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continuo_maire1.html=8 She came to the cafe from a rehearsal. It was the accordion player's turn to call the songs.
"And there was music
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I never should have
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"upon his knee a pretty wench |
theme_maire.html=16 pause theme_maire1.html=16 At the hour when they were meeting, the woods were darkly beautiful. |
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continuo_liam1.html=8 continuo_liam2.html=16 But they said over and over (as if the memory was a song) that the sound of the accordion was the sound of the dance hall. And there was nothing like that music on that evening. |
continuo_maire4.html=16 The band played on as if they were at a festival. The audience sitting on blankets, drinking draft beer.
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"And what's it to any man whether or no, |
theme_maire2.html=32 There were lanterns in the courtyard, but they were not yet turned on. "Down through the valley so shady" |
theme_liam1.html=16 There were white tablecloths and baskets of rustic baguettes on the tables in the outdoor courtyard of the Farmhouse Cafe.
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In the courtyard |
continuo_liam3.html=8 "I think it was Tom Senier playing the accordion". "No, it was Joe Derraine."
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continuo_maire7.html=8 Leading with the sweetly wailing sound of his accordion, Cormac kept calling the songs
"I'd go home to my parents
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"A gypsy rover came over the hill"
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theme_maire3.html=8 Máire Powers had followed the road along the river to the Farmhouse Cafe.
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theme_liam3.html=8 In the distance, the sun was setting on the dark green hills of early evening.
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continuo_liam6.html=16 "But you were really in Boston or Cambridge, or Dorchester, and there was nothing like that music on that evening.
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continuo_maire11.html=32 "A gypsy rover came over the hill, Down through the valley so shady. He whistled and he sang till the green woods rang. And he won the heart of the lady." |
theme_maire5.html=16 in a boat with whiskey and friends, and the people working in the fields came down to the banks of the Shannon to hear his beautiful voice.
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theme_liam5.html=32 And all along the banks of the Arno, there were lanterns. |
continuo_liam8.html=16 A view of Florence from San Miniato al Monte that Thomas Cole painted in 1837, the year that Hiram Powers and his family arrived in Florence. was on his mind as he followed the road along the river to the farmhouse.
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continuo_maire12.html=8 Like a fiddle tune that continually returns to the opening notes, her family tree was echoing in her mind, as she drove along the river on the road that led to the Farmhouse Cafe. In America, it began in the 17th century.
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"Brushing her hair |
theme_liam6.html=16 Liam had arrived at the cafe a few minutes before Máire. With him, he brought Wunder's two volume monograph on Hiram Powers. Together, the two volumes were large and heavy. He decided to leave them in the car.
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continuo_liam10.html=32 Máire Powers was not there when Liam walked into the Farmhouse Cafe. There were white tablecloths on the tables, and at the hour when they were meeting, the woods were darkly beautiful. "Down through the valley so shady" |
continuo_maire17.html=8 William Powers married Mary Bank. She was the daughter of John and Hannah Jenkins Bank (or Banks or Banke) of Chelmsford.
William and Mary's
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Their children included Lemuel Powers,
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Their children
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Leaving the fiddle in the car,
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theme_liam7.html=8 He chose a table at the edge of the courtyard in a place where there was a view to the woods.
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He hadn't told any of his colleagues |
continuo_liam11.html=8 Only a week ago, hiking on a hillside that he could see this evening in the distance, he had stayed on the top too long and had to use his flashlight to hike back down the hill.
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continuo_maire20.html=8 Ezekiel Powers fought for the American Revolution and married Hannah Hall. Among their children was Major Abijah Powers, born May 7, 1781.
It was probably at that time
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theme_maire10.html=16 In the summer, Focluth Wood traveled the New England Coast, playing at Festivals and Fairs. Afterwards, there would be beer with other bands. There was no reason that this day was different.
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continuo_liam17.html=16 In times of peace, life went on in 17th century Ireland. Before, in between, after the wars. Then, it should be remembered, sometimes there was dancing in the fields.
And "sometimes
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There were orchards.
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continuo_maire22.html=16 Elias Powers married Orpha Emeline White, a descendent of Elder John White, whose 17th century homestead (or cowyard) in Cambridge is now a part of Harvard University.
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theme_liam11.html=8 As the shadows of the trees lengthened, the lanterns in the courtyard came on in unison.
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continuo_liam20.html=8 "The Table Laden". Living by lantern and candlelight, in the dark nights. with music and storytelling (hiking back home on a wooded trail guided through the forest. by the beam of his flashlight.)
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Máire's continuo | ... |
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... | Liam's continuo |
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theme_liam14_pause.html=12 pause theme_liam14.html=20 They began to talk, exchanging words as if they had known each other all their lives.
He asked her how she knew |
continuo_liam23_intro.html=12 He was looking at the mist rising on the dark mountains in the distance and the way the light from the lanterns shone on the forest and did not see her until she was standing beside his table, saying his name.
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continuo_maire26.html=8 "Now as she went homeward, the words he had said"
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theme_maire16.html=16 "It began with my great grandfather's books."
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continuo_maire28.html=16 "As down the glen one Easter morn To a city fair rode I"
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theme_maire18.html=16 In April 1916, she told him, her great grandfather escaped from Dublin with his Fenian brother on a silent ship.
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continuo_maire29.html=32 "down through the valley so shady" |
theme_maire20.html=20 And with him to America, her great grandfather brought forty books. A treasure of history, music and poetry. Forty books from the Gaelic Revival, stowed in the crates that had carried guns to Dublin.
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continuo_maire30.html=16 ...as if everything in her life was linked to the moment
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theme_maire21.html=16 "I grew up reading those books. When I decided to write an Irish lay I went home every weekend and read them again."
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And my father said, |
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continuo_maire32.html=16 The British slave ship The Goodfellow docked first in Marblehead, in Essex County, Massachusetts. There had been 550 captive Irish and Scottish young men and women aboard the ship when she sailed from Kinsale, Ireland.
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continuo_maire34.html=8 Winter evenings at home were the sound of the fiddle when her family played the old songs. Her mother's clear voice retelling legends.
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He asked the question slowly,
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continuo_maire35_pause.html=32 The Goodfellow arrived in January, 1654. Máire had walked beside the ocean in Marblehead in the Winter. Knew exactly the dark green color of the ocean and the sound of the waves on the icy shore. |
theme_maire26.html=24 "When my father broke the silence in our family, no one else knew. No one knew that the founder of our family was stolen from Ireland against his will. No one knew.
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continuo_maire36.html=24 The name of the case made it clear that they were slaves: "Law Case, Master Samuel Symonds against Irish slaves.William Downing and Philip Welch,Salem Quarterly Court, Salem, Massachusetts. June 25, 1661"
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theme_maire29.html=16 Máire Powers looked across the table at Liam O'Brien, as if he was a member of her family.
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Word by word, |
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continuo_liam36_pause.html=16 psuse
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continuo_maire38.html=16 & in the way as they went, some others they tooke with them against their Consents, & brought them aboard ye said ship, where there were divers others of their Country men, weeping and Crying, because they were stollen from theyr frends"
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It was the two years after the publication
of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,
An American Slave.
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continuo_maire39.html=20 "The Goodfellow arrived in January, 1654, at Marblehead, Mass," Michael J. O'Brien wrote in his history of the Irish in New England, "where the master of the vessel disposed of part of his human cargo and then proceeded to Boston."
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theme_liam32_pause.html=12 theme_liam32.html=8 And so had Hiram, he thought. And so had Hiram Powers always known. It was not a scholar's answer.
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continuo_liam38.html=24 There were at least 80 slave narratives written by African Americans, he remembered. And we do not yet know them all.
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cantata2_intro.html=16 A waiter had arrived and was standing in expectation beside their table.
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continuo_maire41.html=16 In the distance, the sun was setting on the dark green hills of early evening. An Irish ballad was on her mind, sung in the early evening by the legendary Anthony O'Brien
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theme_liam35.html=16 At the hour when they were meeting the woods were darkly beautiful. He was thinking that in times of peace, life went on in 17th century Ireland. Before, in between, after the wars. Then, it should be remembered sometimes there was dancing in the fields.
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continuo_liam39.html=8 Neither of his grandparents remembered which band was playing or the name of the waltz that they first danced to.
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continuo_maire42_voice.html=16 ![]() "Down through the valley so shady"
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