Derek Warfield speaks to KGNU’s Rodger Hara about his life, music career, and passion for historical songs. Warfield has authored two books and is working on a third about the significance of Irish songs and music in Ireland’s literature and history. He emphasizes how music and song have preserved Irish heritage and nationality over centuries. Derek has an interest in American history and discusses his album of Revolutionary War songs.
Rodger Hara: Good morning. I’ve got Derek Warfield of the Young Wolfe Tones on the radio with me this morning. Derek, good morning. How are you today?
Derek Warfield: Good morning. And very well, Roger, and I thank you very much today for inviting me on your show.
Rodger Hara: Ah, you’re very welcome. And where are you today?
Derek Warfield: I’m sitting in my house in Ireland, in County Kildare, and I’m looking at a very dull, bleak evening. It’s around six o’clock here now in the evening, but it’s a June evening and it’s mild. It was raining this morning, and it was raining this afternoon, but it’s dry now, but it’ll be raining tonight.
Rodger Hara: Oh, just another fine Irish day. Where have you been?
Derek Warfield: Where have I been? I play and perform a lot in America, and I was in America for the weekend, and I’m playing in Ireland this weekend, and tomorrow night I’m playing down in County Tipperary, a town called Nenagh. On Saturday night I’m playing in County Cavan. And on Sunday night I’m playing at a festival in South Kildare where I live. It’s a young people’s event. So that’s my weekend. And next weekend I’ll be in the United States. On Friday night I’m playing at the Breezy Point New York Yacht Club. And Saturday night I’m playing up in Cape Cod in Massachusetts. On Sunday, I’m playing at a festival in Massachusetts, in Milton. So there are those three. They’re my next six dates. Three in Ireland and three in America.
Rodger Hara: That’s amazing. How do you do it? That’s the kind of schedule that would tax the stamina of a younger man. How do you keep going and maintain that kind of schedule?
Derek Warfield: If I’m off, if I have downtime, I like to pace myself out. When I do the show and socializing after it, I generally try to get as much rest as I can. I love playing in America and I love playing around Ireland, but people will kill you with hospitality and kindness and you just have to sometimes say no to that. That’s one of the things I learned a couple of years ago. Basically to treat every show as an event and to do it as best you can, but then to leave it and get some rest. I’m able to maintain this sort of schedule, but then there are periods in the year that we don’t walk at all. And I might be home here writing and recording.
Rodger Hara: Speaking of writing, you’ve done two books. Is there another in the works?
Derek Warfield: I’m writing a book about the songs and the music and their place in the literature of Ireland. I’ve often felt that our song lore and our traditions of relating our music to the events that have passed by in our history is unique. An awful lot of our history is written in music. I always have to explain to people that we didn’t have an institution for almost 400 years that protected our heritage and traditions. So it was left to ordinary people to preserve and value the heritage and culture that was in society. And that was of music, of song, of poetry.
They were very powerful. It took thousands of years to develop in this civilization in Ireland. And it would take the same to destroy. So they’re there among the people. And it saved them. For me, it’s a very important part, indeed, of our heritage, our songs and music, and the stories that go with them, because in many ways, it preserved our nationality. And it inspired our people.
Rodger Hara: I know that you have also recorded a number of songs about the American Civil War. How did you come to have an interest in that?
Derek Warfield: That was a very simple transition for me because some years ago, 40, 50 years ago, I visited some of the Civil War sites and I started to read about it and in many of the books that were published, there would be an odd line or a verse of a song. I realized that when Irish people left Ireland very early, they brought their music with them. They didn’t leave it behind and it enriched the societies in America. So it was very easy to see that not only did they bring the music with them, but they used the same melodies and wrote new words to the songs and to the tunes that it brought from Ireland.
Back in the 90s I did my first CD on the Civil War, Sons of Erin, and then I did a second one called Clear The Way for Faugh-a-Ballagh, and I did a third one called the Bonnie Blue Flag, which was devoted to the songs of the Confederacy. One day I was researching down in Savannah in the library, and a man came up to me. He said, you’re very interested in the Civil War. He says, here’s a little book of songs of the Revolution. You might consider doing something like that. That’s what he said. And I said, are they artist songs? He said some of them are. He said, have a look at it. I went to chat with him for me to do two CDs on the artists in the revolution.
Now I found it was more difficult to research because music sheets were not commonplace in the 18th century. They came into being in the latter part from around 1780, but they’re not plentiful, so it was much more difficult to research the tunes to the songs that were written by Irish people about the events and the of the revolution, but I found it very exciting because a great deal of the history I was unaware of, and the songs indeed brought them to life for me, and a lot of people comment on that. I must say, when I produced and published the CD, people applauded what I had done because it had never been done before.
But that’s a challenge I’ve always liked. When I went to Australia, the Irish ambassador there said that he would like me to consider doing a CD of the Irish songs and about the people who went to Australia and I did that as well. So they’re the type of projects I’ve taken on and I enjoyed.
Rodger Hara: Were there any songs that came out of the involvement of the Irish in Mexico? The Irish Brigade against the French.
Derek Warfield: I didn’t go down that road because my Spanish is not great. I did cover the Mexican-American War because there were two Irish men that were very prominent in that. General Shields was a man who very nearly became the president of America. And, another man called General Sweeney. So they both fought in the Mexican-American War. And songs were written about them, they became a very important part indeed of the American force that was sent to Mexico in the 1840s. I’ve started to look at Spanish songs about the Irish that went to Argentina.
I’ve gotten a few ballads from Irish people that settled in those areas. So time is running against me. I went to Argentina five years ago and I was to go back there in 2020 to do a concert tour and of course that well fell by the wayside. And because of the COVID and I never made it there, but, I’ve always taken it as a challenge to. And then recently, and as you probably know, I produced a CD about the hunger strikers in Ireland and the story, and also I found their story and their passion as they expressed it in different songs, a very important part in need of my own generation.
So projects come up with me and I take them on and sometimes I find the going easy, but sometimes I hit rocks. I had a look at the artists in the Mexican War. I didn’t find an awful lot of them. Literature, music I’m not saying it’s there, there may be, and I want to say that the internet has been a huge help to me. When I started this back in the 1980s and seventies, I would have to visit the libraries across America. And some of them are very good and very facilitating. My main focus has always been on the music and songs I hear in Ireland, and of course, I’ve produced probably at least a dozen CDs on different aspects of Irish history and tradition. Like back in 2016, I produced an album that was devoted entirely to the rebellion of 1916 and the poets. And the songwriters, the musicians that were part of that event.
Rodger Hara: Back to Argentina, did you discover any songs about Admiral Brown?
Derek Warfield: Oh, I wrote a song about him. Yeah, I wrote a song about William Brown, yes. Probably the best known Irishman in South America, because William Brown was an extraordinary man. What a talent in the way of a sea captain. He was devoted to his adopted country. And he’s probably the most revered man in Argentina. And I wrote a song about him back in the 1980s, “Admiral William Brown”. It was very popular. And it was translated into Spanish by the Argentine ambassador here in Ireland, and it was recorded by some singers in Argentina. So it’d be very well known. Yeah. So, in many ways, I reflected the artist diaspora in music because I found the same thing in Australia when I went there.
The artists left Ireland, but they didn’t leave the music behind. As they call them Australian bushwhacking songs. A lot of the melodies are Irish. It’s just like a lot of the music of the 18th century in the Revolutionary War was Irish. And you’re probably going to be shocked when I say this. You probably never knew that “Yankee Doodle” was an Irish song. Yes, and I discovered there’s a folklorist, Redfern Mason, a very good man. He wrote a book on the famous songs of Ireland and he did a whole story on “Yankee Doodle” and he traced it back to a song in Ireland called “All the Way to Galway”.
They’re the things that I discovered when I was doing the Revolutionary War, but that man Redfern Mason’s book is simply titled The Song Lord of Ireland. And he covers a lot of ground. The interesting thing about it, he covers them from both sides of the Atlantic. Like he understood the Irish side and he understood the American side. But there’s a great resource in America for Irish study, and that’s the American Irish Historical Society on 5th Avenue in New York. They have a wonderful archive, which I haven’t been into yet, but I’ve been trying to get in. I was there years ago, and there are a lot of very good libraries around the country that have a lot of music from Ireland.
And of course, Ed Ward, who ran the Milwaukee Festival, set up an archive to collect all the music of the immigrants across America. He’s got quite a collection. Ed sadly passed away a couple of years ago, but he was a very good friend of mine, and we shared indeed a great love of Irish tradition. A wonderful man, Edward.
Rodger Hara: Derek, it has been a pleasure chatting with you, and I hope to see you here sometime, and if not here, I’ll try and come someplace where you are, and see and hear you there. Thank you very much for your time, and it’s been a pleasure chatting with you and getting acquainted. I hope you stay well.
Derek Warfield: Thank you very much indeed, Roger, and I look forward to at some stage performing in in Denver and Colorado at one of the festivals, and but if I’m out in Indianapolis in September at a festival, and if you’re around, in Cape Cod, I’ll are at the Breezy Point Yacht Club and next weekend I’ll be there. I’m doing an artist festival in Milton in Massachusetts. Thanks indeed for taking the time to give me a shout. And I’ll always be glad to talk to you about music and about songs and about our shared folk tradition, which we share a great deal. A lot of people in America don’t know how much we share in terms of music and poetry and there’s a wonderful crossover when you go to study it.
Rodger Hara: Thank you again, Derek. You take care.
