Wedding of Biddy McGrane, The

AKA	The wedding of Biddy M’crane

Lyrics

Harry Clifton

Music

Harry Clifton

Roud

V30288

I’ll sing you a song if you’ll listen a while.
Of a damsel so pretty, so charming and witty,
Who lived from the city of Dublin a mile,
On the road to Clondalkin in the Emerald Isle;
Don’t think for a moment I’m tipping the blarney
But search near and far you might search in vain
From Donaghadee to the Banks of Killarney,
And not find the equal of Biddy McGrane
 
A fine hearted genuine son of the soil,
One Larry Molloy, a broth of a boy,
Who knew what it was for his living to toil.
On a neat bit of land of his own at Baldoyle;
And Larry for marriage felt no inclination,
But love is a thing ye cannot explain,
And enters your heart without hesitation,
So Larry was smitten with Biddy McGrane
 
Now Larry was fond of a jig the spalpeen
He went to the fair, and Biddy was there,
And strolling up to the pretty Colleen,
Soon led her out for a dance on the green;
The blink of her eye was near driving him crazy,
He asked her consent, but she looked with disdain
But when bold Larry he trampled the Daisy,
It melted the heart Biddy McGrane
 
The day of the wedding the girls and the boys,
And friends were invited, and highly delighted.
The Lammigans, the Brannans, the Burkes, the Molloy’s,
Were all in their glory, with fun and with noise;
Miss Morgan she came along with Dan Brady,
In a new suit he’d bought from old Petticoat Lane
And Larry McGuinness arrived with Miss Grady,
to dance at the wedding of Biddy McGrane.
 
The feast indeed it was mighty fine,
There was bacon and cheese, potatoes and peas
And lashes of potheen, in place of the wine,
Biddy she looked like a goddess divine:
Attired as she was in her gorgeous apparel,
In a new yellow kirtle of Muslin delaine,
Old Barney the fiddler on top of the barrel,
Struck up "Garry-owen" for Biddy McGrane
 
The feasting concluded the dancing began,
The Cairns and the Gilligan’s, and the O’Howlagans,
All of them leaped to their feet to a man,
And jigged it is only an Irishman can;
But when bold Jimmy Howlagan leaped on the table,
I suppose ‘twas the whiskey that made him explain
He’d take on any man be he strong lame or able,
That finished the wedding of Biddy McGrane

One of Harry Clifton’s Irish songs, but not one which appears to have been taken up by traditional singers of the 20th century.

Between 1855 and 1861 Harry Clifton was appearing regularly in Ireland, and it could probably be argued that it was in these years that he established himself as a songwriter and comedian. During this period he built up a stock of Irish songs, some that he wrote himself, and others that he borrowed from others like DK Gavan and Harry Sydney. It’s not clear how fastidious he was about giving credits to other writers, so it may be necessary to take his list of Irish songs with a pinch of salt, but at various times it has been suggested that he wrote: The Waterford Boys, Darby McGuire, Where the Grass Grows Green and this one, The Wedding of Biddy McGrane.

The authorship of some of these songs is cleared up by a notice that Clifton posted in the era in 1863:

If Biddy McGrane was one of the songs Clifton wrote in the 1850s, it appears to have stayed in his repertoire, as he advertised that it would be part of his show in Preston in 1870, two years before he died. The song appears to have been incorporated in a musical review of the mid-1870s by Fred Coyne:

Fred Coyne (c1845-1886) was the stage name adopted by Frederick William Rawlinson, when at any age 18 he first appeared at Hardy’s in Manchester. He was son of an Islington guilder and went on, according to Charles Coburn to become one of “the leading lights of the music hall stage.” Described as a “versatile comedian, vocalist and dancer” he was billed as The Sterling Comic, apparently a joke based on his adopted name – he was the “sterling Coyne” ho ho! He appeared widely in Halls both in mainland Britain and Ireland, but seems to have suffered from intermittent ill-health, and died of pneumonia and the early age of 39.

Sources:

• Lyrics from Mercier Old Irish Ballads Vol.3
• Kilgarriff Banjos
• Kathleen Barker, Harry Clifton
• Mudcat thread on Harry Clifton
• Peter Charlton (2008 ) “Fred Coyne: the sterling comique” Music Hall Studies, No 2