My Top Ten Folk Tunes for Hymnwriting

Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley

and Anne Steele and William Cowper

were wordsmiths, not tune writers.

Thank God for many ancient

or at least traditional folk tunes

from around the world

for which new hymn texts

can be written.

Here are my top ten:

Ash Grove

(Let All Things Now Living)

Beach Spring

(Hymn of Welcome)

Bunessan

(Morning Has Broken)

House of the Rising Sun

Kingsfold

(O Sing A Song of Bethlehem)

Restoration

(Come,Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy)

Scarborough Fair

Slane

(Be Thou My Vision)

Tá Mo Chleamhnas Déanta

(Gaelic folk tune)

Wexford Carol