FIDDLER'S GREEN

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FIDDLER'S GREEN

Fiddler's Green The mythical Elysium waiting for sailors when they have topped their booms and gone to their rest. Populated by countless willing ladies, equipped with rum casks that never empty, and always a fair wind and flying fish weather.
The Legend of Fiddlers Green.

"They say that an old salt who is tired of seagoing should walk inland with an oar over his shoulder. When he comes to a pretty little village deep in the country and the people ask him what he is carrying...he will know that he's found Fiddlers Green. The people give him a seat in the sun outside the Village Inn with a glass of grog that refills itself every time he drains the last drop and a pipe forever smoking with fragrant tobacco. From then onwards he has nothing to do but enjoy his glass and pipe and watch the maidens dancing to the music of a fiddle on Fiddlers Green."

In this song a dying fisherman tries to imagine Fishermen's Heaven or Fiddler's Green.

The term Fiddler's Green originates from an old English legend that said that if a sailor had become tired of living he had to walk land inwards with an oar over his shoulder until he arrive in a nice and peaceful village. The villagers will ask him what he is carrying and they give him a stool outside the village inn where he can enjoy his pint and pipe while sharing memories with other sea dogs and watching the music and dancing maidens on Fiddler's Green.

The first citation of the phrase Fiddler's Green dates back to 1825, but it is believed that it has been in use for much longer. In the 1920's Fiddler's Green appeared in a poem associated with the 6th and 7th U.S. Cavalry in which many Irish served. Again it is believed that this poem, sometimes referred to as prayer, originates from an earlier date. It is unknown whether the Irish troopers brought the phrase to the Unites States or borrowed it from the already present English.

Whatever the case may be, referring to the success of this song, which was written by the Irish singer and songwriter John Connolly in the 1960's, and the countless pubs and inns bearing the name Fiddler's Green, the phrase caught on in Ireland.
A last maybe surprising note is that the phrase Fiddler's Green has no relation with violinists whatsoever, but is derived from fiddling or more specific a fid, which is a tool used to split ropes better known as marlinespike.

A SEAMANS “FIDDLERS GREEN”


FIDDLER'S GREEN

As I roved by the dockside one evening so fair
To view the salt waters and take in the salt air
I heard an old fisherman singing a song
Oh, take me away boys me time is not long
Wrap me up in me oilskin and blankets
No more on the docks I'll be seen
Just tell me old shipmates, I'm taking a trip mates
And I'll see you someday on Fiddlers Green
Now Fiddler's Green is a place I've heard tell
Where the fishermen go if they don't go to hell
Where the weather is fair and the dolphins do play
And the cold coast of Greenland is far, far away
Wrap me up in me oilskin and blankets
No more on the docks I'll be seen
Just tell me old shipmates, I'm taking a trip mates
And I'll see you someday on Fiddlers Green
Now when you're in dock and the long trip is through
There's pubs and there's clubs and there's lassies there too
And the girls are all pretty and the beer is all free
And there's bottles of rum growing on every tree.
Wrap me up in me oilskin and blankets
No more on the docks I'll be seen
Just tell me old shipmates, I'm taking a trip mates
And I'll see you someday on Fiddlers Green
Where the skies are all clear and there's never a gail
And the fish jump on board with one swish on their tail
Where you lie at your leisure, there's no work to do
And the skipper's below making tea for the crew
Wrap me up in me oilskin and blankets
No more on the docks I'll be seen
Just tell me old shipmates, I'm taking a trip mates
And I'll see you someday on Fiddlers Green
Now I don't want a harp nor a halo, not me
Just give me a breeze and a good rolling sea
I'll play me old squeeze-box as we sail along
With the wind in the riggin to sing me a song
Wrap me up in me oilskin and blankets
No more on the docks I'll be seen
Just tell me old shipmates, I'm taking a trip mates
And I'll see you someday on Fiddlers Green


Title: Fiddler's Green
Recorded by:

1916,
Ronnie Carthy,
The Dubliners,
The Freemen,
The New Barleycorn,
Donal O'Shaughnessy,
Patsy Watchhorn
and
The Wolfe Tones

All song rights and copyrights belong to the respective authors and /or composers and this material might be copyrighted. Reproduced here in tribute and request your permission to continue in remembrance to use this work in the name of all ancient mariners and those that have crossed the bar. please inform me if your rights are violated and I would hasten the removal of any offending material. Yet again request your full approval for this worthy cause.

www.ss-tregenna.co.uk/

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"Cloughmore, known locally as "The Big Stone", (Irish: An Chloch Mhór, the big stone), is a huge granite boulder found about 1,000 feet above the village of Rostrevor, County Down, Northern Ireland, on a relatively flat area on the side of Slieve Martin (or Slieve Meen) mountain, known as Fiddler's Green." Aha!
Cloughmore is in County Down in the north of Ireland, where the Ulster Scots lived. So here perhaps is the source of the name for the cabin and for the legend of "Fiddler's Green"-- a green Irish mountain in the County Down, by the side of the lough. A place for sailors to finally rest, where they can see the water and remember their seafaring days.

So, apparently, Fiddler's Green is a celtic myth regarding where old sailors go when they don't die at sea after a long life, if instead they die in bed and on land of old age ... Their ghosts wander inland and settle in at the first pastoral village they encounter, the mythical "Fiddler's Green. Given an endless cup of booze, they drink and watch the locals dance to the fiddle (according to the legend anyway).

fridgeir.wordpress.com/2008/09/24/youtube-the-dubliners-fiddlers-green/

FIDDLER’S GREEN: The imaginary happy land where sailors go when they die and where there is perpetual mirth, music, ale and tobacco and where the shanty-man’s fiddle never stops playing.

[Administrator]

The Ballad of Convoy HX84

(for Grandma Danby)
From Halifax one cold, dark night,
some ships got under way.
Group HX84's sad plight
is quite a tale they say:
when merchant ships met Nazi might,
and it, the Jervis Bay.

Gone were the days of rich resorts,
and folk who sought the sun,
she'd plied the planet's pleasure ports,
her time was almost done.
The navy sadly lacked escorts
when war had just begun.

They fitted her with six-inch guns,
one fore, one aft, they say,
they were out-gunned these mothers' sons
who died with Jervis Bay.

The War had waged for but a year
on that November day,
a host of ships felt naked fear
on cold, cold seas of grey:
In wait, here lay Admiral Scheer
to fight the Jervis Bay.

This battleship had little fear
when stalking easy prey,
convoys were flocks of sheep to Scheer,
to slaughter, sink, and slay;
till one old ewe bleats, "Fegen's here -
aboard the Jervis Bay!"

"Convoy dispersing" signals say,
they flee like hell from here,
as Jervis Bay steams through the fray
to ram the mighty Scheer.
Poor Jervis Bay has gone below
as though she'd never been,
she's gone to where good sailors go
for berths in Fiddler's Green.*

*Good sailors go to Fiddler's Green when they die, bad sailors go to Davy Jones' Locker.

On November 5th, 1940, the German pocket battleship Admiral Scheer attacked Convoy HX84 in the Atlantic Ocean. Their only escort, SS Jervis Bay, was an old passenger liner that been converted into an armed merchant cruiser. To give the convoy time to disperse, Captain Edward Fogarty Fegen held the Scheer's attention by trying to ram the warship. Jervis Bay was sunk about a mile from her target and many on board were lost. Although five other ships met a similar fate, thirty vessels managed to escape. Captain Fegen received a posthumous Victoria Cross. Signalman Bill Danby, twenty-year-old son of Hamiltonian, Grandma Danby (now one hundred-and-one years old), did not survive the action.

Another heroic feat was achieved the following day: Tanker San Demetrio , carrying a cargo of aviation fuel, had been hit during the engagement and the crew hurriedly abandoned ship. Dawn found the ship afloat but still on fire. Fifteen men voted to row their lifeboat back to the burning ship where they managed to extinguish the blaze.

Chief Engineer Charles Pollard got the ship under way. Although the chart room had been destroyed in the flames, Second Officer Hawkins used a school atlas to help him navigate the vessel. They anchored in Rothesay Bay nearly two weeks later (November 16th), adding her vital cargo to the Blitz defences.