Maureen releases CD of old Irish songs

Maureen releases CD of old Irish songs

22 July 2020

BALLYHORNAN author Maureen Gill-Sharp has added to her considerable creative skills set by releasing a new CD of old Irish songs recalled from her childhood.

The CD — I Stand on a Lonely Seashore — has been produced to raise money for Guide Dogs Northern Ireland.

Known for her books, Moonlight on Ballyhornan Bay and Memoirs of a Ballyhornan Girl, Mrs Gill-Sharp has previously raised over £2,600 for the charity, enabling her to name and sponsor a trainee guide dog puppy called Thomas.

The collection has both local historical connections for Mrs Gill-Sharp, who’s in her late eighties, as well as close emotional ones. 

The front cover of the CD shows a young Maureen on the shore at Ballyhornan as a child in the 1930s. On the back cover, she is standing on the stile with her pet dog, Mungo. 

“Many of the songs were learnt on my mother’s knee and at Dunsford school in Chapeltown many years ago,” she explained.

“So I knew the words off by heart at a very early age. To this day I can remember the songs very well and sing them often.  A number of people over the years have asked me for the words and the air to some of the old songs, many of which they had never heard before.”

Naturally, her home village is included in the collection with the inclusion of the song, Ballyhornan in the Old County Down.

Maureen said: “The song was written by Billy Gilmore from Belfast. He came to Ballyhornan with his wife and children and lived in what was in the past, a little coastguard cottage which nestled on the side of the brae leading down to the shore.

“He had a great love of Ballyhornan and composed this lovely little song about the place, sung to the air of  Little town in the old County Down.

“My father was a coastguard during the First World War and my parents were invited to a birthday party in one of the little coastguard cottages in Killard, where my mother sang He was only a Private Soldier, which she had learnt herself at Kilclief school.

“I Stand on a Lonely Seashore, evokes memories of childhood, sitting on my mother’s knee and listening to what were very often sad songs.

Maureen has included her favourite school she learnt at school, My Yellow Yorling, which was taught to her class by a teacher called Mrs Halpin.

One of the famous songs connected to a local place is I’m Sitting on the Stile Mary, a poignant song written by Lady Dufferin of Killyleagh. The stile has since been restored and can be seen near the graveyard in Killyleagh.

The CD is available to buy from Kevin Og’s shop in Strangford and is priced at £5. Further details can be found on the website www.ballyhornan.com.