Nora Magee

From Harry Linn's Fire Side Song Book 1880

Nora, dear Nora, I can't live without you
What made you leave me to cross the wide sea?
Norah, dear Norah, oh! why did you doubt me
The world seems so dark and so dreary to me?
Why from old Ireland have you been a ranger
Why have you chosen the wide world to roam
Why did you go to the land of the stranger,
And leave your own Barney alone, all alone?
 
Come back to old Ireland the home of your childhod
The old village well, and the old willow tree,
Come back to the mountain the valley the wild wood
I can't live without you, sweet Norah Magee.

What have I done that my Norah should leave me?
Oh! how I loved her, and thought that she knew,
Her leaving old Ireland, so sadly would grieve me,
Was she afraid that my heart was not true?
Why was I silent when I might have spoken
And told her my heart was her own, all her own
A true Irish heart that is shattered and broken
Why did she leave her own Barney alone?

I wander all day by the field and the farm.
I wander at night by the hill and the dell.
Life's all a blank, it has lost all of its charm
How I loved Norah, no tongue e'er could tell
Still I must wait while the pain here is burning,
I'll watch and I'll pray, when the wild billows roar
That the ship may be safely with Norah returning.
Back to old Ireland and Barney once more.

As Norah Magee appears in his songbook we can reasonably assume that this was a song in the repertoire of Harry Linn and its pretty certain that he wrote this song. Several songs were published between 1870 and 1920 with similar names, or called Come back to old Ireland so its not always easy to be certain its this song. Newspaper searches indicate that various amateur and professional singers were singing a song called Norah MaGee from 1875 on.

Norah Magee was remembered by traditional singers from Ireland in the mid-20th century: collected by Sam Henry who described it as “a song very popular in the 1870s.”

Thanks go to Rosa Michaelson, who has found further information about this song:

“I have just found 4 of Harry Linn’s songs listed on the back of a copy of James Kerr’s “Collection of Reels, Strathspeys, Highland Schottisches, Country Daces, Jigs, Hornpipes, Flirtations, etc. arranged for the Pianoforte” in the National Library of Scotland. This music is found in Mr Moffat’s Owner Bound Music Volume, which has the date May 1883 inscribed inside the frontispiece. The songs listed are: “I love the Bonnie Lassie’s, The Grass Will Grow Again”, “The Highlandman’s Toast” and “Come Back to Old Ireland”. This means that Kerr had published these songs by at the latest 1883. In addition, so far the earliest date I have found for any of Kerr’s publications is 1879.”