Saturday Song of Place: On Hyndford Street

The Irish love to name places in their songs and poems. Place is far more than a geographic data-point for them.

Songs of Place: The Streets of Arklow

The only people I know who sing and write about place as much as American Southerners do are the Irish and Scots. The Streets of Arklow is a paean to a place and to a day, and I think it is one of the most beautiful songs I know.

Songs of Place: Coney Island

It's St. Patrick's Day, so we'll have a special Irish installment of the Songs of Place series. There are many songs I might have chosen, but here is something I've loved since I first heard it. Van Morrison's Coney Island. It's a poem, that's all, spoken to a musical accompaniment, and I have always thought it a very fine poem and have even tried from time to time to write something along the same lines. The story of a day's journey, with the episodic this-and-then-that litany of the things we saw and the things we did.

Strange how all the place-names seem emotive and significant even to those of us who have never been there. "On and on over the hill . . ."

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Other Van Morrison songs of place: Cyprus Avenue, Raglan Road, Streets of Arklow, Hyndford Street. Orangefield. And I'm sure there are many more.