Friday 14 December 2012
Tune of the Day: Come, Buy My Nice Fresh Ivy
A Christmas Carol from Ireland
The tune to which this Christmas carol is sung is known as “O'Carolan's Lament”, after the blind Irish harper Turlough O'Carolan (1670–1738), one of the last Irish harpist-composers and the only one whose songs survive in both words and music in significant number.
It is said that O'Carolan originally composed this Lament for the nephew of the great Earl of Tyrone, who led the Irish to a victory over General Monroe's Anglo-Scottish army at Benburb in 1646.