Kickstarter Launched: Unearthed Songs From Irish America

In September of 2024 Melanie Beth Curran launched a Kickstarter campaign to create an album of forgotten Irish American songs. Curran seeks to make an album fit for all immigrants. The songs speak to common struggles of all colonized and displaced people today. Amidst a rise in anti-migrant rhetoric in both America and Ireland, Curran’s project provides a bastion of clarity, connecting the broader Irish American immigrant experience to the shared struggles of today’s refugees.

In 2024, Curran unearthed a bevy of Irish American field recordings from The Library of Congress and other archives. These songs packed a punch. They illuminated how Irish Americans coped with loss, longing, and the process of finding home in a new world. Though rife with historic and cultural significance, the songs were gathering digital dust. She sought to change this. In August, she performed the songs at Jalopy Theatre and School of Folk Music in Brooklyn. She wrote and published a zine documenting the lyrics and stories behind the songs.

Here are a selection of the source materials Curran is working with and is inspired by:

Kathleen Mouverneen, Yankee Brown, Don't Judge a Man by The Clothes That He Wears - Beaver Island, Michigan (Library of Congress)

Interviews of Kevin Shannon - Butte, Montana (Library of Congress)

Bonny Irish Boy, Hills of Glenswilly, I am Thinking Ever Thinking - Ireland 

Jerry Go and Oil that Car - Canton, New York (Minnesota Folk Song Collection)

Goodbye Mike, Goodbye Pat (Leaving Tipperary); Barney McShane - America, Tin Pan Alley 

Songs from The New Song Book for Butte Mining Camp

Songs from present day New York City Irish, such as Chris Byrne's "Love in The Room”

Irish Americans on Beaver Island, Michigan during Alan Lomax’ field recording trip there in 1938.

“I am a devotee of Saint Brigid, who, in her beauty and grace, taught all people how to love and take care of the landless, of the people who have less, of the ones who come behind and need a hand up. She taught us to be great people of hospitality. I bring these songs into the 21st century so that others may find compassion in their hearts. The Irish American consciousness can be one of love and support across lines of race, creed, and politics. I am working for Saint Brigid and I will not stop singing until all people and all lands are free.” - Melanie Beth Curran

Curran’s Kickstarter campaign supports the realization of an album and a subsequent tour. Curran aims to connect through live performances in Irish American enclaves, in Ireland, and in spaces where the displaced are currently housed. Inspiration for this project comes from the late folklorist and musician Mick Moloney. His work bringing life to historic Irish American music is a blueprint for Curran’s efforts.

“Unearthed Songs of Irish America” is available to support on Kickstarter at this link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/glenswilly/unearthed-songs-from-irish-america. The Kickstarter is live from September 5 - 27, with an all-or-nothing fundraising goal of $17,500. Rewards for backers include private concerts, vinyl albums, digital downloads, t-shirts, stickers, hats and more. The anticipated release date for the album is Saint Brigid’s Feast Day, Feb 1, 2025

Zine 2: Happy Within: An Irish American Songbook

"Happy Within - An Irish American Songbook"

Collection of Lyrics and Commentary on 38 Irish American Songs.

Each song is hand-plucked from the waves of time. You'll find serenades from sources like: Alan Lomax's 1938 field recordings, vaudeville stages, medieval manuscripts, Butte Montana miners and railroad workers, the West coast of Ireland, Thin Lizzy, Hell's Kitchen, and more! You'll even see a few soon-to-be-classics written by Melanie Beth Curran herself. A surefire party for the lads, lassies and laxxes all.

The title “Happy Within” comes from the lyrics which sparked this songbook’s creation. In 1938, Alan Lomax recorded a guy named John W. Green on Beaver Island in Michigan. Discovering the field recording of Mr. Green singing “Kathleen Mauvorneen” sent Curran on a quest.

“Happy Within” contains lyrics and commentary for 38 songs, plus pictures and ramblings.

104 pages, full color

6.69 X 9.61 inches, spiral bound

110lb cover

70lb text

Contains:

Highway Patrolman - Bruce Springsteen

The Patriot Game - Dominic Behan

Low Places - Garth Brooks

I Am Thinking Ever Thinking - Traditional / Singing of Delores Keane

Fannin Street - Kathleen Brennan and Tom Waits

Óró sé do bheatha abhaile - Traditional / Singing of Sinéad O’Connor

Barney McShane - Andrew B. Sterling / Singing of Kevin Shannon

New York Girls - Traditional Sea Shanty / Singing of Finbar Furey

Take it and Run - The Dropkick Murphys

Kathleen Mavourneen - John W. Green, Collected by Alan Lomax, Beaver Island, MI 1938

May Morning Dew - Traditional, learned in West Clare and from singing of Delores Keane

Hell’s Kitchen - The Westies, Michael McDermott

The Boys of Barr Na Stráide - Sigerson Clifford, Singing of Arcady

Caoineadh Na Tri Mhuire (The Lament of the Three Marys) - Traditional, Singing of John Heaney

The Irish Rover - Traditional Sea Shanty, Cork or Letrim origins

By The Hush, Me Boys - American Civil War Traditional Ballad, singing of OJ Abbott

My Bonny Irish Boy - Traditional, Singing of Birdie Rainey and Margo O’Donnell

The Galway Girl - Steve Earle

Fairytale of New York - The Pogues

Donegal Danny - by Phil Coulter, Singing of Margo O’Donnell

Don’t Judge a Man by The Clothes That He Wears - Andrew Gallagher, Collected by Alan Lomax, Beaver Island, MI 1938

One Starry Night - Traveller song, heard in County Clare

Paradise by The Dashboard Light - Meatloaf

Yankee Brown - Daniel Bonner, Collected by Alan Lomax, Beaver Island, MI 1938

She Moves Through The Fair - Traditional, Singing of Sinéad O’Connor

Rop tú mo Baile / Sale / Be Thou My Vision - Dallān Forgail

Shenandoah - Traditional, from singing of Paul Clayton

The Wearing of The Green - Dion Boucicault and Others

The Dark Eyed Gypsy - Traditional, singing of Joe Holmes, from Fire Draw Near Anthology

School Days Over - by Ewan MacColl, singing of Luke Kelly

The Boys Are Back in Town - Thin Lizzy

Dublin Blues - Guy Clark

Glenswilly - Melanie Beth Curran

Landed Gentry / Rivers Just Babble - Melanie Beth Curran

I Don’t Regret a Thing - (Laoghaire Ní Sidhe) - Melanie Beth Curran

From the epilogue:

"In these songs were people burning with passion and anger. Even if they weren’t saying it outright, the anger was implied and undergirding even the most beautiful songs.

For three days I woke with the lyrics to “Hell’s Kitchen” by The Westies playing in my brain. The song was a good omen. Here was another songwriter languishing in New York City making the mistake of caring about the past and the making vulnerable choice to craft a song for it. Not sure if the writer even lived it. Was his father really some kind of Hell's Kitchen Irish Mobster? Did the places between ninth and tenth really reek of sex and sin or was he making that up? “You weren’t born a kitchen girl”, he sings. Does he know Kitchen Girl is a beloved American Appalachian Fiddle Tune? He’s just talking about a woman who wasn’t born in those streets above 42nd. He’s talking about me.

I go there one day and after a multi hour cultural assessment I discover that Hell’s Kitchen does still have a lot of Patricks and a thousand other types too. I keep seeing myself there in my precious apartment, in a silk robe, drinking iced cola, refrigerator filled to the gills with explosives. I’m good at making bombs in this fantasy. I’m a natural. I hit all my targets. I’m fearless. I’m brave. Zine is the back half of magazine. It’s pronounced “Zeen”. A Magazine gets its name from actually military magazines, places where the armaments were stored in an organized fashion. The original printed magazines did this too, but with words. Each section of the magazine was its own thing that could do harm and rip things up and explode.

This zine is a collection of Irish American Songs. These songs contain all the rage and passion I didn’t set loose on the elites this year.

I gnaw on the window sill and dig my nails into the carpet. The songs make a break for the exit but I ask them please to sit down and appear in these pages for you. I’ve done all I can to describe their fury but know that there are many yet unsung."