Uploaded October 2025 | Updated September 2026, 4 days ago
Here is a Hallowe'en themed song that I recorded late last night with Aileen and it is just gorgeous.
The song is actually a poem, entitled Hallow’s E’en by Winifred M Letts and published in her collection ‘Song From Leinster’ in 1914. Aileen has been working a lot on Winifred's poetry over the years and putting airs to them and bringing them into the song tradition.
There are very few Hallowe'en songs in the Irish song tradition and in this one, Winifred writes about a number of courting and divination customs which she witnessed - from putting chestnuts in the fire, finding the ring in the barnbrack etc when she spent time on the coast of north Wexford.
This scene she paints here is of boys and girls playing games by the fire on 'Hallow’s E’en' trying to figure out who they will marry or fall in love with during the year while the central figure has lost her lover and walks in the dark quay (probably Courtown or Cahore) and calls her dead love to her side. In the final moments of the poem/song, he comes to her and in that moment on 'Hallow’s E’en', the living kisses the dead.
Have a listen and you will find many more of Aileen's interpretations of Winifred's poems in older posts here on YouTube.
Text: Michael Fortune
Poem/Song: Winifred M. Letts/Aileen Lambert
Here is a Hallowe'en themed song that I recorded late last night with Aileen and it is just gorgeous.
The song is actually a poem, entitled Hallow’s E’en by Winifred M Letts and published in her collection ‘Song From Leinster’ in 1914. Aileen has been working a lot on Winifred's poetry over the years and putting airs to them and bringing them into the song tradition.
There are very few Hallowe'en songs in the Irish song tradition and in this one, Winifred writes about a number of courting and divination customs which she witnessed - from putting chestnuts in the fire, finding the ring in the barnbrack etc when she spent time on the coast of north Wexford.
This scene she paints here is of boys and girls playing games by the fire on 'Hallow’s E’en' trying to figure out who they will marry or fall in love with during the year while the central figure has lost her lover and walks in the dark quay (probably Courtown or Cahore) and calls her dead love to her side. In the final moments of the poem/song, he comes to her and in that moment on 'Hallow’s E’en', the living kisses the dead.
Have a listen and you will find many more of Aileen's interpretations of Winifred's poems in older posts here on YouTube.
Text: Michael Fortune
Poem/Song: Winifred M. Letts/Aileen Lambert
