe}d/c/ d4 :|
| [2 d>c {AB}A3 B | {c}A{BA}G/E/ F2 G2 \
| A{BA}G/F/ G4- | G{AG}F G4 ||
History
A beautiful slow air, Port na bPucai (translated as “Music of the Fairies”), from Inishvickillane Island in the Blaskets, Co Kerry. Legend tells that three islanders were rowing back to Inishvickillane when they heard these strange sounds emanating from the hull of their currach. One islander, a fiddler, picked up his bow and played along to this eerie sounds, thought to have been made by fairies. Many years later the connection was made between Port na bPucai and the song of the humpback whale. Maybe it was indeed Port na bPucai – the sound of the fairies – or perhaps the islanders heard a singing whale heading south to breeding grounds around the Cape Verdes.
# Posted on July 11th 2003 by daithic
Favourite
Definetly one of my favourites. I had never heard the history before, though, thanks!
# Posted on February 15th 2004 by ACT
Port Na bPucai on Uilleann Pipes
Ronan Browne plays a beautiful version of this air on The Drones & the Chanters volume 2.
# Posted on November 5th 2004 by Eamonn Croke
Definitely a classic slow air and very suited to the pipes - heard Mikey Smyth (a young Dublin piper) play this some years ago and it was pure magic!
# Posted on November 6th 2004 by Bannerman
Heard this also
... on Martin Haye's Live in Seatle disc, on Forgotten Day's played by Davy Spillane......
and....
On Riverdance. ;)
# Posted on June 29th 2005 by Pádraig
Tony MacMahon's version...
is eerie and gorgeous. He does this shimmering thing with his squeezebox. Although I heard it first on the Noel Hill and Tony MacMahon live album, I saw Tony play the tune live in a guest appearance with Boys of the Lough concert in Edinburgh, 1995. His rendition was just magical and all from a single row Hohner button box.
Recently heard/saw a flute version played by Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh of Danu on their One Night Stand live DVD in the special features. Another great version but it was used as background music for her interview.
# Posted on July 28th 2006 by M31
Seamus Heaney wrote his poem The Given Note after hearing Sean O Riada tell the story of this air. A strong case has been made that this is one of many tunes O'Riada composed and 'let loose' to see what happened. Obviously the tune was assimilated into the tradition as genuine although there's no provenance before O Riada's time.
Peadar O Riada on his website jokes that if they got a penny for each time 'Carrickfergus' was played they'd be rich by now, so that's another one.
# Posted on September 13th 2006 by kilfarboy
Port Na bPucai
I read in the comments thread about this tune that it may have been written by Sean O Riada? Does anyone know about this? Either way it is a lovely tune.
# Posted on January 2nd 2007 by williamcoulter
Re: Port Na bPucai
This is the tune which, so i was told, was meant to have risen from the sea and which was heard by some people in a currach boat going from the mainland to the Blasket Islands (I think?). They remembered the wailing of the tune and, if memory is correct, it is meant to have come from the fairies or something. Either way, it goes down in folklore as a fairy tune and, unless you're calling sean o'riada a fairy, i don't think he wrote it.
# Posted on January 2nd 2007 by copo24
Re: Port Na bPucai
That's correct copo, it predates O Riada. An account of the tune's origin is given in "The Western Island" by Robin Flower, published in the 1940s, still in print I think as a paperback (Oxford University Press).
The following is lifted from a contribution to the IR-Trad list by Paul de Grae:
QUOTE Paul d G
What may be regarded as the definitive recording of "Port na bPúcaí" is that on "Beauty an Oileáin: Music and Song of the Blasket Islands" (Claddagh CC56CD, published 1992). It is played on fiddle by Seán Cheaist Ó Catháin, who was born on the Great Blasket, and learned most of his music there. He died in 1972. This recording was made by Muiris Mac Conghail in 1968, a date which effectively rules out the influence of Ó Riada. Seán Cheaist's setting is not exactly as it's usually played today, stranger and less shaped, but very beautiful--perhaps Ó Riada polished it up a bit to produce the "modern" setting. Seán Cheaist prefaces his playing of the tune by a few words on its origin. The excellent booklet accompanying the CD gives this translation from the Irish:
"There were people from the Great Blasket who were living in Inis Mhic Uibhleáin [a.k.a. Inishvickilaune, one of the smaller Blaskets, later bought by Charlie Haughey] many years ago, about eighty years ago, and they were herdsmen looking after stock for a landlord who was living in Dingle, and they went to stay on the island every year. Then one winter's night they were in bed, asleep, and the old woman was the first to hear the sound and she thought it was the sound of birds or something like that, that the sound . . . the sound was coming nearer all the time until at last she realised that it was music and she woke the old man beside her and both of them listened to the sound for a long time until they were able to remember it and it has been on the Blasket ever since, 'The Fairies' Lament'. That has been on the Blasket ever since that time."
UNQUOTE Paul de G
# Posted on January 2nd 2007 by Jeeves Tones