My Lagan Love Lyrics

Celtic Woman

Music Video

My Lagan Love

Where Lagan stream sings lullaby
There blows a lily fair
The twilight gleam is in her eye
The night is on her hair
And like a love-sick lenanshee
She has my heart in thrall
Nor life I owe, nor liberty
With love is lord of all

[Missing Verse]

Her father sails a running-barge
'Twixt Leamh-beag and The Druim;
And on the lonely river-marge
She clears his hearth for him.
When she was only fairy-high
Her gentle mother died;
But dew-Love keeps her memory
Green on the Lagan side.

And sometimes when the beetle's horn
Hath lulled the eve to sleep
I steal unto her sheiling lorn
And thru the dooring peep.
There on the cricket's singing stone,
She stirs the bogwood fire,
And hums in sad sweet undertone
The song of heart's desire
The song of heart's desire

[Missing Verse]

Her welcome, like her love for me,
Is from her heart within:
Her warm kiss is felicity
That knows no taint of sin.
And, when I stir my foot to go,
'Tis leaving Love and light
To feel the wind of longing blow
From out the dark of night.

Song Details

Lyricist: Joseph Campbell (1879–1944) - (Seosamh MacCathmhaoil in Irish) - Irish poet.

Music: Set to an unmeasured traditional Irish air known as “Aisling an Óigfhir” (“The Young Man’s Dream”), which Joseph Campbell collected from a country singer in the Lagan Valley.

Publication: It first appeared in the 1904 collection Songs of Uladh (Songs of Ulster).

Earliest Recording: 1910 by John McCormack

Song Brief:
The poem is set against the backdrop of the Lagan River in Ulster. The song describes a love so powerful it feels like enchantment — the kind of love that overtakes the senses and leaves the singer spellbound. The song is filled with yearning, but also with distance. The beloved is beautiful, ethereal, almost otherworldly — and the singer seems to know that this love may remain out of reach.

Glossary:

Lagan
The river that runs through Belfast.
In older usage, lagan can also mean low‑lying land in a hollow, which adds to the song’s sense of place.
leannán sí (anglicised: lennan‑shee, lenanshee)
A fairy lover or fairy sweetheart in Irish folklore — often a muse‑like figure associated with beauty, enchantment, and longing.
in thrall
In bondage or under someone’s power; held by a strong emotional or magical influence.
Twixt: between
Leamh-beag (Lambeg)
A village between Lisburn and Belfast.
The name means “little elm” in Irish.
The Druim (Drum)
From Irish An Druim, meaning “the ridge.”
In local tradition, it refers to the site of a bridge across the river and the canal beside it, where the waterway eventually diverges toward Lough Neagh.
lorn - Abandoned; forsaken.
sheiling lorn
An abandoned mountain hut or summer dwelling — a poetic image of loneliness or desolation.
bogwood
Wood preserved in a peat bog, often darkened and hardened over time.
felicity - Bliss; deep happiness.
dooring - A doorway or entrance.

☘ The crickets mentioned in the song are a sign of good luck and their sound on the hearth a good omen.

☘ Words in brackets are modern-day spellings.

Genre: Irish Love Song

Covers: John McCormack (1910), Margaret Brady (1953), Emmet Spiceland (1968), Van Morrison and The Chieftains (1988), Charlotte Church(1998), Sinéad O'Connor (2002), Fionnuala Sherry (2010), Celtic Thunder (2011), Lisa Hannigan and The Chieftains (2012).

Featured Artists: Celtic Woman featuring Lyn Hillary

Album: Songs From The Heart
Released: Jan 26, 2010
Country: US
Format: CD
Label: Manhattan Records

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