Thread by @PatrickCorrigan

The Sash My Father Wore

Throughout Northern Ireland today, one tune - above all others - was heard along the highways and byways: The Sash.

A thread of entwined history. 1/

I heard it this morning played by a very fine pipe band in my hometown of Newcastle for #TheTwelfth.

And whether or not you identify with the lyrics, the tune is infectious. A foot tapper. In modern club parlance, a banger. 2/

And what about those lyrics? Any song that can seamlessly name check a siege, three battles and manage to rhyme “fine” with “Boyne”, without missing a beat is doing something right. 3/

But the air itself, like so many Irish / Scottish / American folk songs, is not limited to just one song.

The Sash My Father Wore, which appeared in the late nineteenth century, doesn’t have exclusive rights to the tune. 4/

Around the same time, another song, The Hat My Father Wore, appeared. Hilariously, in contrast to The Sash, this is a bit of Irish-American hokey nostalgia recalling the singer’s father wearing the hat of the title back in Ireland, one he now likes to wear on St Patrick’s day. 5/

It’s the same tune, and has some common lyrics (“It's old, but it's beautiful…“) but in comparison to The Sash, is frankly a bit of a dirge and smacks of ‘Oirish’ paddywhackery. One song collection dates this version to 1876. 6/

Another version by the same name, is recorded in the August 1896 edition of The Shan Van Vocht, a nationalist magazine produced in Belfast. This time, the hat of the title saw extensive action in the United Irishmen rebellion of 1798. 7/

Which came first, the Hat or Sash version, isn’t clear. But, neither is the original to go with the tune. The pre-cursor to both is Irish Molly-o, a traditional song of Scots-Irish origin, popular in America in the early 19th century, first published in Philadelphia c.1830. 8/

Rather than a tale of war or patriotism, it’s a tale of thwarted love, with a heartbroken Glasgow lad by the name of MacDonald denied the hand of a Tyrone lass by the name of Molly. A story of heartache as old as the hills. 9/

Again the common lyrical antecedent of both later songs can be seen in the line, “She is young and she is beautiful…”

So, there we have it, The Sash started off as a love song for Molly from Tyrone – and is still enjoyed today in some parts of the county and in Glasgow... 10/

Tommy Sands, one of our finest exponents of the folk form in the present era, recorded the original love song for his 2006 album, The Heart's A Wonder. Enjoy: 11/11