Tom's Radical Renfrew gathers poems in Scots from the 1790s to the 20th century (as I remember--don't know where my copy is at the moment).

-----Original Message-----
From: "Hampson, R" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Oct 15, 2014 5:15 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Larry from Dublin (continued)

I wonder about Scott’s novels in this context. The poetry of Burns (and some of his precursors) would also be relevant here.

 

 

Robert

 

From: British & Irish poets [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of David Bircumshaw
Sent: 14 October 2014 21:02
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Larry from Dublin (continued)

 

that's very interesting Rob but an assumption is made that there was an 'original' text in in non-Anglicised English whereas surely any text rather than orally transmitted version would have been liable to be set up by the printers in the King's English, as it were?  What I am asking is whether there is any evidence of a market for printed texts in non-standard English orthography in the eighteenth or early nineteenth century and if so why? For if pupils were taught to read it would have been in the standard English style not a modern attempt at restoring a lost vernacular?

best

dave
 

 

On 14 October 2014 06:09, Robin Hamilton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Crucially

John Edward Walsh, _Ireland sixty years ago_ (1851), Chap. 8 -- Slang Songs [etc.] , for background on Larry, who he was, who might have written the poem, etc.

 

 

There are (at least) nine texts from Dublin in the 1780s relevant to Larry – six poems dealing with criminals and their associates, one written in the same mode of speech, and two parodies:

 

                De Nite afore Larry was stretch'd

                Larry’s Stiff  ["Larry Coffey or Larry's Stiff"]

                Mrs. Coffey

                Larry's Ghost

                Luke Caffrey’s Kilmainham Minit    

                A New Song call'd Luke Caffrey's Gost

 

                Lord Altham's Bull

 

“Larry” Parodies:

               Jemmy O’Brien

                The Sham Squire

 

The issues (as it seems to me) raised by the obliteration of the original text and its dislocation from its historical context:

 

"THE NIGHT BEFORE LARRY WAS STRETCHED"    [c; 1816]  -- Larry

 

                [The c. 1816 above is the date given by Farmer in Musa Pedestris.  Obviously wrong.]

           

            -- how the Anglicised version was virtually universal till recently.

            -- implications of Anglicisation:  obscures the Irish element; and makes Larry sound much like a London criminal – “nubbing cheat”. 

            -- overlap and difference of Irish and English cant ballads.

            -- possible link between Dublin colloquial speech and AAVE.

 

            i)         Original Larry – “De nite afore Larry was stretched …”

            ii)        Who wrote Larry? or memories from Dublin Sixty Years Since

            iii)       The other Kilmain songs

            iv)       Alternative Ireland – The Rake’s Lament – gallows whores or flash girls?

            v)         Larry, Father Prout, Noctes Ambrosianae, and Farmer’s Musa Pedestris…

 

I can write no more (for the moment, at least) – my brains are broken.

 

Robin

 

 

 

 




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