The Old Orange Flute
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The Old Orange Flute (also spelt Ould Orange Flute) is a
folk song Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be c ...
originating in Ireland. It is often associated with the
Orange Order The Loyal Orange Institution, commonly known as the Orange Order, is an international Protestant fraternal order based in Northern Ireland and primarily associated with Ulster Protestants, particularly those of Ulster Scots heritage. It also ...
. Despite this, its humour ensured a certain amount of cross-community appeal, especially in the period before the commencement of The Troubles in the late 1960s, and it has also been recorded by artists better-known for songs associated with Irish nationalism, such as
The Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem The Clancy Brothers were an influential Irish folk music group that developed initially as a part of the American folk music revival. Most popular during the 1960s, they were famed for their Aran jumper sweaters and are widely credited with po ...
and The Dubliners.


History

The tune itself, often referred to as ''
Villikins and his Dinah "Villikins and his Dinah" (Laws M31A/B, Roud 271) is a stage song which emerged in England in 1853 as a burlesque version of a traditional ballad called "William and Dinah". Its great popularity led to the tune being later adopted for many other ...
'' after a
music hall Music hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment that was popular from the early Victorian era, beginning around 1850. It faded away after 1918 as the halls rebranded their entertainment as variety. Perceptions of a distinction in Bri ...
song of the 1850s (and known in America as ''Sweet Betsy from Pike''), has been used with many variations for a large number of folk songs and sea shanties, and has been called the "primal tune".Hugill, S. ''Shanties from the Seven Seas: Shipboard Work-songs and Songs Used as Work-songs'', Routledge, 1979, p.468 Related fiddle tunes are found as early as the 18th century. ''The Old Orange Flute'', however, originated more recently, probably in the 19th century, when a variant of the tune was used to set an anonymously-authored
broadside Broadside or broadsides may refer to: Naval * Broadside (naval), terminology for the side of a ship, the battery of cannon on one side of a warship, or their near simultaneous fire on naval warfare Printing and literature * Broadside (comic ...
. The earliest known records of the words appeared in 1907 in two books: ''A Collection of Orange and Protestant Songs'' and ''The golden treasury of Irish songs and lyrics''. The latter, published in New York, classifies the song as "Anonymous street ballad". Several booksFinnegan, R. (ed) ''The Penguin book of oral poetry'', 1978, p.198
Irish Traditional Music Archive
/ref> attribute authorship of the words to one Nugent Bohem, but this is a misreading of the title of a book containing the song from the Dublin publisher Nugent & Co
"Nugent's Bohemian Songster"
It has been claimedMaume, Patrick. ''The Long Gestation: Irish Nationalist Life, 1891-1918'', Palgrave Macmillan, 1999, p.130 that the words were written by a nationalist as a parody of Orangeism and were first published in the nationalist journal ''Sinn Fein'' on 2 November 1912. This is clearly refuted by the existence of the two books from 1907. The publication in ''Sinn Fein'', under the title The Magic Flute, carries no explanation but a facetious attribution to Edward Carson, the unionist politician.


Text

The song tells the story of Bob Williamson, a weaver of
Dungannon Dungannon () is a town in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. It is the second-largest town in the county (after Omagh) and had a population of 14,340 at the 2011 Census. The Dungannon and South Tyrone Borough Council had its headquarters in the ...
, who is considered a "stout Orange blade" by his associates. However, "he married a
Papist The words Popery (adjective Popish) and Papism (adjective Papist, also used to refer to an individual) are mainly historical pejorative words in the English language for Roman Catholicism, once frequently used by Protestants and Eastern Orthodox ...
named Brigid McGinn. Turned Papish himself, he forsook the ould cause" and was compelled to flee to Connacht, taking with him his flute. Enrolled into a Catholic church choir, he finds that the flute will only play Protestant songs such as The Boyne Water. Eventually the priest buys him a new instrument and the flute is condemned to be burned for heresy, though in the flames a "quare noise" can be heard as the flute still whistles " The Protestant Boys". The text was reproduced in Colm Ó Lochlainn's ''Irish Street Ballads'' (1939). Modern renditions of the song often include the repeated refrain "Sure it's six miles from Bangor to Donaghadee". This seems to have been popularised by versions by The Clancy Brothers and subsequently The Dubliners; the line is taken from the refrain (and title) of another folk song, ''Six Miles from Bangor to Donaghadee'', describing a series of absurd episodes and also set to the tune ''Villikins'', and which was recorded by the Larne-reared but Southport-born singer Richard Hayward, amongst others. Hayward also made the first recording of ''The Old Orange Flute'', in around 1920.
Denis Johnston (William) Denis Johnston (18 June 1901 – 8 August 1984) was an Irish writer. Born in Dublin, he wrote mostly plays, but also works of literary criticism, a book-length biographical essay of Jonathan Swift, a memoir and an eccentric work on co ...
quotes the first and last verses of the song in his war memoir ''Nine Rivers from Jordan'',Johnston, Denis, ''Nine Rivers from Jordan'', Derek Verschoyle, 1953 giving two alternate choruses: "Tooraloo! Tooralay! We'll have no superstition round Portadown way!" "Tooraloo! Tooralay! Oh, the twelfth of July is the Orangeman's day."


In popular culture

In the 1994 adventure film The Ghost and the Darkness Val Kilmer portrays Irish Unionist hero John Henry Patterson and sings the song whilst lying in wait for a pair of man-eating lions.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Old Orange Flute, The Irish folk songs Songs about musical instruments Orange Order Year of song unknown