Hail glorious St Patrick

[asb]

In "Celebration For Everyone" (at least) the last line of v.1 ("On Erin's green valleys........) is printed after v.1 as a chorus. Should this be the chorus after every verse (as most of my congregation think/assume) or should the last line of each subsequent verse be repeated as that verse's chorus? (eg "For God and St Patrick....) as some people think? there is confusion every year when we sing it and I am unable to arbitrate because i don't know.?

And before anyone has an apoplexy, we're not singing it at the Vigil Mass for Lent 4 but at a St Patrick's day mass in the morning.

[nazard]

I have never heard it done any other way but to use "On Erin's green valley" for every verse.

The youth of our parish find the line "Thou who art high in the mansions above" very amusing, giving it a totally different meaning to that which I suspect the author intended.

When I get home I will look in some old hymnbooks to see if they throw any light on the chorus words.

[Gwyn]

We've always had "On Erin's green valleys... " as the refrain following each verse.

Although not entirely similar, Onward, Christian Soldiers has "Onward, Christian Soldiers . . . " as the refrain following every verse.

Also, the Welsh hymn;

I bob un sydd fyddlon
Dan ei faner Ef,
Mae gan Iesu goron,
Fry yn Nheyrnas Nef.
Lluoedd Duw a Satan,
Sydd yn cwrdd yn awr.
Mae gan blant eu cyfran,
Yn r rhyfel mawr.

I bob un sudd fyddlon,
Dan ei faner Ef,
Mae gan Iesu goron,
Fry yn Nheyrnas Nef.

has the same refrain following every verse.

All exciting stuff, eh?

[Anne]

I have always been in places where the last line of the verse becomes the refrain : - O come to our aid, O come to our aid, O come to our aid in our battle take part. (This isn't my favourite hymn!!)

[asb]

I have always been in places where the last line of the verse becomes the refrain : - O come to our aid, O come to our aid, O come to our aid in our battle take part. (This isn't my favourite hymn!!)

Nor mine, I hasten to add!

Are there ANY good hymns to specific saints

[Gwyn]

Sadly many hymns to the saints were written in times when churches were full, Latin wasn't whinged about, priests were relatively plentiful, catholic schools taught the catholic faith, the faith was loved.

How did they get it so terribly wrong?

[sidvicius]

In my cherished copy of Hymns Prehistoric and Antediluvian, I can find hymns to most of the apostolic premiership, plus a few others*, and a whole stack to martyrs. It is highly thematic, and useful as such. There are very few that I might recognise however; some of these tunes would have last seen service on a treadmill-powered wheezophone I should think. Happy days.

*St Patrick is notably absent.

[VML]

The old Westminster Hymnal gives no indication of repeats.
The tune is said to be traditional. I would think that it should be sung in the traditional song manner of the last line of each verse being the repeat.

[TimSharrock]

Are there ANY good hymns to specific saints

we could adapt our own...

The Irish, the Irish, they sailed 'cross the wavey, wavey
The Irish, the Irish, they sailed 'cross the wavey, wavey,
Stole young Pat and - made him a slavey, slavey!
Children of the Lord...

I am having some difficulty coming up with something for St George
that is sufficiently ecological and pro-dragon....

Tim

(the chance of my persuading our conductor to sing any of these, is, perhaps fortunately, remote )

[Gwyn]

The Irish, the Irish, they sailed 'cross the wavey, wavey
The Irish, the Irish, they sailed 'cross the wavey, wavey,
Stole young Pat and - made him a slavey, slavey!
Children of the Lord...

Fantastic !

[nazard]

I have looked through the parish music library, more usually know as that **** untidy heap, and been surprised to find the following:

No hymnbook actually use "on Erin's green..." as the chorus.

The "New Catholic Hymnal" and the "Catholic Hymn Book" tell you to use the last line of each verse.

"Celebration for Everyone", "Hymns O & N", "Leeds Catholic Hymnbook" and "Praise the Lord" leave you to work it out for yourself, hence the question.

The two editions of the Westminster Hymnal avoid the problem neatly by using a different tune, "Clonmacnoise", traditional Irish harmonised by Richard Terry, which logically has four lines of music to go with the four line verses. Its quite a good tune, but I doubt if anyone knows it.

I forgot to look in "Laudate".

After giving an answer like this one, I'm just off to have my anorak darned...

[asb]

"Celebration for Everyone".... leave you to work it out for yourself, hence the question.

Err - have I got a rogue copy? It seems fairly unequivocal in mine (both peoples edition and full music) that it should be "On Erin's green valleys"...

[nazard]

Err - have I got a rogue copy?

No, sorry. I didn't look at any congregation copies. In the congregation copy the chorus "On Erin's green..." is in italics, a convention used consistently in that book to indicate a chorus.

In the full music edition the type does not change when the chorus starts, whereas for "Shine, Jesus, shine" the chorus words are in bold. I had looked at that one first to see how the typesetter was doing things. Nevertheless, the word "chorus" is there above the appropriate barline. I stand corrected.

None of this gets us any closer to finding out what is correct, if there is such a thing.

I have never heard anyone use the Westminster's tune. Even in the days when the Westminster was used very widely, the tune for this hymn was "St Patrick." Does anyone know where it came from?

[Gwyn]

If I though that I wouldn't get lynched, I'd use the tune "St. Patrick's Breastplate" Usually the tune for "I bind unto myself today. It doesn't need the chorus/refrain. Dunnow about the origin of the tune, though it does acrually sound Gaelic.

Sadly we'll have to sing it and to the tune in Celebration Hymnal for Everyone, and "On Erin's Green Valleys . . ." will be the refrain after each verse.

Any Welsh hymn that has a refrain keeps the same one after each verse, that helped to foster fervour in chapel hymn-singing. A consistent refrain was soon "in memory" so it was books down, heads up, lungs open.

If you do sing H.G.S.P, pray fervently that the intercession of Patrick, David, George and Andrew will bring about a renewal of true Christian faith in these isles.

[John Ainslie]

The tune we all love, and/or love to hate, is attributed in the New Catholic Hymnal (1971) as a 'modified form of melody by Henri F. Hemy (1818-88 )'. It probably made its debut in the Crown of Jesus Hymnbook of 1864, which was put together by Faber, Caswall and Hemy. Hemy was a Tyneside organist: the tune of 'O bread of heaven' is also his, and you can see the triple-time similarity. It's interesting to note that the editors of the Westminster Hymnal of 1912 included the hymn but, as noted above, introduced an entirely different and lovely Irish tune which may well be 'Clonmacnoise', but which I cannot find anywhere else, though it seems strangely familiar. But the Westminster Hymnal of 1940 reinstated the tune 'St Patrick'.

The hymn appears in the Appendix of the New Catholic Hymnal, and what is entitled 'Refrain' is given underlining the music for each the first three verses - and yes, repeating the last line of each verse. The presumption is that the same is required for verses 4 and 5.

Incidentally, 'Soul of my Saviour' also features in the same Appendix as being in a class of "those hymns firmly embedded in local Catholic traditions which in the opinion of the Editors [Anthony Petti and Geoffrey Laycock] and many they consulted are swiftly passing out of use as taste changes". That was 36 years ago and...