Speaking of Larry Gorman
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- SpeakerThe speaker introduces himself and his lecture noting the contribution of the Irish to Island culture. Significant unofficial cultural contributions were by the West Prince Irishmen Larry Gorman with his songs and Tom Dunn with his stories.
- SpeakerThe speaker considers Larry Gorman as the greatest contributor to the unofficial culture. Gorman’s parents, Thomas and Annie (Note: née Donahue) lived in the Tyne Valley area. James Gorman, the oldest of the ten children, was also a songwriter and maker of satirical rhymes. Unlike Larry, James was very gentle in what he wrote.
- SpeakerThe speaker recites a rhyme James Gorman wrote about Mick Doyle’s cattle being in the Gorman’s wheat field. The speaker continues with an anecdote about James recording the information of his “enemy” James Dowling of Cape Wolfe for a census. The speaker notes the achievements of two other Gorman family members.
- SpeakerThe speaker comments that Gorman was born in 1846 and died in 1917, a life characterized by “badness”. Gorman wrote songs, mostly uncomplimentary, from an early age. Without naming it, the speaker sings one of Gorman’s early songs. It is about a neighbour whose wife had left him and ends with the line “They’re neat around the waist as a cow around the middle”.
- SpeakerThe speaker sings a verse from one of Gorman’s songs about the shipbuilder James Yeo. The song highlights Yeo’s practice of stealing things and in this case marsh hay. This song starts with the line “Were you ever to Egmont Bay” (Note: This may also be its title).
- SpeakerThe speaker sings and stops occasionally to explain the lyrics to Gorman’s song “The Shan Van Vogh” which is Gaelic for “The Poor Old Woman”. This song is set to an old Irish tune and tells how an old lady tried to get a good deal at his mother’s Tyne Valley store.
- SpeakerThe speaker explains that Gorman moved to the Lot 7 area along Cape Wolfe and this is where Gorman composed the song that resulted in him having to leave the Island for the Mainland.
- SpeakerThe speaker explains that Gorman did not like any of his brother-in-laws. The speaker sings the song “To Be Dipped” (Note: may also be called “The Baptist”) that Gorman wrote for his Baptist brother-in-law. Gorman used the Protestant hymn "In the Cross” as the tune to further the insult and injury.
- SpeakerThe speaker suggests that Gorman’s songs lasted a long time because people like satirical songs.
- SpeakerThe speaker comments that Gorman did not like the Rileys. The speaker sings part of the song “Mike Riley”. (Note: print sources differ in the spelling of the family name Riley/O’Reilly. In this transcript Edward D. Ives’ spellings are used).
- SpeakerThe speaker introduces and then begins singing what he considers Gorman’s best song called “The Gull Decoy”. The song is about Patrick O'Reilly, an Irish immigrant who settled in Cape Wolf.
- SpeakerThe speaker interrupts his singing to note that Gorman was very talented and could get inside O’Reilly’s head as the song describes O’Reilly as a sad man.
- SpeakerThe speaker continues “The Gull Decoy” which includes the legend about O’Reilly having a row with his brother. As a result O’Reilly dug up the coffin of his brother’s baby girl. The speaker comments that typically Gorman did not lie when writing about his community.
- SpeakerThe speaker continues singing “The Gull Decoy” commenting that O’Reilly was tortured as an old man in being separated from the Church whether of his own accord or not.
- SpeakerThe speaker explains that he finds it a painful song and does not sing it often being sensitive to the descendants of the people in the song.
- SpeakerThe speaker sings “Michael Riley” who is Patrick O’Reilly’s son.
- SpeakerThe speaker notes that Gorman had contemporary songwriters in West Prince and even today there is a strong songwriting tradition in that area.
- SpeakerThe speaker notes that in Lot 7 Gorman crossed paths with Tom Dunn who came from Ireland in the 1820’s. Dunn told stories in first person as is the Irish storytelling tradition. The speaker tells two of Dunn’s stories, one about “unmarried maidens” and one about a “humble hero”. The speaker explains he heard Tom Dunn stories which shows that these stories lasted a long time.
- SpeakerThe speaker comments that Dunn had heard the stories in Gaelic but told them in English. Thus these stories survived not only over time but also a change of language. The speaker tells another Dunn story involving a mowing match with the devil and as is usual in Irish folktales the devil looked stupid.
- SpeakerThe speaker continues with a story of Tom Dunn’s daughter who married Mick Monaghan. Without naming it, the speaker sings the song Gorman wrote about Monaghan who was previously married to Gorman’s sister. Both Dunn and Monaghan are described negatively. (Note: the song’s title may be “Monaghan’s Raffle”).
- SpeakerThe speaker interrupts his singing to note that Gorman would use nicknames in creating his songs. In this song Dunn, a very thin man, was referred to as “the shadow”, and Monaghan as “Brigham’ as in Brigham Young.
- SpeakerAfter the speaker sings the verse describing the quilt being “covered in lice” he describes Gorman’s songs as “atrocious” and “scurrilous”.
- SpeakerA break in the lecture occurs with the tape only recording background noise.
- SpeakerTape break
- SpeakerThe speaker explains that Gorman wrote songs about his own church as well as the Baptists.
- SpeakerThe speaker introduces and then sings some of the verses of “The Horse’s Confession” which Gorman wrote from the horse’s point of view.
- SpeakerThe speaker talks about Tom Dunn’s son John who was also a great story teller. John or Jack Dunn is remembered by the residents of the area. Jack’s stories like his father’s were also unbelievable but were set in PEI rather than Ireland.
- SpeakerThe speaker tells two Jack Dunn’s stories referring to them as tall tales. One story was about an airplane Dunn helped fix and the other about how much hay seed he grew one year.
- SpeakerThe speaker introduces “numbskull” stories. The speaker tells a numbskill story involving Tom Dunn’s wife who, because she could not read, mistook her child’s school book for a prayer book.
- SpeakerThe speaker tells another Tom Dunn story in which a Mrs. Chapel compared her son’s suffering to “what our dear Saviour suffered crossing the Alps”.
- SpeakerThe speaker sings the song “Mick O’Brien” (Note: may also be called Michael O’Brien). The speaker explains that Gorman had a run in with O’Brien and wrote the song after he had heard that O’Brien had advertised for a wife.
- SpeakerThe speaker explains that the song names what Mick O’Brien had to offer his wife.
- SpeakerThe speaker notes that legends about Gorman extended into New Brunswick. The speaker tells the story of Gorman staying overnight with the Teazles while walking into a lumber camp. The wife asked Gorman to write an epitaph for her husband’s tombstone. The speaker recites the epitaph Gorman wrote commenting that it was not very appropriate.
- SpeakerThe speaker continues noting that Gorman wanted to be notorious. The speaker sings part of a song where Gorman describes people’s reaction to him as “Their eyes stick out as prongs,”. Gorman also referred to himself as “The man who made the songs”.
- SpeakerThe speaker introduces and then sings “The Scow on Cowden’s Shore” which is set in New Brunswick. The speaker describes it as an aggressive song in which Gorman brags how people feared him but also claims he doesn’t want to offend people.
- SpeakerThe speaker continues by discussing and reciting part of a song Gorman wrote during his time in New Brunswick. (Note: may be called “Donahue’s Spree”) Then the speaker sings “Harry Dunn” and explains why he thinks it would not have been a song written by Gorman.
- SpeakerThe speaker notes that the song “Harry Dunn” is a very old “woods” song and was originally known as “The Hanging Limb”.
- SpeakerThe speaker introduces and then sings what he considers Gorman’s least offensive song “The Winter of Seventy-Three”. The song describes Gorman leaving PEI to work in New Brunswick’s woods.
- SpeakerThe speaker comments that Gorman was a solitary man. However, Gorman did marry later in life and lived with his wife, Julia Lynch, in Brewer, Maine where he is buried. The speaker notes that Gorman may have mellowed in his later years, but in 1917, the year he died, Gorman wrote a nasty song about the Germans called “The Cruel Marauding Submarines”.
- SpeakerThe speaker introduces and then sings part of “The Pack of Hounds”. The speaker thinks it was written by Luke Hughes of the Foxley River area rather than Gorman. The song is about two magistrates who were considered pretty rough and the song is not complimentary to them.
- SpeakerBefore singing it, the speaker gives the context, but not its name, of a song written by Steve Doyle of Glengarry in the tradition of Gorman. The song is about a mechanic's preference for doing work for fishermen rather than farmers since the fishermen usually had money.
- SpeakerAs part of the question period the speaker highlights Edward Ives’ book (Note: the title is “Larry Gorman: The Man Who Made the Songs”). The speaker also tells how Gorman was allegedly asked to say grace before a meal. The speaker recites two graces attributed to Gorman, both uncomplimentary.
- SpeakerMusic interferes with recording of the lecture.
- SpeakerThe speaker briefly reviews the life of James H. Fitzgerald who taught Gorman in Trout River. The speaker notes that he thinks it was Fitzgerald who wrote the song against Confederation while others attribute that song to Gorman. (Note: may be referencing the song “Prince Edward Island, Adieu”)
- SpeakerIn a response to a question, the speaker notes that Gorman, like Irish storytellers, had the power to immortalize people. However, the speaker explains that Gorman’s song contained bitterness while the Irish storytellers tended to describe people in an almost mythical way.
- SpeakerClosing statements