> Waterson:Carthy > Songs > With Kitty I’ll Go

With Kitty I’ll Go

[ Roud 3052 ; DT KITTYGO ; Mudcat 13672 ; trad.]

Dermott Barry sang With Kitty I’ll Go to Jean Ritchie and George Pickow on their 1959 Folkways anthology As I Roved Out (Field Trip—Ireland). Jean Ritchie noted:

This has become one of my favorite songs of all those gathered on our travels. It is lyrical and sentimental, yet lilting and humorous, and so beautifully Irish! Dermott Barry, who sings the song, is a shy, handsome young schoolteacher in the city of Armagh, County Armagh. He is a close friend of Seán O’Boyle […], and he and Seán are both scholars of the Gaelic language, and are interested in its preservation. They sang for us many lovely songs, at Seán’s home, both in English and in Gaelic, and then Dermott told us about the custom of singing half in Gaelic, half in English. Some singers, mostly the old countryfolk who actually use the Gaelic as their household language, will wander back and forth between the two tongues in the middle of a verse or even a line, translating as they sang, as the notion strikes. Mrs. Cronin in County Cork was such a singer, and some of the people on the Aran Islands. Dermott, not to confuse us, sang, With Kitty, following each verse in Gaelic with the translation in English.

Jean Ritchie sang With Kitty I’ll Go in 1965 on her album Mountain Hearth & Home.

Norma Waterson sang With Kitty I’ll Go in 1994 on Waterson:Carthy’s eponymous debut album Waterson:Carthy. Martin Carthy noted:

Norma first heard With Kitty I’ll Go from the great Connemara singer Joe Heaney. He sang it in its usual from which alternates verses in Irish and English—and if the Irish words are as good as the English then they must be fabulous. She got this particular version (also sung in both languages) from Dermott Barry of Armagh City who was recorded by Jean Ritchie.

Lyrics

Jean Ritchie sings With Kitty I’ll Go

It’s with Kitty I’ll go for a ramble
Over the mountains wild
Where the blackbirds nest in the brambles
In the home where the eagle chides
Or in some lonely valley
Where the birds in the evening nest
And mine with their prayers would mingle
For the sun to hurry west

O my darling wee lark of the heather
Your voice is so sweet to me
As the stars all singing together
Where the mountains sweep down to the sea
And all of Erin’s bright treasures
All her beautiful locks and rills
Cannot equal one smile from my Caitlin
My queen of the heathery hills

O I’ll buy the roughest of raiment
To last out the life of man
My whiskers unkempt and unshaven
Till the reach is a mile in span
Like the fleece of the grey mountain wether
They’ll tumble and dangle around
If I don’t get a wife in the heather
I’ll try in the new-mown ground

Norma Waterson sings With Kitty I’ll Go

With Kitty I’ll go for a ramble
Over the mountains wild
Where the blackbirds nest in the brambles
In a place where the eagle flies
Or in some lonely valley
Where the birds in the evening nest
And my with their prayers would mingle
For the sun to hurry west

I’ll buy the roughest of raiments
To last out the life of man
With my whiskers unkempt and unshaven
Till the reach is a mile in span
Like the fleece on a grey mountain wether
They’ll rumble and jingle around
If I can’t find a wife in the heather
I’ll try in the low mown ground

(repeat first verse)

Acknowledgements

Transcribed by Garry Gillard. Thanks to Seth Kurtzberg for pointing out the correct verse order.