A journey through the Roe Valley with Sam Henry
Wed, October 04, 2017
Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council’s Museum Services have worked with The Roe Valley Ancestral Researchers on a project exploring the Sam Henry Collection.
The group received hands-on access to the collection and chose five songs as starting points to touch on different aspects local heritage. The semi-mythical past, emigration, local military traditions, and the WWII Atlantic Command are all explored as part of the sweeping story of the Roe Valley, its history and its people.
Sam Henry (1878 – 1952) from Coleraine, worked as a Pensions and Excise Officer, but he was also an avid folklorist, historian, photographer, ornithologist, naturalist, genealogist and musician. Through his work he formed relationships with an older generation and recorded aspects of their lives that are now all but forgotten. “In my contact with the old, who have all now passed away,” he wrote, “I had the rare privilege of sharing their folk lore and their old songs.”
Sam Henry is perhaps best known for his ‘Songs of the People’ series which ran in the Northern Constitution between 1923 and 1938. Together, Sam’s archive and publications contain well over 850 traditional songs, including several sets of (often humorous) alternative lyrics to well-known tunes.
Roe Valley Ancestral Researcher’s completed project was shown at the Stendhal Festival in Limavady. The project is part of a wider programme, Sam Henry: Connecting with the Past, Collecting for the Future, funded by the Esmee Fairbairn Collections Fund and administrated by the Museums Association.
