THE BLACKBIRD OF SWEET AVONDALE
Track 40
Notes on the Track (40)
Recorded: 1952Notes on the Song
In 1953, Seán O Boyle and Peter Kenney made this recording of Maureen Melly (nee Tunney) for the BBC in her own home in Belfast. Alongside Farewell Green Erin and The Trip We Took Over the Mountain, it was one of her favourite songs. Often singers take a very solemn, almost laboured approach to delivering this song. Maureen’s pace is faster, her attack much brighter; it’s not all doom and gloom and the defiance at the end feels more believable.
The Blackbird of Sweet Avondale circulated as a broadside ballad and dates to 1881 when Charles Stewart Parnell was imprisoned during the Irish Land War. A fuller text than the one Maureen Melly sings here is published in Zimmerman’s Songs of Irish Rebellion.
*The notes for songs 28-42, if not covered by earlier entries, have been compiled by John Tunney.
The Singers
Maureen Melly
Rec. 1952
The Song Texts
The Tunney Song Tradition Trust’s Archive of Song Texts preserves the words of traditional songs, offering a valuable resource for singers and anyone interested in the living song tradition.
Where the Linnets Sing 2026, developed by the Tunney Song Tradition Trust with Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, celebrates 75 Bliain ag Fás by bringing the original collection to a new online audience, enriched with fifteen additional tracks, eleven more voices and two further generations of the tradition.
