“Lovely Corranmore” is an emigration song expressing a Leitrim exile’s longing for home. Its narrator recalls leaving from Sligo Bay to seek a living in America and contrasts the factories, lights and nightclubs of New York with the clean air, hills, homes and familiar faces of Corranmore.
The final verse identifies Corranmore as the birthplace of Seán MacDiarmada, the Leitrim-born revolutionary and signatory of the 1916 Proclamation. MacDiarmada inspired numerous songs and poems, but the writer of “Lovely Corranmore” has not yet been identified.
The song was already in circulation by 1961, when Peggy Gilligan was recorded singing it in Drumshanbo. It was also recorded by the late Fermanagh singer Tommy McDermott and included on his album “In the Shadows of Sliabh Beagh”. The performance featured here was recorded when Tommy was 84 years old at the opening session of the Lisnaskea Traditional Music Weekend. of Aughavas, to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Selton Hill Ambush.
Song Details
- Songwriter: Unknown
- Place: Corranmore, near Kiltyclogher, County Leitrim
- Theme: Emigration, homesickness, place and Seán MacDiarmada
- Archival source: Leitrim Local Studies – Seán MacDiarmada
- Singer on this recording: Tommy McDermott, County Fermanagh
- Recorded by: Martin Donohoe
- Video: Tommy McDermott singing at the opening session of the Lisnaskea Traditional Music Weekend, aged 84
Listen to Tommy McDermott
Lyrics
Lovely Corranmore
I sailed away from my cottage home many years ago
On board a liner from Sligo Bay as the sun was sinking low
I was shedding tears for the friends I knew as we sailed out from the shore
I had said farewell to my parents dear in lovely Corranmore
I was forced to go from my Leitrim home a living to obtain
And far away I had to stray, all to America
New York they say is very gay I’ve traversed it o’er and o’er
It cannot compare to the Leitrim air, we scent round Corranmore
I worked hard both day and night in a dreary factory
The conditions there appeared to me to be almost slavery
After prayers I’d descend the stairs, in the morning to the door
To be greeted by a letter from my home in Corranmore
These letters from my mother concerning all the news
And postcards from my neighbours with all the local views
To be here three thousand miles away, sure It grieves me to the core
I long to see the friends I knew and loved round Corranmore
Now all the lights In Brooklyn or night clubs on Broadway
Cannot compare to the hills of Dubh or the homes around Killay
They are living close to nature and I’ll soon return once more
To Sean McDermott’s birthplace in lovely Corranmore
The Leitrim Larks 