Eddie Butcher

Eddie Butcher was born on 8 May 1900,[1]^: 1 in a house that stood on the dividing line between the small townlands of Duncrun and Tamlaght,[2]^: 3 and lived all his life in Magilligan, County Londonderry, in the far north-west corner of modern Ulster.[2]^: 2 He was the fifth of John and Elizabeth (Clyde) Butcher's ten children[1]^: 1 brought up from the 1890s to the 1920s, and whose names are, in order of seniority: Robert, Katey, Rose, Patrick, Eddie, John, Willy, Maggie, Lily, and Jimmy. All except Lily were singers and those who were old enough learned the core of their repertory from their father, who died in 1920[3]^: 17 and had been a daysman,[4] or day labourer for local farmers.[2]^: 3

Butcher started work by lifting potatoes at the age of 12, and later went for hiring at "the Rabble"[5] and "the Gallop",[6] the hiring fairs in Coleraine and Limavady respectively, in May and November.[2]^: 3 By the time he was 20, he was a daysman himself.[2]^: 3 In his late twenties, he turned from farm work to a variety of other jobs, such a working as a gardener and handyman, peat-cutting, building, road-making, thatching and working in a quarry, often cycling long distances to and from work each day.[2]^: 3

Before he retired, he spent 18 years with the Ministry of Agriculture on the River Roe drainage project.[2]^: 3

Both Butcher and his wife Gracie (née Carr[3]^: 19), whom he married in c.1933,[3]^: 18 came from noted local singing families, and whenever there was a dance or another occasion in the vicinity, Butcher's father would be asked to come along to sing, and the brothers and sisters of both families were also well-known performers, locally.[2]^: 3 During Butcher's childhood, their house was always one of the most popular cèilidh houses in Magilligan, with neighbours dropping in regularly for a night of craic, until the practice died out in the area.[2]^: 3

Before he left home, Butcher learned the greater part of his repertoire from his father and, later, from his brothers and from Gracie's sisters.[2]^: 3 He also had a gift for writing his own songs, set to traditional airs and often about local events[2]^: 3 or his own experience as a farm labourer or road worker in later life.[note 1] From 1953 onwards,[note 2] he was regularly interviewed by Hugh Shields, who recorded about sixty songs from him within a couple of years, either in manuscript form or, later, through tape recording equipment,[3]^: 18 and published some of these songs in the 1981 book Shamrock, Rose & Thistle.[7]

In 1966, Butcher began to sing frequently on radio from Dublin or Belfast and some of his songs were released on discs,[3]^: 19 first in 1969 on the EP Adam in Paradise,[8] followed in 1976 by an LP, also titled Shamrock, Rose & Thistle. These radio broadcasts brought him some renown, and attracted the attention of local tradition bearers like Joe Holmes (1906-1978) and Len Graham (b. 1944), with whom he sang and performed. They joined him at his home for the 1975 sessions that yielded two albums of rare Ulster songs: Butcher's I Once Was a Daysman, and Chaste Muses, Bards and Sages by Holmes & Graham. Other frequent visitors to his house included Jackie Devenney (Coleraine), Brian Mullen (Derry),[3]^: 36 and occasionally Andy Irvine (b. 1942) who, along with Paul Brady (b. 1947), has re-interpreted several of Butcher's songs since the 1970s, often by adding instrumental accompaniment. In 1978, Butcher released his final album: Sings the Titanic and Other Traditional Folk Songs. Two cassettes, featuring eight previously unreleased songs and entitled Shamrock, Rose & Thistle 2 and Shamrock, Rose & Thistle 3, were released posthumously in 1983 by Shields on behalf of the Folk Music Society of Ireland.[1]^: 202

Some of the songs in Butcher's repertoire had also been collected from other sources by Sam Henry for inclusion in his column, Songs of the People, published weekly in Coleraine's Northern Constitution from 1923 until 1939. This treasury of nearly 700 songs fostered many recordings from the 1950s onwards, and several of these songs are therefore listed as having been recorded by Butcher, and other singers, in the book Sam Henry's Songs of the People, published in 1990.[9]

In 2011, the Irish Traditional Music Archive published the book All the Days of His Life, releasing Shields' extensive work, edited by his wife Lisa Shields and Nicholas Carolan, and telling Butcher's story in his own words. The book is accompanied by three CDs containing a further 67 songs of Butcher's previously unreleased recordings.[10]

Eddie Butcher died on 8 September 1980.[1]^: 140 An article entitled "An old friend: Eddie Butcher" was published in issue No. 18 (November 1980) of the Folk Music Society of Ireland's newsletter, Ceol Tíre, in which Shields stated:

• Shields, Hugh; Shields, Lisa; Carolan, Nicholas, eds. (2011). All the Days of His Life : Eddie Butcher in His Own Words. Dublin, Ireland: Irish Traditional Music Archive. ISBN 978-0-9532704-4-6.

• Huntington, Gale; Herrmann, Lani; Moulden, John, eds. (1990). Sam Henry's Songs of the People. Athens, GA and London: The University of Georgia Press. ISBN 0-8203-1258-4.

• Shields, Hugh (1981). Shamrock, Rose & Thistle: Folk Singing in North Derry. Belfast: Blackstaff Press. ISBN 978-0-85640-166-4.

The following two tables show the songs from Butcher's collection that were recorded and published in print.

• Graham, Len (2010). "Index". Joe Holmes : Here I Am Amongst You. Dublin: Four Courts Press. p. 323. ISBN 978-1-84682-252-0. Butcher, Eddie: 17, 61,118-120, 145, 175, 203, 208, 213, 224, 267

• Wallis, Geoff (20 February 2006). "Review of Eddie Butcher : Adam in Paradise". irishmusicreview.com. The Irish Music Review.

• McAleer, Marianne (24 December 2011). "Review of All the Days of His Life : Eddie Butcher in His Own Words". mustrad.org.uk. Musical Traditions.

• Zierke, Reinhard (8 June 2019). "Eddie Butcher, Joe Holmes & Len Graham". mainlynorfolk.info.