John Edward Pigot

Life
1822-1871; Young Irelander; b. Kilworth, Co. Cork; eldest son of Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer (Irel.); ed. locally, and TCD, BA 1843; contrib. The Nation as ‘Fermoy’; contrib. to Irishman (ed. Denis Holland) and Irish Penny Journal but and notably chiefly to The Nation; mbr. Nation editorial board; poems and prose in The Voice of the Nation and The Spirit of the Nation; alt. pseuds ‘Firinne’, and ‘Gall’; active in Irish Confederation and corresponded regularly with Thomas Davis; mbr. of defence team at trials of John Mitchel and William Smith O’Brien, 1848; joint-hon. sec. of Society for Preservation and Publication of the Melodies of Ireland (1851); a keen collector of Irish airs whose his materials were used by Petrie and P. W. Joyce; latterly practised law in Bombay from 1865, and died on holiday in Ireland; MSS in RIA; works not collected; there is a long account of Pigot by John O’Hagan in Irish Monthly, 1888. PI MKA DIH.

Works

Pigot Collection: Pt. IV of Old Irish Folk Music and Songs, by P. W. Joyce (London: Longmans, Green; Dublin: Hodges and Figgis 1909) consists of the collection of John Edward Pigot [not copied by Petrie and therefore available for printing. . Preface cites his own Ancient Irish Music and Irish Peasant Songs in the English language as source of songs in Pt. II [Available at Internet Archive - online; also available at Ask About Ireland [online] as pdf.]

 

Our Own Little Isle

Oh! Irishmen never forget -
’Tis a foreigner’s farm - your own little isle;
Oh! Irishmen when will you get
Some life in your hearts for your poor little isle?
Yes! Yes! We’ve a dear little spot of it!
Oh! Yes! - a sweet little isle!
Yes! Yes! Irishmen thought of it,
’Twould be a dear little, sweet little isle

Then, come on and rise, ev’ry man of you —
Now is the time for a stir to be made;
Ho! Pat! who made such a lamb of you!
Life to your soul, boy, and strength to your blade.
Yes! yes! — a dear little spot of it!
Oh! yes! — a sweet little isle!
Yes! yes! — if Irishmen thought of it,
Erin once more is our own little isle!

Rise! heartily! shoulder to shoulder —
We’ll show ’em strength with good humour
Rise! rise! show each foreign beholder
We’ve not lost our love to thee,

Erin asthore! For oh! yes! — ’tis a dear little spot of it!
Yes! yes! — a sweet little isle!
Yes! yes! the Irish have thought of it;
Erin for ever — our own little isle!

Never forget what your forefathers fought for, O!
When to “O’Neill” or “O’Donnell Aboo”
Sasanachs ev’rywhere sunk in the slaughter,
O! Vengeance for insult, dear Erin, to you!
For oh! yes! — a dear little spot of it!
Yes! yes! — a sweet little isle;
Yes! yes! — if Irishmen thought of it,
Erin once more is our own little isle!

Yes, we have strength to make Irishmen free again!
Only UNITE — and we’ll conquer our foe;
And never on earth shall a foreigner see again
Erin a province — though lately so low.
For oh! yes! — we’ve a dear little spot of it!
Yes! yes! — a sweet little isle!
Yes! yes! — the Irish have thought of it;
Erin for ever — OUR OWN little isle!

Rep. in Rev. Patrick Walsh, ed., Songs of the Gael: A Collection of Anglo-Irish Songs and Ballads Wedded to old Traditional Irish Airs (Dublin: Browne & Nolan 1922), pp.2-3.

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Commentary

P. W. Joyce, Old Irish Folk Music and Songs: A Collection of 842 Irish Airs and Songs hitherto Unpublished; edited, with annotations, for The Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland (Dublin, Hodges, Figgis, & Co. 1909) - Preface incls. comments on Pigot, viz.,—

[...]
  The "Pigot Collection" (represented in Part IV) was made by John Edward Pigot, an enthusiastic lover of the music, language, and literature of Ireland. I had the advantage of some acquaintance with him, which, though slight, has left a very pleasant memory of his gentle, genial personality. This collection consists of two large MS. volumes paged consecutively, [x] with many smaller ones: all containing airs written in by various persons, including Mr. Pigot himself. He gathered up some MSS., chiefly in Munster; but here, as in the Forde collection, the airs re-appear in the larger volumes. But Mr. Pigot was an earnest collector of Irish airs on his own account. He took down tunes from numerous singers and instrumentalists all over Munster and Connaught, and he copied from MSS. borrowed from friends, many of whom have graved their names on the modern history of Ireland. Among these were Thomas Davis, the nobleminded leading spirit in the Young Ireland movement; John Windele, the distinguished Cork antiquary; Denny Lane of Cork, a well-known literary man; James Hardiman, the historian of Galway and editor of Hardiman's Irish Minstrelsy; William Elliott Hudson, a devoted student and writer on Irish subjects, editor of the musical part of The Citizen (for which see Joyce's Social History of Ancient Ireland, vol. i., p. 593); and Miss Mary Eva Kelly, then of Portumna, better known as "Eva," the writer of many fine national ballads in "The Nation," who subsequently married Dr. Kevin Izod O’Dogherty, and who, happily, is still living in hale old age, and resides in Australia (see p.381, below). It is to be observed that some of these contributors also gave airs to Forde.
  I have said that Petrie took numerous airs from Mr. Pigot’s books. I was obliged of curse to avoid copying these, so far as they appear in print - as they do in great numbers - in Petrie’s Ancient Music of Ireland and in the Stanford-Petrie Collection; a circumstance that very materially diminished the number of airs that I might otherwise have taken from the Pigot Collection. (ref, p.xi.)

Available at Internet Archive - online.]

References
Brian McKenna, Irish Literature, 1800-1875: A Guide to Information Sources (Detroit: Gale Research Co. 1978), cites an article by John O’Hagan including letters of Thomas Davis to Pigot in the 1840’s, in Irish Monthly 16 (1888); Matthew Russell, ‘Contributors to Irish Biography, John Edward Pigot,’ in Irish Monthly 24 (1896) [inc. obituary from The Nation, 8 July 1871]; Stephen Gwynn, ‘Pigot and Davis’, in Studies, 38 (1949).

Rev. Patrick Walsh, ed., Songs of the Gael: A Collection of Anglo-Irish Songs and Ballads Wedded to old Traditional Irish Airs (Dublin: Browne & Nolan 1922), selects “Our Own Little Isle” [as supra] - with a bio-note: ‘This stirring song is from the pen of the eldest son of the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer (Ireland). He was born at Kilworth, Co. Cork, in 1822, and died in Dublin in 1871. He was one of the Young Ireland group and wrote a few poems which are amongst the most stirring that appeared in The Nation (1842-48). He was a great collector of Irish airs, some of which have been published by Dr. P. W. Joyce. .The last four lines of each verse are repeated and should be chorased [sic] by the audience.’ (pp.2-3.)

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