Banríon na Síofracha
The Fairy Queen
This version of Fairy Queen comes from a printed book of Carolan tunes no longer wholly extant,
some folios of which are preserved in the Joly collection in the National Library of Ireland.
The Gaelic title for the piece, 'Bean rígh na Síbhrach' in Bunting (1796) and 'Bainrion na
siothbhraca' in Mulholland (1810), offers an enigma. Due to the age of this composition and the
dialects in which the title appears, it is not possible to be confident of Carolan's original Irish title.
'Sí' refers to a fairy dwelling and brú is a large dwelling. 'Sí-bhrú' is a large fairy dwelling and
'sí-bhrughach' would be an inhabitant of such a large fairy dwelling. The title probably
represented 'Banríon na Síobhracha' (queen of the fairies).
The last word in the title could have once been 'sí-bhrugha' which means 'fairy palaces' so an
alternative title would be 'Banríon na Sí-bhrugha' (queen of the fairy palaces) which connects very
directly with the title of the lyric of Carolan's first song, an tSí Bheag is an tSí Mhór (the little fairy
hill and the big fairy hill). However, all surviving versions of Carolan's first lyric show only one
regal personification of the fairy palaces speaking and she does not appear to be queen of more
than one fairy mansion. There is a remoter possibility that 'Banríon na Sí-bhrugha' meant 'queen
of the fairy palace' if the word sí-bhrugha is taken as being feminine.
The form 'bean rígh' (queen) is obsolete in modern Ireland and was probably not used by Carolan.
The historical development of the pronunciation of the BH here is unknown to me so I have
adopted the modern spelling in this word too.
Banríon na Síofracha