towards "Limerick" verse

[Stephen Goranson]

Two additional notes.

Charles Larcom Graves was a student at Oxford, source of many early "Limerick
rhymes," and presumably was in attendance in 1881 when the Bishop of Limerick,
his father, was reportedly greeted with "...Won't you come up to Limerick
town?"
Alumni oxonienses: "Christ Church, 19 Oct., 1875, aged 18; junior student
1874-9, B.A. 1879, M.A. 1882."

C.L. Graves' brother,  Alfred Perceval Graves (1846-1931) wrote lyrics for
Roseen Dhu: Irish vocal suite : adapted from old Irish airs : op. 49 /
M Esposito;  Alfred Perceval Graves
1901
English Musical Score Musical Score : Printed music : Songs 1 score (31 p.)
London ; New York : Breitkopf & Härtel. (I haven't seen nor heard this music.)

Reprinted in The Irish Poems of Alfred Perceval Graves (Dublin and NY, 1908),
including, p. 33:
So together, by hills of heather
And moorland brown, we thundered down,
With glancing steel and dancing feather,
To Limerick town, to Limerick town.

Stephen

Quoting Stephen Goranson <goranson at duke.edu>:

> On the proposed trajectory from the US-attested "come to Limerick" meaning
> surrender (and the like; also, "get with the program" [and note the
> verses with
> a similar sentiment, Ye Book of Copperheads ff]) to UK-attested uses in
> the now-familiar sense, I have reconsidered the weight of the 1918
> article "The Cult of the "Limerick'" in The Cornhill Magazine v. 117
> (n.s. 44)
> Feb. 1918 pp. 158-166, signed by C.L.G. (later reprinted in the US in The
> Living Age).
> We know of (later so called) Limerick writing in Cambridge (e.g., The Light
> Green: a superior and high-class periodical..., A.C. Hilton, 1872) and Oxford
> (e.g., The Shotover Papers, 1874-5). Other universities (e.g. Edinburgh,
> Columbia) are attested later. J. H. Murray (not identical with J. A.
> H. Murray)
> mentioned in 1898 a refrain; he may have operated an optical shop
> after a degree
> from Glasgow. John MacGregor who published in 1896 a "Limerick rhyme" had a
> degree from Edinburgh. Add in the claim in the (US-edited) Police Gazette
> (noted by Fred) of "Limerick rhymes" in Oxford in 1880, and we return to the
> Cornhill Magazine. There the claim: "we believe to be the correct form of the
> refrain" as
> Won't you come up, come up, come up,
> Won't you come up to Limerick town?"
> He sets this memory "in the Sheldonian" on the day when "the D.C.L.
> degree was
> conferred on the then [Church of England] Bishop of Limerick by the
> University
> of Oxford nearly forty years ago." This refrain may have pre-existed this day
> and been repeated for the occasion, on 13 June, 1881 (according to
> The Times of
> the next day).
>
> Should we believe the memory of this writer? Perhaps so. He was
> Charles Larcom
> Graves (1856-1944), and the Bishop, Charles Graves (1812-1899), was his
> Father.
>
> Stephen Goranson
> http://www.duke.edu/~goranson
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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