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An Páistín Fionn

Niamh Parsons sang An Páistín Fionn on her 2000 album In My Prime. A 2001 live recording from the Arsenaal Theatre in Vlissingen was released in 2021 on her download album So Here’s to You. A live recording from the Marine Hall, Fleetwood, Lancashire, during the Fylde Folk Festival 2005 was released in the same year on Live at Fylde. She noted on the first album:

This English version was collected by John Lyons and given to me by my good friends Donal Lyons and Katie Lyons. We had a great night in Donal’s house and sang songs until the bottle ran dry. He wrote it out for me on a tiny scrap of paper the next day at the recovery session in the Ovens Bar in Cork. A mighty weekend and a new song!

The Poozies sang An Páistín Fionn, “learned from the singing of Ciaran O Gealbhain and Cormac De Barra”, in 2009 on their Greentrax album Yellow Like Sunshine.

Lyrics

Niamh Parsons sings An Páistín Fionn

Chorus (after each verse):
Is tusa mo rún, mo rún, mo rún
Is tusa mo rún is mo ghrá gheal
You are my delight and my comfort all night
And I’d wrap you up tight in my arms

Mo Pháistín Fionn is my heart’s delight,
Her heart shines out through her two eyes so bright.
And the bloom of the apple in her cheeks so bright
And her neck like the swan on a March morn bright.

O love of my heart my fair páistín,
Your lips are as red as the roses sheen.
But mine have touched no other I wheen
Than the glass that I drank to the health of my queen.

Were I in the town where sports prevail
Between two barrels of sweet brown ale
And my fond páistín upon my knee
’Tis I would sing to her pleasantly.

Nine nights I have lain in sorrow and pain
Beneath your window, love, under the rain,
Thinking of you my love once again
That some whisper or thought might awaken you.

Kind friends and neighbours they say I’d go
From all of the prettiest girls that I know,
But from you my dear o never o no!
’Til I lie in a coffin stretched cold and low.