The Shoals Of Herring sung by Ewan MacColl

Love it

I love this song with Luke Kelly all over it. Original all the way

Was there ever a better composer of folk songs?

lovely song!

Clancy Brothers gave a great rendering of The Shoals Of Herring

Have a look at Tatties an Herring by The Gaugers. Or the books by the late Peter Buchan.

Brings back memories of the Marrs boats in Fleetwood... Starella....Thank you Edward Heath and John Major for your work to destroy the British fishing Fleet. You will not be forgotten, unlike the fishermen who have died over the years.

Beautiful old song from the glory days of Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft.

try this song by the clancy brothers & Toomy Makem (Reunion Concert) tribute to Ewan

this song takes me back many years when i went to the folk music clubs

To whoever took the time and care to find these pictures and post them, thank you! They are superb - our ancestors are still part of us and we need to remember how they lived and what they survived.

I've just got here from searching this old song, because of the recent problems between British and French (and other EU ) fishing in waters around the British Isles. I had to show to some people what fishing was like in those days. Who really want to work in that job today ? Fishing might have got more technical or modern whatever, i don't know, but no youth would want to work like they did in those days, but not those days but just more recently. People still do that job for a living. It's often by families, but less and less youth wish to do that job.

(there's no date for those pics, i guess early 1900s ? ).

Great song my granny vida worked in Yarmouth at the herring in 1920s

Kirstys dad.

There were more boats then than there are herrings now. What a sad state of affairs, humans have made the garden of Eden into a desert.

Working class man through and through, communist and a folk singer. They don't make them like him anymore.

When I was a kid, we learned how the herring shoals would move from north of Scotland down the east cost with boats going out from the fishing ports in turn taking a catch.
The fishing became more efficient and overtook the ability of the fish to sustain their numbers and so it died.

Magnificent

Don't think this is at all how it would be sung by working fisherman. How can he malign the original intent of the composer?

Luke Kelly's version is the definitive version

This is a welcome tribute to all those who earn their living on the sea and may they all have safe sailing on every voyage they take on the oceans of the world.

I always had a lot of respect for fishermen. I remember seeing them going to sea from the school bus and I really felt for them, risking their lives (at times the sea looked really choppy) to bring back the daily catch. And you never picked a fight with a fisherman, if you knew what was good for you!

Ewan MacColl who wrote "The first time ever i saw her face".

This song and many others like it have broken my heart a thousand times since I was aware. God bless the singers, the songs and the tradition. xx

Ewan was regularly spotted along the Bridgewater Canal that ran near his house in Salford , On a Sunday morning looking for Shoals of Herring as well as the Manchester Ship Canal Unfortunately he ended up having no look and had to settle for a Fry up at Ma Garanzinis cafe.

A true classic. Ewan McColl really had it.

I love this song! All the herrings were gone by the time I went to school in Yarmouth, but my grandma came from a fishing family. Her father was born in the Rows and lived as a child in a Peggotty Hut ...

..love it..

excellent

Thank you Oscar Isaac for introducing me to this song

I like the Transcript lyrics "..... and the cakes were many .....". Not likely .

Evan McColl was a genius.

Magic, thank you.

I’ve listened to at least 50 people singing this song. No one comes close.

Beautiful 👍❤️🙏
Thank you.

Thank you - only heard the version from the film! Nice to hear the original/older rendition! Lovely song...

Bellissima canzone piena energia e patos

The best

"Sailed a million miles, caught ten million fishes". Love it, thanks so much for posting! Greetings from Michigan.

Powerful singing very beautiful

Simply beautiful and class

Norma weda..i love u,and all u stand for

The Radio-Ballads were an amazing achievement, Thank-You to Ewan & Peggy & Charles Parker.

Mesmerising, so hauntingly beautiful 😍

I wish they could play this sing for Trip Tucker too. He was also an engineer-possibly with Celtic roots. Miles O'Brien was Irish and had Celtic roots too. Love Leslie's music!

No one has or will better sing this, The Shoals Of Herring sung by Ewan MacColl.
Sung like a real sailorman, like the old fellows who taught me my basic seamanship and how to really drink beer, on the East Coast some 60 years astern.

Beautiful song with beautiful Fishing Vessels.

Love Ewan McColl and Peggy Seeger.

Brgds,
Ex Sailor

A great performance of a great song.