Dhá Chéad de Cheoltaibh Uladh [An anthology of Two Centuries of Ulster Songs]

Cliath [Dublin]: Oifig di´olta foillseacha´in rialtais. Very Good+. 1934. First Edition; First Printing. Hardcover. [10 ff.], [13]-474 pages; Publisher's dark blue cloth, title (in Irish letters) stamped in gilt on the spine and front cover -- along with a device depicting a hand on the spine, and the original price (6/-) at the lower right corner of the front cover. The title page, imprint, preface and nearly all the text are in Irish, set in the old letters -- (the Cló Gaedhealach). The compiler and collector of these songs, Énrí Ó Muirgheasa [1874-1945], was known to English speakers as Henry Morris. He was born an Ulsterman, in Farney, the southernmost of County Monaghan’s five baronies. As late as the 1830's, Farney was almost entirely populated by native Irish speakers. There are many factors in the long declline of the language, including the great famine. When the author of this volume was a young man, Douglas Hyde and a few like-minded colleagues founded the Gaelic League [Conradh na Gaeilge] in an effort to reverse this trend. Morris, first as a teacher, and then as an inspector of the schools, collected Irish manuscripts and transcribed poetry and song from his Co. Monaghan and Co. Donegal, and other regions. Between his first publication in 1915 and the present, more extensive 1934 compilation, the Irish Free State was founded, and some of the efforts to resusitate Irish were written into laws and regulations. This volume was published by the "Oifig di´olta foillseacha´in rialtais" -- Dublin's Office of Government publications in 1934, the same year that Irish was made a compulsory subject for the government school system's Intermediate Certificate exams, and for the Leaving Certificate. This anthology does include two selections in the Enlish language -- ["My Name is Freedom..." and "Tomorrow Morning."] Otherwise, all 474 pages are in Irish, including the brief and musically useful section of music (in tonic sol-fa notation) for some of the songs (see pp. 449-456). This original edition is now quite scarce. See OCLC Number: 978137514 (reporting a single location, in Canada). There were reprints in 1969 & 1974. Henry Morris was awarded an honorary MA from Queen’s University Belfast in 1936. During the years subsequent to this publication and his death in 1945, Morris was also occupied by collecting and making sound recordings of Irish verse and song. He and his work is the subject of a small book -- ‘A Man of Farney’, a Short Story of the Life of Henry Morris, by Proinsias O’Muirgheasa and Peadar O’Casaide [published by Eigse Fhearnmhai in 1974]. .