At Trinity Church I Met My Doom

Here's a glimpse of the lost world of Victorian Music Hall. Tom Costello, in 1934, performs 'At Trinity Church I Met My Doom', a song he made famous in 1894. 

Joyce gives us his own version of this on p 102 of Finnegans Wake.  

Sold him her lease of ninenineninetee,
Tresses undresses so dyedyedaintee,
Goo, the groot gudgeon, gulped it all.
Hoo was the C. O. D.?
Bum!

At Island Bridge she met her tide.
Attabom, attabom, attabombomboom!
The Fin had a flux and his Ebba a ride.
Attabom, attabom, attabombomboom!
We’re all up to the years in hues and cribies.
That’s what she’s done for wee!
Woe!

it's only when you hear the music that you can understand the line 'Attabom, attabom, attabombomboom!' It's the orchestra's sinister accompaniment to the line 'At Trinity church I met my doom'. Listen to it at 1.13 above. 'Bum!' is another note in the song.

The song was written by Fred Gilbert, better known for 'The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo', which makes four appearances in the Wake.  Constantine Curran remembered Joyce singing the Monte Carlo song on Sunday evenings in 1903-4 at the Sheehys.

'His acquaintance with the Dublin music-hall and with the repertoire of the entertainers who ran one-man shows was prodigious. I find in letters passing between us in 1937 that his interest in Ashcroft, Wheatley, Val Vousden the elder, Percy French, and their peers was still unquenched, and that I could ransack the music shops for them and the libretti of old Dublin pantomimes without satiating it. This appetite was independent of their special value to him as raw material. His father had a quite exceptional familiarity with all this vernacular undergrowth of song...'

Costantine Curran, James Joyce Remembered, 1968, p42  

Joyce might have seen Costello perform his song at Dublin's main music hall, Dan Lowrey's Empire Theatre of Varieties in Sycamore Street. It's now the beautiful Olympia Theatre.

'They passed Dan Lowry's musichall where Marie Kendall, charming soubrette, smiled on them from a poster a dauby smile. 

Going down the path of Sycamore street beside the Empire musichall Lenehan showed M'Coy how the whole thing was.' 

'Wandering Rocks'

Tom Costello had an outlandish stage costume, seeming to comprise one enormous right buttock, though in the film he says 'No wonder I've got the hump'. You can see it in this print from the V&A.

Copyright of the V&A

Looking at him you feel tempted to respond on behalf of his wife: 'You're not much of a catch yourself!'

Copyright of the V&A

I found another version of the song in the libretto of the 1894 pantomime of Cinderella at the Theatre Royal Brighton.  Here it's been turned into a duet between Baron and Baroness Hardup. I love the description of the ugly sisters at the end.

In the Wake, the song marks a shift of subject in the middle of Book One. The opening chapters deal with the fall and disgrace of HCE. On p102, Joyce brings on his wife and defender, Anna Livia Plurabelle, who is also the River Liffey. Hers is the second part of Book One.

Just before the song, we say goodbye to HCE, who is now entombed:

'let him rest, thou wayfarre, and take no gravespoil from him! Neither mar his mound!...But there’s a little lady waiting and her name is A.L.P. And you’ll agree. She must be she. For her holden heirheaps hanging down her back....Then who but Crippled-with-Children would speak up for Dropping-with-Sweat?' 102.20
 
This is followed by the song, which introduces Anna Livia.

SOLD HIM HER LEASE OF NINININENITEE

Sold him her lease of ninenineninetee,
Tresses undresses so dyedyedaintee,
Goo, the groot gudgeon, gulped it all.
Hoo was the C. O. D.?
Bum!

She sold him her lease of 9-9-90 - 999 years?  There's also HCE's guilty stammer in 'ninenineninetee' and 'dyedyedainty'.

Her hair, let down, dyed and dainty.  This is Anna Livia's famous 'saffron strumans of hair...that was deepdark and ample like this red bog at sundown.' 203.24. 

'First she let her hair fal and down it flussed to her feet its teviots winding coils.' 206.29

Anna's hair was modelled on that of Livia Schmidt (Svevo), which you can see a photograph of in the Museo Sveviano in Trieste.

Livia Svevo, courtesy of Museo Sveviano, Trieste

Joyce told an Italian journalist that Livia Svevo had given both her name and her hair to the heroine of his book: 

'They say I have immortalized Svevo, but I've also immortalized the tresses of Signora Svevo. These were long and reddish-blond. My sister who used to see them let down told me about them. The river at Dublin passes dye-houses and so has reddish water. So I have playfully compared these two things in the book I'm writing. A lady in it will have the tresses which are really Signora Svevo's.'

This is quoted by Ellmann, who gives the source as 'a clipping in Signora Livia Svevo's papers'.  So the Dublin dye houses are there in 'dyedyedaintee'.  

Has anyone else found a reference to these dye works staining the Liffey red?

Goo, the groot gudgeon, gulped it all.

Hoo was the C.O.D.

That's Joyce's version of this bit of the song:

I like a lamb believed it all 

I was an M - U - G

'Goo' is Anglo-Irish slang for a fool. Gudgeon are fish easy to catch, and so in slang a gudgeon is someone easily duped. C.O.D. is cash on delivery, but cod is also a fish and slang for playing a trick on someone.  HCE is a male fish swimming up the female river, gulping its water/hair and also a great fool easily duped.

In the original song, the lyric goes 'Like to salmon I was speared'.

This allows me to share one of my favourite quotes about the Wake, from Robert H Boyle:

'Fish and fishing, fly-fishing in particular, constitute the major theme in the ''Wake,'' as Joyceans call it. The evidence that I have discovered is so overwhelming that the ''Wake'' must be considered as belonging in great part, albeit a bizarre part, to angling literature.' 'You Spigotty Anglease?' The New York Times

Island Bridge was orginally Sarah's Bridge, after the Countess of Westmoreland

At Island Bridge she met her tide.

Island Bridge is the point where the Liffey becomes tidal. In her final monologue, as she flows out of Dublin, Anna Livia meets the sea at Island Brdge:

'Sea, sea! Here, weir, reach, island, bridge.' 626.07
 
Attabom, attabom, attabombomboom!
The Fin had a flux and his Ebba a ride.
Attabom, attabom, attabombomboom!

The Fin and his Ebba are HCE (Finn MacCool and a fish) and ALP, and there's the ebb and flow of the river. Maybe also suggestions of HCE having diarrhoea (flux) and ALP having sex (a ride).

Apart from matching the rhythm of the song, Joyce here is paying tribute to Ebba Atterbom, who translated A Portrait into Swedish in 1921.  Her Swedish wikipedia article quotes Joyce's song.

Ebba Atterbom, from wikipedia.

According to Bodils' blog, Joyce and Atterbom exchanged several letters, in which he pretended to misunderstand her first name and called her Edda, after the old Norse poems.

We’re all up to the years in hues and cribies.
That’s what she’s done for wee!
Woe!

We're up to our ears/ the years in hue and cries - the mob chasing HCE – and cry babies in cribs - ALP's 111 children.

The internal bulletin of the Royal Irish Constabulary

I'd love to read any other interpretations of this song.

The chapter over, we turn the page and find the Anna Livia section beginning with this lovely invocation:

'In the name of Annah the Allmaziful, the Everliving, the Bringer of Plurabilities, haloed be her eve, her singtime sung, her rill be run, unhemmed as it is uneven!'  104.01

 

We get the song again elsewhere in the Wake.

'At Baggotty's Bend He Bumped His Bride.' 71.12 ('His Bride' is missing in the published text)

 

'A Trinity judge will crux your boom. Pat is the man for thy.' 326.04

 

'at Kennedy's kiln she kned her dough, back of her bake for me, buns!' 498.19

 

'in trinity huts they met my dame, pick of their poke for me' 548.12

'On limpidy marge I've made me hoom. Park and a pub for me.'  624.15  

When McCarthy took the Flure in Enniscorthy

I bought this (initialled by the composer!) from the Sheet MusicWarehouse

You may travel all through Europe, and then round by Chesapake; 

You may meet with many warriors, but don't make a mistake, 

For the pride of balls and parties, and the glory of a wake, 

Was Demetrius O'Flannigan McCarthy. 

'Twas late he went to breakfast, and 'twas late he went to bed; 

If you took up a thermometer, at lasteways so 'twas said, 

The quicksilver started bubblin' when they placed it near his head, 

And the steam was like a rainbow round McCarthy. 

Thermometers are not safe around McCarthy

Chorus. 

Miss Dunne said they did crowd her thin, 

Miss Murphy took to powther thin, 

For fear the boys might say that she was swarthy; 

And the sticks they all went whacking, 

And the skulls, faith, they were cracking, 

When McCarthy took the flure in Enniscorthy. 

Dan Murphy gave a party, well and all the boys were there; 

McCarthy, full of whiskey hot, at once there did repair, 

When a dog came and ran away with Miss Muldooney's hair;

'Twas that that roused the dander of McCarthy. 

He was dancing the mazurka, that's what all the ladies said; 

The fright shook all the false teeth out of poor ould Murphy's head, 

And he danced with Miss Mullarkey till they stretched her out for dead, 

Faith, she couldn't hould a candle to McCarthy. 

When they'd gargled all the whiskey, faith, a desp'rate row arose; 

McCarthy, sure, he levelled them; he fought them to a close, 

Till he walked upon the masther of the ceremonies' nose; 

'Twas that that played the mischief with McCarthy. 

The master of the workhouse, well, he knocked a peeler down, 

Who fell upon an alderman who came from County Down, 

And Presbyterian minister and the clerk now of the Crown, 

Were dancing like the divii on McCarthy.

Oh! boys, there was the element, of that you may be sure; 

Some were carried home on shutters, yes, and some upon a door, 

And the eyes and ears and noses were like marbles on the floor, 

with the fragments of the man they call McCarthy. 

Says Dan Murphy, Thanks to Providence, the ball at last is done, 

If you want to smash your furniture and have no end of fun, 

Or if you want your two eyes to be knocked straight into one, 

You need only give a ball and ax McCarthy. 

Here's a largely forgotten song by Robert Jasper Martin.  I have a recording of it made at the Clothworkers Concert Hall, University of Leeds on 15 July 1987, by Charles Peake (my old tutor) and Company. It was from a show called 'Song in Finnegans Wake'. After I posted it to Soundcloud, Tim Finnegan put the recording on youtube with lyrics. Let's have a sing along!

Martin composed the song in 1888 for the burlesque 'Faust up to Date', at the Gaiety Theatre London. It was sung by the English actor and comedian, Edwin Jesse Lonnen, who was playing Mephistopheles, on this very stage.

The Gaiety Theatre on the Strand (from wikipedia)

The critic of 'The Theatre' wrote, 'An excellent Mephistopheles is found in Mr. E. J. Lonnen, who plays with immense spirit, and gains a nightly encore for his songs, "I shall have 'em by-and-by", and "Enniscorthy" (written for him by R. Martin)'.

The composer, Robert Jasper Martin (1846-1905) was the brother of Violet Florence Martin (the Ross half of Somerville and Ross of the Irish RM), who wrote about him in her 1917 book, Irish Memories. He was the Anglo-Irish landowner of Ross Castle, Oughterard, which you can read about here. After going bankrupt, Martin became a journalist and songwriter in London. His speciality was stage Irish comic songs, usually sung by Lonnen in Gaiety Theatre burlesques.

Ross was a Tory who believed that the Irish were unfit for home rule. His songs often involve massive punch-ups by drunken Irishmen. In 'Ballyhooly' (above), the Temperance Brigade of Ballyhooly in Cork end up in the county jail for drunkenness ('When the temperance brigade do go out upon parade/ there's not a sober man in Ballyhooly'). The song featured in the 1886 Gaiety Burlesque, 'Monte Cristo Jnr'. 'Ballyhooley' proved so popular that Martin was nicknamed 'Ballyhooly Bob'.

James Joyce was very fond of 'Enniscorthy', which appears repeatedly in his writing. In Ulysses, Bloom remembers the song, in Lotus Eaters, when he's thinking about cricket:

'Cricket weather. Sit around under sunshades. Over after over. Out. They can't play it here. Duck for six wickets. Still Captain Buller broke a window in the Kildare street club with a slog to square leg. Donnybrook fair more in their line. And the skulls we were acracking when M'Carthy took the floor.'

Donnybrook fair, which appears five times in the Wake, was so notorious for brawls that the name became slang for any kind of uproar.

'And what is more glorious, there's naught more uproarious
Hurrah for the humours of Donnybrook Fair' 

ENNISCORTHY IN THE WAKE

 

The song has eight appearances in Finnegans Wake.  The first is in the opening wake episode, when the mourners are telling Tim Finnegan, revived by the whiskey, to stay in his coffin. One of the mourners is Demetrius O'Flannigan McCarthy himself, who is told to stop drinking:

'Aisy now, you decent man, with your knees and lie quiet and repose your honour’s lordship! Hold him here, Ezekiel Irons, and may God strengthen you! It’s our warm spirits, boys, he’s spooring. Dimitrius O’Flagonan, cork that cure for the Clancartys! You swamped enough since Portobello to float the Pomeroy.' 27.25

Demetrius O'Flannigan becomes Dimitrius O'Flagonan, because he's had too much to drink already. Cork that bottle!

We next meet McCarthy in Book 1 Chapter 4:

'And, incidentalising that they might talk about Markarthy or they might walk to Baalastartey or they might join the nabour party and come on to Porterfeud' 91.13

Here Joyce is combining McCarthy with the chorus of another of Martin's comic songs, 'Killaloe', written in 1887. This appeared in another Gaiety burlesque, 'Miss Esmeralda', based on Victor Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris (It's impressive that, no matter the subject of the show, Martin could shoehorn a comic Irish song in somewhere! ) It was sung again by E.J.Lonnen, as Rollo the Monk, (below). 'Killaloe' lives on as the Regimantal Quick March of the British Royal Irish Regiment, which you can hear on youtube.

The song, which has a similar rhythm to 'Enniscorthy', describes what happens when a 'Frinch Mossoo' (Monsieur) makes the mistake of trying to teach the people of Killaloe in County Clare to speak his language.

Well I happened to get born at the time they cut the corn, 

Quite contagious to the town of Killaloe: 

Where to tache us they’d a schame, and a Frinch Mossoo he came 

To instruct us in the game of parlez vous. 

I’ve one father, that I swear, but he said I had a père, 

And he struck me when I said it wasn’t true,

And the Irish for a ‘jint,’ or the Frinch for ‘half a pint,’

Faith we larnt it in the school at Killaloe.

You may talk of Boneyparty, 

You may talk about Écarté,

Or any other party, and ‘comment vous portez vous!’ 

We larnt to sing it aisy, that song the Marsellasy,

Boolong, Toolong, the continong, we larnt at Killaloe … 

‘Mais oui,’ Mossoo would cry, ‘well, of course you can,’ says I, 

Non, no – ‘I know,’ says I with some surprise; 

When a boy straight up from Clare heard his mother called a mère, 

He gave Mossoo his fist between the eyes. 

Says Mossoo, with much alarm, ‘Go and call for Johnny Darm,’ 

‘There’s no such name,‘ said I, ‘about the place,’ 

‘Comment,’ he made reply, ‘Come on, yerself,’ says I, 

And I scattered all the features of his face.

Oh boys, there was the fun, you should see him when ’twas done, 

His eyeballs one by one did disappear, 

And a doctor from the south took some days to find his mouth 

Which had somehow got concealed behind his ear. 

Then he swore an awful oath, he’d have the law agin us both, 

And thin he’d lave both Limerick and Clare; 

For he found it wouldn’t do to tache Frinch in Killaloe, 

Unless he had a face or two to spare

On to the third appearance of 'Enniscorthy', in the Questions and Answers chapter, in the long list of acts attributed to HCE:

'made up to Miss MacCormack Ni Lacarthy who made off with Darly Dermod, swank and swarthy' 137.02

As an old man Finn MacCool hoped to marry Grania (daughter of Cormac MacArt), but she eloped with the young handsome Dairmuid. This line echoes the song with 'Lacarthy'; and 'swarthy'.

Next to the Shem chapter, in the list of children's games:

When his Steam was like a Raimbrandt round Mac Garvey. 176.18

That's an echo of 'the steam was like a rainbow round McCarthy'. The late Karl Reisman related this to Marcus Garvey. You can read his detailed interpretation here.

We get an echo of the rhythm in Joyce's major restatement of Wake themes in the opening of the Stories chapter:

'That the fright of his light in tribalbalbutience hides aback in the doom of the balk of the deaf but that the height of his life from a bride’s eye stammpunct is when a man that means a mountain barring his distance wades a lymph that plays the lazy winning she likes yet that pride that bogs the party begs the glory of a wake while the scheme is like your rumba round me garden' 309.06

Here we have a Viconian cycle (fear of thunder creating religion, marriage, death, ricorso or return). There are echoes of both 'the pride of balls and parties and the glory of a wake' and 'the steam was like a rainbow round McCarthy'. Try singing the last bit to the original tune!

Ten pages later, the Norwegian captain refers to the song:

'— I shot be shoddied, throttle me, fine me cowheel for ever, usquebauched the ersewild aleconner, for bringing briars to Bembracken and ringing rinbus round Demetrius' 319.05

The 'ringing rinbus round Demetrius' refers again to 'the steam was like a rainbow 'round McCarthy', which must have been Joyce's favourite line in the song.

The next appearance is during Jaun's sermon, where he is attacking Shem:

'the diasporation of all pirates and quinconcentrum of a fake like Basilius O'Cormacan MacArty?' 463.22

'For the pride of balls and parties, and the glory of a wake, was Demetrius O'Flannigan McCarthy' and King (Basileus) Cormac MacArt again.

Here's the eighth and final appearance, during the séance chapter, where another wild social gathering is being described:

'— All our stakes they were astumbling round the ranky roars assumbling when Big Arthur flugged the field at Annie’s courting.
— Suddenly some wellfired clay was cast out through the schappsteckers of hoy’s house?
— Schottenly there was a hellfire club kicked out through the wasistas of Thereswhere.
— Like Heavystost’s envil catacalamitumbling. Three days three times into the Vulcuum?
— Punch!'

514.05

Big Arthur is HCE and Annie is ALP. The 'wellfired clay' is the 'missfired brick' (5.22) suggested as the cause of Tim Finnegans fall. 'Heavystost's envil catacalamitumbling' is HCE as Hephaestus/ Vulcan thrown out of heaven. Again, try singing that first line.

Martin's songs are little sung now, perhaps because of the stereotypical image of the drunken brawling Irish. Yet isn't 'Finnegans Wake' itself guilty of the same stereotype?:

Then the war did soon engage
T'was woman to woman and man to man
Shillelagh law was all the rage
And a row and a ruction soon began

It's a tradition also kept alive by the great Shane MacGowan, in songs like The Boat Train, The Sick Bed of Cuchullain and The Body of An American.

But fifteen minutes later
We had our first taste of whiskey
There was uncles giving lectures
On ancient Irish history
The men all started telling jokes
And the women they got frisky
By five o'clock in the evening
Every bastard there was pisskey

Is it time for a 'Ballyhooly Bob' Martin revival?