Emigration
In the 17th and 18th centuries Kerry became increasingly populated by poor tenant farmers, who came to rely on the potato as their main food source. As a result, when the potato crop failed in 1845, Kerry was very hard hit by the Great Irish Famine of 1845–49. In the wake of the famine, many thousands of poor farmers emigrated to seek a better life in America and elsewhere. Another long term consequence of the famine was the Land War of the 1870s and 1880s, in which tenant farmers agitated, sometimes violently for better terms from their landlords. Emigration is not a thing of the past however and many of the rural areas of Kerry suffer from an economic variant strain of emigration, the results of which has seen a depopulation in many town lands throughout the county.
The song Cappanagrown was composed by John O’ Sullivan of Cappanagrown, sometime between 1890 and 1900. In this composition the composer provides us with a description of his own emigration. An earlier composition by John O’Sullivan ‘Down by the Comeragh side’ deals with the emigration of two of his neighbours. Many thanks are due to Padraig O’Connell, Cappanagrown, who has collected and preserved the songs of his locality and made them available to the Binneas project.
Down by the Comeragh side was composed in 1877 by John Sullivan of Cappanagrown. The song was written in honour of two neighbours shortly after their departure to America. The Comeragh River rises at Derriana lough and flows into Lough Currane. Many thanks are due to Padraig O’Connell of Cappanagrown, who is also a talented composer of song, and his daughter Selena, a beautiful singer who have collected and preserved the songs of their locality and made them available to the Binneas project.
The mail coach, Caherciveen, county Kerry, Ireland. Irish Emigrants leaving their home for America. Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, January 20, 1866, 275.
Amhrán é seo a bhí coitianta ar fud na dúthaí seo fadó, go háirithe i bparóiste na Dromad. Fear a mhair i gCathair Samháin gurb ainm do Micí Sheáin Dáith a chum é. De mhuintir Shíocháin ab ea é agus d’imigh sé ar imirce go Meiriceá. Níor thaithin an saol ansin thall in aon chor leis agus chum se an t-amhrán seo a chuireann síos ar an gcruatan a bhuail leis ann. Bailíodh an leagan seo den amhrán ó Sheán Mhicí Ó Súilleabháin (85 bliain d’aois) ó Chill an Ghoirtín sa bhliain 1935.
This was once a very popular song, especially in the parish of Dromid. It was composed by the poet Micí Sheáin Dáith Ó Síocháin who lived in Cahersavane sometime in the mid-nineteenth century. Micí Sheáin Daith was forced to board the emigrant ship to America and in the song he describes the hardship and homesickness he endures there. This version of the song was collected from Seán Mhicí Ó Súilleabháin (85 years of age) from Killagurteen in 1935.