Sweet Is Tipperary (Charles Villiers Stanford)

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• (Posted 2024-03-17)  CPDL #79571:     

Editor: David Anderson (submitted 2024-03-17).   Score information: Letter, 12 pages, 590 kB   Copyright: Personal

Edition notes: This edition is the first since its original U.S. printing, transcribed and edited by the discovering researcher.

General Information

Title: Sweet Is Tipperary
Composer: Charles Villiers Stanford
Lyricist: Denis Aloysius McCarthy
Number of voices: 4vv   Voicing: SATB
Genre: Secular, Partsong, Folksong

Language: English
Instruments: A cappella

First published: 1923 Silver, Burdett and Company
Description: OLD IRISH AIR
Commissioned for use by school choirs in the U.S., this Irish folksong setting was never published in the UK and was unknown to scholars for nearly a century.

Original text and translations

English text

Ah, sweet is Tipperary in the springtime of the year,
When the hawthorn’s whiter than the snow,
When the feathered folk assemble and the air is all a-tremble
With their singing and their winging to and fro;
When queenly Slievenamon puts her verdant vesture on,
And smiles to hear the news the breezes bring;
When the sun begins to glance on the rivulets that dance—
Ah, sweet is Tipperary in the spring!

Ah, sweet is Tipperary in the springtime of the year,
When the mists are rising from the lea,
When the Golden Vale is smiling with a beauty all beguiling,
And the Suir goes crooning to the sea;
When the shadows and the showers only multiply the flowers
That the lavish hand of May will fling;
When in unfrequented ways, fairy music softly plays—
Ah, sweet is Tipperary in the spring!

Ah, sweet is Tipperary in the springtime of the year,
When life like the year is young,
When the soul is just awaking like a lily blossom breaking,
And love words linger on the tongue;
When the blue of Irish skies is the hue of Irish eyes,
And love-dreams cluster and cling
Round the heart and round the brain, half of pleasure, half of pain—
Ah, sweet is Tipperary in the spring!