An Clár Bog Deal
The Board of Bog-OakThis is a traditional Irish song arranged by Maighread Ní Dhomhnaill and Dónal Lunny. It appears on the album Dhá Phingin Spré (No Dowry) the second music album by Irish musician Maighread Ní Dhomhnaill. It was released in both Ireland and contintenal Europe in 1991. See another version An Clár Bog Déil by Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh and Frankie Kennedy.
From Séamus Mac Mathúna
Do you have any further information about this song? Edit this page and help us expand this section. ^closeThis fine song, with its intriguing and splendid melody, was widely sung in Munster in the early decades of the 19th century. The reference in O’Daly’s Poets and Poetry of Munster states that the original version of An Clár Bog Déil is better known as Caiseal Mumhan. It suggests further that the song was originally written by an Augustinian friar, the Reverend William English of Newcastle West, Co. Limerick who previous to his taking the Augustinian habit had produced many striking and beautiful songs in his native tongue.
Irish
English
I would marry you without a cow
Without pounds, without tuppence dowry
I would lay you beneath me on a dewy morning
At the dawn of the day
It is my complete affliction that you and I
My darling love
Aren't in Caiseal Dubh with nothing for a bed
But the deal board
A bright woman I'll not praise
And I'll not find fault with
I'll never take a dark woman
As a wife
I'll not desire the daughter of somebody important
Because of wealth
But I'll marry my darling
She's the love of my heart
Oh I would read an Irish book
In good, hard language
After that, I'll write
With the tip of my pen
I'd swim Loch Éirne
On my back
And if I could entice a woman
I'd have won the day
Don't think that I'm not noble
Even though I'm lowly
Don't think that in yonder ditch
I was found
Lie down beside me for a month or so
And try me out
And you'll find written in my right side
That I'm a playboy