Captain O’Kane

Turlough O’Carolan arranged by Tim Ball

Turlough O’Carolan (1670 – 25 March 1738) was a blind Celtic harper, composer and singer in Ireland whose great fame is due to his gift for melodic composition. He is considered by some to be Ireland’s national composer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turlough_O%27Carolan

Captain O’Kane (or O’Cahan), a ‘sporting’ Irishman of a distinguished County Antrim family who was well-known in his day as “Slasher O’Kane”

Poets later set lyrics to the melody. Notable lyrical adaptations are Thomas Campbell’s “The Wounded Hussar” and Robert Burns’s “The Chevalier’s Lament”

• Lyrics for the Wounded Hussar (or Banks of the Danube) by Thomas Campbell
  https://mainlynorfolk.info/folk/songs/thewoundedhussar.html
• Lyrics for Robert Burns’s “The Chevalier’s Lament”
  https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Poetical_Works_of_Robert_Burns/The_Chevalier%27s_Lament

Zip File

Sheet Music

Recordings

Reference Recordings

• Séamus McGuire
  • https://youtu.be/Z_X6ollZwXs?si=rulJgSEEtZtjogzK&t=34

• Buddy MacMaster (in Gm, not Em)
  • https://youtu.be/kzyevcuy288

Reference Recordings of Lyrics

• Niamh Bury – The Wounded Huzzar (Thomas Campbell & Turlough O’Carolan)
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9OQpk25nxo

• The Chevalier’s Lament (Captain O’Kean) with Lyrics by Robert Burns https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CFBmDvVKEg