My Nan Knew Every Verse: Oral Tradition and Family Memory

This is going to be a different kind of post. Less shouting about fleas and more... thinking. Bear with me.

My nan — my mother's mother, Margaret, from Kilrush — knew every verse of The Rattlin' Bog. Every single one, in the correct order, at any speed, without hesitation. She could be woken from a dead sleep and asked to sing the flea verse recap and she'd do it perfectly. I never actually tested this, but I'm confident.

She passed away in 1998. I was eighteen. And I think about her every single time I sing the song.

The Kitchen in Kilrush

My earliest memory of The Rattlin' Bog is Nan's kitchen. I was maybe five or six. It was Christmas — or maybe Easter, the holidays blur together when you're small — and the whole family was there. Nan was at the head of the table, and after the dinner was cleared she started singing.

She didn't announce it. She didn't ask if anyone wanted a song. She just started. "Ho ro the rattlin' bog..." And the whole table joined in, like they'd been waiting for it, like this was always going to happen and we were all just waiting for the signal.

I didn't know the words yet. I just watched. My uncle Brendan was singing. My mam was singing. My aunties were singing. And Nan was in the middle of it all, eyes bright, voice clear, not missing a single word.

By the flea verse, I was laughing so hard I couldn't breathe. I didn't even understand what was funny — I was five — but the joy in the room was infectious. Everyone was laughing and singing and the dog was barking and the kettle was whistling and it was the most alive a room has ever felt.

The Chain of Singing

Nan learned the song from her mother. Her mother learned it from hers. I don't know how far back it goes. Nobody does. That's the nature of the oral tradition — the chain disappears into the past, link by link, until it's lost in time.

My uncle Brendan learned it from Nan. I learned it from Brendan, on long car journeys between Ennis and Kilrush. He'd start the chorus and make me do the verses. If I got the order wrong, he'd make me start again. Not in a cruel way — in the way you teach someone something that matters. Repetition. Practice. Getting it into the bones.

I think about that chain sometimes. Nan's mother singing it to Nan. Nan singing it to Brendan. Brendan singing it to me. Me singing it to Cian. And someday, God willing, Cian singing it to his own children.

The song is a vessel. It carries the voices of everyone who's ever sung it. When I sing the chorus at Cruise's on a Tuesday night, Nan is in there somewhere. I can't hear her exactly, but I know she's there.

What Folk Songs Carry

People sometimes dismiss folk songs as simple. "Just pub songs," they say. "Just children's songs." And maybe The Rattlin' Bog isn't Beethoven. Maybe it doesn't have the complexity of a symphony or the poetry of a great ballad.

But it carries something that symphonies don't. It carries people. Real people, from real places, singing in real kitchens and real pubs for real reasons. Every folk song is a container for human experience. The melody is a frame, and the memories fill it.

When I hear The Rattlin' Bog, I don't just hear the words. I hear Nan's kitchen. I hear Brendan's car. I hear Cian standing on his chair. I hear Cruise's on Christmas night. I hear the bus from Limerick. Every time I've ever sung it or heard it is layered into the song, and every time I sing it again, I add another layer.

That's what the oral tradition is. Not just remembering words. Remembering everything the words carry.

Why I Built This Site

I've said before that I built this site because there was no other website dedicated to The Rattlin' Bog. That's true. But the deeper truth is that I built it because of Nan.

She never used the internet. She would have had absolutely no idea what a website was, and she would have thought I was mad for spending my evenings typing about a song instead of just singing it. But she would have understood the impulse. She would have understood wanting to hold onto something, to make sure it doesn't get lost, to pass it on.

This site is my way of being a link in the chain. Digital instead of oral, but a link all the same.

For Nan

Margaret Brennan, 1922-1998, Kilrush, Co. Clare. She knew every verse. She never sang it wrong. And every time the bog comes alive in a room full of singing, she's there.

Ho ro the rattlin' bog.

BogLord2002