Just published E5 of Werewolf of Connemara Podcast, The Laments of Sister Clare. In this episode, Fergal learns to play guitar from a mysterious nun he hears singing an old Irish ballad at night on the convent grounds.
It’s not a very happy song: it’s a song about a girl getting murdered by a willow tree. When I originally wrote Werewolf of Connemara, the song I had in mind was always Rose Connolly, some of which goes:
My Daddy had always told me
that money would set me free
If I did murder that dear little girl
and her name was Rose Connolly
Although the earliest versions of this song originated in Ireland, it became more popular in America as Down by the Willow Gardens. It wasn’t until Philip King’s groundbreaking 1991 television series Bringing It All Back Home on the influence of Irish music in America and the musical migration that this song was rediscovered. The excellent Everly Brothers played the tune as they had learned it from its America roots in Appalachia.
The other two songs I used in this episode were an old Irish ballad called A Pretty Maid Milking Her Cow, and Carrickfergus.
The technical trick here was to have a ghostly presence sing these songs, when I did not in fact have a female Irish folk singer at hand, and did not have the rights to use another artist’s work.
The solution: I sang it myself and used a great little pitch altering plugin (Little Altar Boy), added a little reverb, to try and convey the ghostly music. It is not perfect, but such are the trials and tribulations of trying to turn a work of fiction into an Audio Drama. I hope you enjoy The Laments of Sister Clare, and thank you for listening.
