Category: Folk Custom

PATRICK AND THE COLOUR OF REBELLION

On By rebelbreezeIn Folk Custom, History, Ireland, Irish Diaspora, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, Political Analysis, Popular Resistance, Song, Song in Struggle1 Comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

Many people know that March 17th is St. Patrick’s Day, a national holiday in Ireland and a public holiday in some other places in the world where the Irish diaspora has had an impact1. But why? And why the shamrock and the colour green?

The Christian Saint Patrick, an escaped Welsh slave of the Irish returned as Christian missionary to Ireland is credited with the main role in the conversion of the Irish from their pagan religions to Christianity. As such, he is revered by the Catholic and many Protestant churches.

Unlike many places in Europe, the conversion seems to have been largely peaceful with no evidence of the fire and sword by which it was imposed on many other lands. Perhaps because of this, Irish monks recorded much of the rich mythology and legends of pagan Ireland.

But there is absolutely no historical reason to associate Patrick with the shamrock. The claim that he used it to demonstrate the three-in-one of the Christian Trinity is a fable and copies of his Confessio, widely accepted as Patrick’s authentic autobiography, do not mention it.

Reference to this fable is not recorded until centuries later but a much more convincing argument against its veracity is that pagans had many deistic trinities and the Irish were no exception, among which the Mór-Righean goddess2 in the Táin saga3 is the best remembered.

In fact, there seems little reason to believe that the druids favoured the shamrock either and searching the internet years ago threw up no references at all until more recently one reference only surfaced that gave no source for its claim.

So, no authentic reason for the shamrock – but what about the colour green? It turns out that the association of the Irish with the colour green is historically recent also, with blue having an earlier association. Even today only one of the four provinces, Leinster, has green on its flag.

A similar flag to the Leinster one, a golden harp on a green background was first flown and introduced by Eoghan Rua Ó Néill to the Catholic Confederacy, the Irish and Norman settler alliance against Cromwell and the English Parliament in 1642.

A number of versions of Harp and Crown on flags followed but the first mass Irish Republican organisation, the United Irishmen brought the Harp without the Crown back on to a green background for their flag, with the motto “it is newly strung and shall be heard” next to the harp.

The United Irish emblem; the harp was reproduced in gold on a green background for the flag. (Image sourced: Internet)

John Sheils, a Drogheda Presbyterian and United Irishman, in his aisling-style song The Rights of Man composed sometime before the 1798 Rising, brought the icons of a female Ireland, the Harp, colour Green, St. Patrick and the shamrock together in his call for unity against England.

Alluding to “the three-leaved plant” Sheils has St.Patrick declaim that
“it is three in one,
to prove its unity
in that community
that holds with impunity
to the Rights of Man.”

The “three in one” is an obvious reference to the unity of “Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter4” sought by the United Irishmen and vocalised by Wolfe Tone among other leaders. However, there is no evidence of wide-scale use by the Unitedmen of the shamrock to signify that unity.

And the green may have been inspired by the colour which Camille Desmoulins called on Parisians to wear in their hats as a sign of revolution two days before the storming of the Bastille in 17895, though they soon chose blue in emulation of the American Revolution.

The failure of the United Irish risings in 1798 and 1803 was followed by severe repression, reflecting the fear of the Crown and its loyal settlers of losing its Irish colony. The weak Irish Parliament was abolished by bribery and Ireland became a formal part of the United Kingdom.

The Wearing of the Green

As a Christian festival, St. Patrick’s Day might have seemed an innocuous feast day, acceptable to ruler and ruled, therefore safe to celebrate and wearing the shamrock as something innocuous.

It seems likely to me that in an atmosphere of wide-scale repression, people of Irish Republican sympathies might well choose to wear green in public at least one day a year, that being in the form of the shamrock on “St. Patrick’s Day.”

The song The Wearing of the Green references the repression following the United Irish uprising of 1798 with the lyrics “they’re hanging men and women for the wearing of the green” and “the shamrock is by law forbade to grow on Irish ground.”6

The Irish Republican Brotherhood, formed on St. Patrick’s Day 1856 simultaneously in New York, USA and in Dublin, Ireland, adopted the golden Harp on a Green background for their flag, though they also used the Sunburst, believed symbol of the legendary Fianna warriors.

(Image sourced: History Ireland)

The formation of the IRB, or “the Fenians” as they became known by both friend and foe, occurred in a time of huge Irish emigration, then overwhelmingly Catholic in religion and surpassing by far that of the mostly Protestant and Dissenters of the late 18th Century to the USA and Canada.

Waves of Irish emigrants followed those who managed to leave Ireland during the Great Hunger of 1845-1848. Whenever they went to an English-speaking country or colony, the Catholic Irish suffered discrimination from the White Anglo-Saxon Protestants settled there before them.

The Irish who formed a battalion to fight the USA’s second expansionist war against Mexico (1846-48) may have flown the green flag and harp; certainly they named their unit the St. Patrick’s Battalion and were known by Latin Americans as “Los San Patricios“.


St. Patrick’s Day in Exile

St. Patrick’s Day became one of celebrating Irish identity, more ethnic than religious, a way even of flaunting that identity in the face of their detractors and persecutors. The Irish fighting in huge numbers in the Union Army celebrated it during the actual American Civil War (1861-65).

In their first invasion of Canada in 1866, American Civil War veterans organised by a branch of the Fenians flew a green flag with a harp and, it is said, with the letters “IRA” on it, the first such use of the acronym in history.

Painting depicting the Battle of Ridgeway, Fenian invasion of Canada, 1866 – note the Irish flag (Image sourced: Internet).

After the War, the Irish in the US celebrated St. Patrick’s Day in mass parades with their Union Army veterans in their regimental uniforms, flinging their identity and their contribution to the USA in the face of their persecutors, not only the highbrow WASPs but the nativist “Know Nothings”.7

Irish convicts in Australia celebrated the feast day in 17958 and, since sentenced 1798 and 1803 United Irish were sent there in chains, likely celebrated often afterwards by them, as well as by subsequent political prisoners, Young Irelanders in 1848 and Fenians in 1867.

The Irish diaspora in Australia, who were maligned due to the opposition of many to fighting for the British Empire in WW19, marched in parade on St. Patrick’s Day in 1921 with WW1 veterans in uniform at the front,10 calling for self-determination for Ireland.

As an Irish community activist in Britain, there was never any question as to where I would be on March 17th – I’d be celebrating the feast day with the community in the event we’d organised, whether a parade or a reception.

During a time of IRA bombings and widespread repression of the Irish community11 in Britain there were some calls to abandon St. Patrick’s parades but I and others felt it more important than ever to hold them in public at a time when the community was under attack and we did so.

James Connolly must have experienced celebrating St. Patrick’s Day in his Irish diaspora community in Edinburgh, later as an immigrant to Ireland, again as an immigrant to New York and back again as an immigrant once more to Ireland.

James Connolly Monument, Beresford Place, Dublin. (Photo sourced: Internet)

In March 1916, a month before his joint leadership of the Rising for which he would be shot by British firing squad, Connolly wrote supporting the celebration by the Irish of St. Patrick’s Day.

“ … the Irish mind, unable because of the serfdom or bondage of the Irish race to give body and material existence to its noblest thoughts, creates an emblem to typify that spiritual conception for which the Irish race laboured in vain.

“If that spiritual conception of religion, of freedom, of nationality exists or existed nowhere save in the Irish mind, it is nevertheless as much a great historical reality as if it were embodied in a statute book, or had a material existence vouched for by all the pages of history.”

“Therefore we honour St. Patrick’s Day (and its allied legend of the shamrock) because in it we see the spiritual conception of the separate identity of the Irish race – an ideal of unity in diversity, of diversity not conflicting with unity.12”

He did not call for – and would have certainly repudiated — the celebrating of the feast day by a British Army unit wearing sprigs of shamrock or by Irish Gombeen politicians celebrating it with leaders of US imperialism.

Commenting on the reverse journey of that kind when President Reagan came to Ireland (amidst widescale Irish State repression of opposition) in 1984, Irish bard of folksong Christy Moore sang in Hey Ronnie Regan:

You’ll be wearing the greeen
Down in Ballyporeen
The ‘town of the little potato’;
Put your arms around Garrett
And dangle your carrot
But you’ll never get me to join NATO.

The Anglo-Irish poet and Nobel Literature Laureate WB Yeats wrote about the colour green in reflection on the 1916 Rising:
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:   
A terrible beauty is born.

It should be “terrible” only to the enemies of Irish freedom and self-determination, to imperialists, colonisers and their fascist and racist supporters but truly beautiful to all others.

In parting, let us come again to John Sheils’ 1790s words which he put in Ireland’s, Gráinne’s mouth:

Let each community
detest disunity;
in love and unity
walk hand in hand;
And believe old Gráinne
That proud Britannia
No more shall rob ye
of the Rights of Man.

End.

Trifolium dubium, the Lesser or Yellow Clover, an Seamair Bhuí, top of the candidate list for the “shamrock” title. (Photo sourced: Internet)

Footnotes:

1Newfoundland in Canada and the Caribbean island of Monserrat. It is also the most widely-celebrated of all national feast days across the world.

2Usually rendered in English as “the Morrigan”, a trinity composed of three sisters, sometimes Badb, Macha (number of places named after her, including Ard Mhacha [Armagh]) and Nemain, at other times as Badb, Macha and Anand. They were sometimes represented as sisters of another triad, Banba, Éiriu (from which the name of the country Éire is derived) and Fódla. The triads may be three aspects of the one Goddess in each case.

3Táin Bó Cuailgne/ The Cattle Raid of Cooley, a part of the Ulster Cycle of stories, featuring the legendary warrior Sétanta or Cú Chulainn.

4Catholic (the vast majority of the Irish), Anglican (the tiny minority but reigning religious group) and the other protestant sects, in particular the Presbyterians, which had a much larger following than the Anglicans.

5The Unitedmen were greatly influenced by the French Revolution, of course.

6 The best-known version is by dramatist Dion Boucicault, adapted for his 1864 play Arragh na Pogue, or the Wicklow Wedding, set in Co. Wicklow during the 1798 rebellion (Wikipedia)

7‘Nativist’ gangs of earlier USA settlers that mobilised violently against the Irish and African Americans; when tried in court they claimed to ‘know nothing’.

8https://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/not-just-ned/about/about/st-patricks-day

9Such was the popular opposition that the British feared to impose conscription and instead held a referendum which voted not to have conscription. A second referendum failed again though by a smaller majority. Nevertheless many Australian volunteers were killed fighting for the British Empire.

10Of course such identification with the ‘new country’ of settlement may in itself be problematic, particularly should that country be or become imperialist, as has indeed been the case with the USA and with Australia (in subservient partnership with the UK and with the USA).

11Particularly from 1974 onwards until the community’s resurgence in support of the Hunger Strikers in 1981.

12Underlining mine, surely an appropriate message for these times.

Sources:

How the harp became the symbol of Ireland | EPIC Museum (epicchq.com)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wearing_of_the_Green

(84) Judy Garland- Wearing of the Green(1940) – YouTube

https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1916/03/natlfest.htm

TRADITIONAL & UNESCO FESTIVAL CHANTS FOR CATALAN INDEPENDENCE

On By rebelbreezeIn Cultural Comment, Current Event Report, Folk Custom, History, National Liberation, Popular Resistance, Song in Struggle, Spanish State, Traditions & Folk CustomLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 2 mins.)

This year’s celebration of the Patum 2022 festival in Berga has sung and chanted for independence. With the square full of about 6,000 people on Thursday, the massive Catalan independence flag, the Estelada (with the white star in a blue triangle)1 was launched across the crowd as they sang the Catalan national anthem, Els Segadors2 (the Reapers).

With the song finished, some began to shout “independencia” (independence) and this was quickly taken up by the mass, revisiting the tradition of protest that existed before the pandemic. The Catalan independence movement has been somewhat becalmed of late, with serious divisions between the two main nationalist political parties and a lack of grass-roots activity.

Scene with traditional giant figures from the festival (Photo sourced: Internet)

The Patum festival is a traditional Catalan festival of great importance and is recognised by UNESCO as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. “The fiesta coincides with Corpus Christi and includes a whole series of theatrical representations, characters and figures that fill the town of Berga every spring. It is a religious commemoration that dates back to the Middle Ages, which has managed to preserve both its religious and profane roots.

“La Patum de Berga has been held annually for centuries during Corpus Christi, and includes street entertainment and shows with different figures typical of these fiestas (giants, “big-heads”, eagles, guitas (dragons), plens (devils)). Fire and dance play a central role. The fiesta really gets underway on the Thursday of Corpus Christi, with the Ceremonial Patum. The salto de plens is the apotheosis of the fiesta. It represents an infernal orgy where fire devils jump to the rhythm of music. The following day is the Children’s Patum.”3

Scene with the giant Catalan independence flag during the singing and chanting at the festival on Thursday (Photo sourced: Internet)

Berga is in the Barcelona region but over 107km from the city (and about half-way to Andorra). The Patum Festival of this year 2022, which began Wednesday, June 15 and will last until Sunday, June 19, was expected to be even more crowded than usual after two years in a row without being able to celebrate it due to the pandemic.

end.

Video of the singing, chanting and the huge flag (you have to view this on Facebook; strangely I couldn’t find one on Youtube): https://www.facebook.com/salva.mateu/videos/966147484078737

FOOTNOTES

1The other Catalan nationalist flag commonly seen is the Vermelha, with a red star and no blue. The white X on a black background is also flown but more rarely, it draws on history also and signifies ‘death before surrender’.

2An anarchist, Emili Guanyavents won the competition to compose the national anthem lyrics in 1899 and based it upon a traditional historical cultural expression arising out of an uprising of Catalan rural workers in 1640 against the chief minister of Philip IV of Spain. The lyrics are, as might be expected, very militant and, since even the Catalan lanugage was banned, the song was of course banned during the four decades of the Spanish Franco dictatorship

3https://www.spain.info/en/calendar/fiesta-patum-berga/

SOURCES

https://www.spain.info/en/calendar/fiesta-patum-berga/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Els_Segadors

Dublin Easter Rising commemoration calls for neutrality and revolution

On By rebelbreezeIn British imperialism, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Executions, Folk Custom, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, irish history1 Comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

Speakers on Sunday 17th April 2022 at a 1916 Rising commemoration in Dublin called for defence of Irish neutrality between contending imperialist and capitalist states but also for revolution to end British colonial occupation and partition, in addition to general imperialist domination of Ireland. They called for a working class socialist republic and a revolution necessary to achieve it. The Proclamation of the Irish Republic (1916) was read to those assembled, as was the message of Patrick Pearse during the Rising and a dedication by James Connolly to the Irish Citizen Army (1915)1 and floral tributes of lilies were laid. The event also included the singing viva voce of songs relevant to the occasion.

Part of horizontal plaque at the location

MARCH, FLAGS, BANNERS

The event was organised by the Anti-Imperialist Action organisation and commenced with a march up a section of the Finglas Road which runs between both parts of the famous Glasnevin cemetery, before turning into the “St. Paul’s” section.2 The march was led by a colour party of two, dressed in black with white gloves bearing the Irish Tricolour and the green and gold Starry Plough.

Following behind in two columns were others with a variety of flags flying among them: Starry Plough3, Basque Ikurrina, Red Flag with golden hammer and sickle, flag of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. As they marched the short section of road, passing traffic beeped them in appreciation. The police of the Irish State, the Gardaí, were in attendance but did not interfere with the participants.

The procession in the road on the way to the Glasnevin St. Paul’s cemetery (part of the main Glasnevin Cemetery’s wall can be seen on the right with the top of O’Connell Tower visible behind it).

Two banners were also carried by participants, a No to NATO one of the AIA and another of the Dublin Committee of the Anti-Internment Committee of Ireland.

SPEECHES

Beginning in Irish and then changing to English, the Chairperson welcomed those in attendance and spoke of the reason for holding such commemorations but also putting this one, the sixth Easter Rising Commemoration organised by the young organisation, in the context of current events in Ireland and in the world.

Colour party and speaker

James Connolly in Ireland and Lenin in Russia had been quite clear about the correct attitude to imperialist war, the Chairperson said, which was to oppose it and if it went ahead to turn it into revolution; on Liberty Hall4 the banner had been hung declaring that “We serve neither King nor Kaiser”.

In the current war situation, some politicians in Ireland are trying to abandon the State’s official traditional stance of neutrality, which is why the AIA thought it important to promote the “No to NATO” message depicted on one of the banners present at the event. It is important for people to realise that, with the UK occupying a part of Ireland, a part of Ireland is already in NATO. Opinion polls have shown a majority in the state against joining NATO, he pointed out.

During this speech a helicopter passed by overhead.

The main speaker had been delayed in arriving and, putting aside his notes, spoke about the need for sacrifice, pointing out that those who took part in the Rising and in subsequent struggles had jobs or small businesses as well as families but they put themselves forward and made sacrifices. Although today we may not face death here, nevertheless sacrifices are called for, he said and though there is not a rising here today, it will come.

INTERNATIONALISM

The Chairperson of the event also pointed to the importance of relations of internationalist solidarity and alluded to the struggle of the Palestinian people with particular reference to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, also to the Basque people’s struggle. The AIA had sent a solidarity message to be read out at the Jardun organisation’s celebration of the Basque country’s national day, Aberri Eguna, noting that Easter Sunday had been chosen in emulation of the Easter Rising by Elias Gallestegi. The event had been first celebrated on Easter Sunday 27 March 1932 in Bilbo, supported by a demonstration of some 65,000 which included the Basque Nationalist Women’s organisation, inspired by the Republican Irish women’s organisation Cumann na mBan, which had fought in the 1916 Rising.

Also mentioned by the Chairperson were the struggles of organisations in Peru and the Philippines and by the Communist Party of Brazil.

MUSIC AND READINGS

As part of the program of the event, Seán Óg accompanied himself on guitar to sing Charles O’Neill’s The Foggy Dew and the Larry Kirwan’s James Connolly/ Citizen Army Song. Diarmuid Breatnach sang acapella his version of Patrick Galvin’s Where Is Our James Connolly? with some small alterations, though none Breatnach said to alter the fundamental meaning of the lyrics.

Seán Óg performing at the event
Diarmuid Breatnach singing Where is Our James Connolly? at the event

A young woman read out Pearse’s message and a young man, Connolly’s 1915 praise of the Irish Citizen Army.

To conclude the event Seán Óg sang the chorus of Amhrán na bhFiann5, the Irish National Anthem and the participants exited the cemetery to pass the uniformed police and Special Branch surveillance without incident.

End.

Section of the attendance marching to the monument.

FOOTNOTES

1Patrick Pearse, journalist, poet, educator and Irish Volunteer, was overall commander of the insurrectionary forces in 1916; James Connolly, trade union and socialist organiser, historian, journalist, writer and Irish Citizen Army, was Commandant of the Dublin fighters. Both men were signatories of the Proclamation and, along with the other five Signatories and another seven volunteers in Dublin, were executed by British Army firing squads.

2Although a newer and less famous section of the cemetery it too includes the graves of a number of important political leaders as well as the largest monument to Irish insurrections, containing the dates 1798, 1803, 1848, 1867, 1881 and 1916.

3Flag of the Irish Citizen Army, believed to be the first workers’ army in the world (and the first to recruit women, some of whom were officers), formed in 1913 to defend striking and locked-out workers from the attacks of the Dublin Metropolitan Police and that also participated in the 1916 Rising.

4Liberty Hall was the HQ of the Irish Transport & General Workers’ Union and of the Irish Citizen Army; in addition to the Citizen Army members, many of the Irish Volunteers and of Cumann na mBan mustered there on the first morning of the Rising. It was destroyed by British shelling and the tall building now on that site, also called Liberty Hall, is the HQ of SIPTU (largest trade union in Ireland).

5Originally composed in English as The Soldier’s Song by Peadar Kearney and Patrick Heeney and sung during the Rising, it was later translated into Irish by Liam Ó Rinn and in 1926 adopted by the partitioned Irish State as its official anthem (usually the air of the chorus alone). When sung at events it is usually the Irish language version of the chorus that is sung only.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Anti-Imperialist Action: https://www.facebook.com/AIAI-For-National-Liberation-and-Socialist-Revolution-101829345633677

KISS OF THE PARASITE SPREADING THROUGH GLASNEVIN

On By rebelbreezeIn Cultural Comment, Folk Custom, Invasive Species, Ireland, nature, Nature in the City2 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

At this time of year, using a parasitic plant as an excuse — and in spite of Covid19 transmission danger — many kisses will be given. The plant in question is of course the mistletoe and people buy sprigs or clumps of it to hang in strategic places to trap the unwary, ambushing them into receiving the sign of affection (or lust). Although the plant is native across Europe it is not so to Ireland1, though it can be found growing in widely-separated places here, believed to be the result of “garden escapes” but could also have been imported with saplings (for example of apple varieties).

IN FOLKLORE AND MYTHOLOGY

According to Wikipedia, the whole kissing-under-mistletoes custom was popularised by courting couples among servants of middle and upper classes during the reign of the English Queen Victoria. How that arose is not explained but there has been an association of the berries with fertility since antiquity, possibly through sympathetic magic, since the berries were thought to resemble sperm. Indeed, one of its medicinal uses historically has been in treatment of infertility, along with arthritis, high blood pressure and epilepsy. To the Celts, mistletoe represented the semen of Taranis, their god of thunder2, while the Ancient Greeks referred to mistletoe as “oak sperm”.

Closeup of Viscum album, the north European mistletoe, leaves and white berries.
(Photo sourced: Internet)

Modern medicine does not ascribe scientific value to treatments with misteltoe and instead points to the toxicity of the plants, with Tyramine, the active agent, causing blurred vision, diarrhoea, nausea and vomiting and, more rarely, seizures, hypertension and even cardiac arrest. The toxic agent is maximally concentrated in the fruits and leaves. Fatalities among adult humans are rare but children and pets are more vulnerable.

Mistletoe on tree in January 2017, Dublin area (possibly Botanic Gardens). (Photo: D.Breatnach)

In Ancient Rome it was customary to attach a sprig of the plant above the door to bring love and peace to the household while elsewhere it has also been seen as protection against evil spirits. What of the common belief that it was ingested by the druids, as in a “ceremony of the oak and mistletoe” with sacrifice of white bulls? We have only Pliny as an ancient source of that alleged ceremony and historians seem to dislike relying on him, seeing him as a historian who liked to please the patricians in Rome with his descriptions. Wiki comments: “Evidence taken from bog bodies makes the Celtic use of mistletoe seem medicinal rather than ritual. It is possible that mistletoe was originally associated with human sacrifice and only became associated with the white bull after the Romans banned individual human sacrifices.”3

Is mistletoe harmful to trees? Although it is not in the long-term interests of a parasite to kill its host, some species do appear to be taking over their host bush or tree but we don’t seem to have come to that pass in Ireland and indeed may never do so. Wikipedia notes a number of studies that have ascribed ecological importance to some species, as a food source, nesting material and even encouraging the spread of juniper through birds attending parasitised juniper trees and eating the mistletoe and juniper berries together, to pass through the gut unharmed and be deposited elsewhere.4

THE PLANT SPREADING IN IRELAND?

“The word ‘mistletoe’ derives from the older form ‘mistle’ adding the Old English word tān (twig). ‘Mistle’ is common Germanic (Old High German mistil, Middle High German mistel, Old English mistel, Old Norse mistil). Further etymology is uncertain, but may be related to the Germanic base for ‘mash’.”5 Its family Solanthacea (agreed in 2003) includes about 1,000 species in 43 genera. Many have reported traditional and cultural uses, including as medicine.6

Clumps of Drualus (mistletoe) on unidentified tree, Botanic Gardens, Dublin, October 2020. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

In Ireland, apart from its scientific name Viscum alba, the perennial plant has a number of names: Sú Dara, Uile Íce, Drua-Lus and it typically roots itself in the bark of trees such as Hawthorn, Lime, Apple, Poplar and Willow but according to its Wikipedia entry, “successfully parasitizes more than 200 tree and shrub species” (though probably much less in Ireland). Once established its roots tap its host’s sap for water and nutrients but it also carries out photosynthesis, processing sunshine through its fleshy leaves — which has it classified as a hemiparasite, ie. it does part of its own work. The tree also gives it elevation where it can catch the sun’s rays without too much obstruction.

A distribution map with the Wildflowers of Ireland entry shows it widespread throughout England and Wales and localised in Scotland and Ireland, possibly through the deforestation in those nations. Although imported deliberately or accidentally to Ireland and then escaping beyond its source, once established it can be be spread, largely probably by birds.

Smólach Mór (Mistle Thrush), Griffiths Park, Glasnevin-Drumcondra, June 2021. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

The Mistle Thrush (Smólach Mór/ Turdus viscivorus) is particularly associated with the plant by name and the bird is said to include the berries in its winter diet when invertebrate animals, its preferred food the rest of the year, are rarely about7. The bird is described as squeezing the berries in its beak, ejecting the seeds sideways and, to clean its beak, wiping it against a tree trunk. The seeds, being covered with sticky liquid adhere to the tree bark and the liquid hardens, maintaining a strong grip.

Clumps of Irish mistletoe on a north American Poplar, Botanic Gardens, Dublin, 19th December 2021. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Nameplate on the bark of the poplar tree parasitised by the mistletoe picture above. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

The parasitic plant has long been in evidence in the National Botanic Gardens in Dublin and to a lesser extent in the adjacent Glasnevin Cemetery and I wondered at times why it (along with the grey squirrels) did not make its way into Griffiths Park, only minutes away on foot and connected by the Tolka River. However, walking through that park the other day, I did indeed spy the tell-tale clump high up in a tree.

One of two clumps of mistletoe on a poplar tree in Griffiths Park in January 2022 (Photo: D.Breatnach)

So it is spreading.

End.

Footnotes

1According to the Wildflowers of Ireland website.

2From Proto-Celtic Toranos (note “torann”, Irish for “noise” and the word “tone” in English).

3While having humans killed in the arena in large-scale displays for mass entertainment!

4One of the many methods of seed dispersal and why plants produce seeds inside edible packages such as fruit.

5Wikipedia

6Ibid

7While the Wikipedia entry on the bird states that it eats mistletoe berries along with those of ivy and yew (all poisonous to humans), the Birdwatch Ireland web page states only that it eats berries in winter, without specifying which ones.

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistletoe

http://www.wildflowersofireland.net/plant_detail.php?id_flower=641&wildflower=Mistletoe

Mistle Thrush

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistle_thrush

1According to the Wildflowers of Ireland website.

2From Proto-Celtic Toranos (note “torann”, Irish for “noise” and the word “tone” in English).

3While having humans killed in the arena in large-scale displays for mass entertainment!

4One of the many methods of seed dispersal and why plants produce seeds inside edible packages such as fruit.

5Wikipedia

6Ibid

7While the Wikipedia entry on the bird states that it eats mistletoe berries along with those of ivy and yew (all poisonous to humans), the Birdwatch Ireland web page states only that it eats berries in winter, without specifying which ones.

FEATURES OF IRISH TRADITIONAL INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC AND SONG

On By rebelbreezeIn Cultural Comment, Folk Custom, Ireland, Song, Traditions & Folk CustomLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time text: 4 mins)

Replying to a query on Quora on the above question, I spent some time thinking and typing the reply and then thought I might as well make that effort available to a wider audience. I have participated in many Irish instrumental music and singing sessions over decades, mostly in London and Dublin and I have two brothers who are musicians and another who is a singer. I am myself a singer, not an instrument player, nor an academic but will attempt an answer. I would recommend consulting the Irish Traditional Music Archive and reading books on the subject such as Ó Súilleabháin’s and Ó Lochlainn.

Traditional Irish music has had many external influences and among the main forms of its dance expression, jigs, hornpipes and reels, only the latter is considered originally Irish. Polkas are particularly popular in Kerry and, I suppose, built around reels. There are also slip-jigs.

The best way to experience these is probably is probably at or viewing a set-dancing session. These are based in form on the “quadrilles” of the Napoleonic period (which can be found as far away as Latin America and Cuba) and are similar to English and US Old Timey square dancing. Probably all the variants of the Irish instrumental dance music will be heard performed among the various set-dances — virtually all sequentially in the deceptively-named “Plain Set”.

Note a number of features in this good exhibition of a part of a set: hard shoes, not trainers (one exception there) to give good floor contact and sound); also some individual flourishes in footwork and body movement etc but still remaining within the music. (Source: The Harp Irish Set Dancers)

The form of dance called “sean-nós” (see description of the singing form by the same name further down) is individual expression, fast footwork with what one might also call “ornamentations”, similar to tap-dancing. The arms are held loosely down to the side or elbows to the side, slightly extended but also loosely. The overall posture may be erect or slightly stooped.

In terms of instruments used today, not one is believed to be originally Irish except the harp (which incidentally is the symbol of the Irish state, the only state in the world to feature a musical instrument in that capacity though we are far from being the only nation with a harp tradition).

The harp is an ancient Irish instrument but also symbol and was re-used by the revolutionary and republican United Irishmen, who rose in insurrection in 1798 and 1803. The later Fenians too used the symbol in less stylised form. (Image sourced: Internet)

The harp (there two main kinds, the smaller knee-standing and the larger resting on the floor between the knees) was described by Norman travellers (spies) prior to their invasion of Ireland but were known also in Wales (observers remarked not only on the aesthetic quality of the performances but also on their speed). A kind of drum was referred to by the travellers and some kind of flute but without any detail on either. The proliferation of instruments in a traditional Irish session are therefore far from being originally Irish: fiddle (violin), uilleann pipe, flute, whistle, accordion (piano or more likely button), concertina, melodeon, bazouki, mandolin, banjo and …. guitar. This last is mostly performed as an underlying rhythm instrument, a function also of the bodhrán (a kind of one-sided drum) and one may also hear a pair of spoons or sections of rib bones played for percussion. The guitar-player is often also the singer and given space to do so accompanied by his guitar, presumably in recompense for his restriction to rhythm performance the rest of the time. In many sessions there has grown sadly a tendency to restrict the performance of song to this individual or some other in the circle of musicians whereas in the past a member of the audience would perform the song; this restriction has led to the growth of song and even voice-only sessions (such as the Góilín in Dublin).

We owe the typical instruments in traditional Irish music to northern and central Europe, the Middle and Far East and to Africa. Many other instruments have been brought into use in performing Irish traditional music (including, famously, the Australian didgeridoo) but, apart from the proliferation of variations on the whistle, they have as yet failed to win popularity among musicians.

(Image sourced: Internet)

Traditional march airs also exist and, to my ear, have a tendency to be fast for the purpose. I have speculated that these represented trotting horses of the elites or warrior-caste with lower-ranking fighters running alongside — but that is pure speculation.

There are many slow airs and waltzes, definitely an import, have been composed and are also played.

TRADITIONAL, ETHNIC

With regard to the ethnicity of the performers this is not of great relevance and Irish traditional music on instruments and in voice is being played well in many different parts of the world or in Ireland by musicians with a non-Irish ethnic background. Naturally too the Irish diaspora has spawned many excellent traditional Irish musicians (and, we can remark in passing, in many other genres too: rock, pop, blues, jazz, classical).

The term “traditional” itself can open up a debate but with regard to song, I was offered this interesting definition some years ago: “author unknown, performed over three generations.” Authorship is therefore an issue as is permanency (or at least persistency). One feature of traditional music throughout the world, according to Ó Súilleabháin is never to end in a crescendo (although occasionally one may hear a traditional song or ballad treated in this way, it is rare).

However, as with “tunes” or “airs” in instrumental music, songs are being composed all along within the traditional or folk form, sometimes re-using known airs, sometimes adapting them and on occasion composing new ones.

It is important to note that ballads are not considered a “traditional” form, having entered Ireland in the 18th and 19th centuries but they are accepted in traditional singing circles.

Ballads and traditional songs were on many themes of course but given Ireland’s history, the national struggle was bound to feature often. (Image sourced: Internet)

THE SINGER AND THE SONG

Traditional-style singers not only eschew crescendos but also, in general, bodily gestures or dramatic pauses or changes of volume. There are emphases rendered on occasion but these tend to be subtle.

A form of singing known as “sean-nós” (literally ‘old style’) exists with regional variations. From experience and perception (but without formal study) I would say that the main distinguishing feature of this form is in the ornamentation of notes, viz. drawing some out to briefly twist around them (interestingly, one verb in Irish for “play” as in instrument or “sing” is “cas”, literally “twist/ turn/ weave”) and the ending of a line may have an additional note added. The Qawwali religious music of Pakistan and Indian shares many features as does parts of the Flamenco singing, albeit the latter is loudly expressive.

In terms of the great themes of Irish song (and at times of instrumental pieces) these are overwhelmingly love, patriotic struggle and emigration, with sub-categories, including some that merge two or even three of the main themes (hear for example “Skibereen” or the waltz-air “Slieve na mBan”.

PLEASE DON’T CLAP ….

A very important element of Irish traditional and folk singing is not only the performance but also the audience. The tradition is not for choral or duet etc singing with harmonies, though these exist but rather for the single voice. In this we differ from other Celtic nations such as the Welsh and Bretons but parallel the Scottish tradition as well as some other folk traditions, including some English and USA Old Timey expressions.

The tradition has been that a singer will be heard through to the end with perhaps some sounds of encouragement at various junctures (on occasion I have observed a noisy Irish pub become suddenly silent as the customers become aware that a song is being sung, remaining totally silent until the end of the song). Should there be a chorus, listeners may join in and a well-known and appreciated line may get listeners joining in too (think for example of the last line in the non-traditional form — but often sung in sean-nós style — ballad about the Great Hunger: “… revenge for Skibereen!”).

I should mention here that accompanying the beat in traditional music by clapping is certainly not “cool”, although traditional musicians performing on stage have been seen to encourage it (presumably in order to reduce the isolation feeling of the performers and to increase the enjoyment of non-perceptive listeners). In fact clapping overcomes the nuances of the performance as well as the concentration of the listener, therefore limiting the depth of the experience. “Tap feet by all means and clap at the end if you please” is the general rule.

I must note also in conclusion that Irish/ Scottish traditional music with some English folk contribution are the main influences in not only Old Timey USA music but also bluegrass and country & western, with spillover into some other forms. As such, this fount of music is responsible for the creation of the “white” or “European-origin” popular music of the USA, ie around half of the entire body. The other half is of African origin, in blues and jazz (in so far as these are not the same thing), giving rise to rock n’roll, swing etc. But both these “halves” have naturally had an influence on the other and in Ireland, traditional music is also influenced by — and contributes to — “crossover” variations of music.

I would comment also that socially and politically Irish musicians have tended to identify to one degree or another with the people and their resistance and were often persecuted for doing so. This was natural, given that they mostly came from the Irish population and that was where they found their audience. In that regard it is sad to note that some, including the Chieftains musician group and singer Imelda May, performed at a state banquet in Dublin a few years ago for the English Queen, who is head of the UK state and of the British Armed Forces, currently occupying one-sixth of our small national territory and also invading other parts of the world.

End.

USEFUL LINKS

Irish Traditional Music Archive: https://www.itma.ie/

Set-dancing: http://www.harpirishsetdancers.com/

Singing: https://www.facebook.com/AnGoilin/https://en.

Colm Ó Lochlainn: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colm_%C3%93_Lochlainn

WHO FEARS TO SPEAK OF ‘98? REVULSION AT ETHOS OF O’CONNELL’S REPEAL

On By rebelbreezeIn Cultural Comment, Folk Custom, History, Ireland, irish history, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, Song in Struggle, Traditions & Folk Custom, Workers' StrugglesLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time main text: 2 mins.)

In 1843 the lyrics of In Memory of the Dead were published anonymously in The Nation but it seems to have been an open secret in Dublin political circles that the author was John Kells Ingram. As often happens, the song became known by its opening line “Who Fears to Speak of ‘98” and years later Ingram admitted having written the lyrics. Though it never once mentions Daniel O’Connell, taken in context of its subject, time and where it was published, the song was a blistering attack on the politician and his Repeal of the Union organisation. Yet while Kells Ingram was many things, he was no revolutionary — unlike the editors of the Nation and many of its readers.

Plaque indicating former location of The Nation newspaper in Middle Abbey Street, Dublin, premises bought out ironically by The Irish Independent. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

John Kells Ingram was a mildly nationalist mathematician, economist, philosopher and poet who was selected to write expert entries for the Encyclopedia Britannica. But although he was no revolutionary it is clear that he felt a distaste for O’Connell’s distancing himself from the memory of those who had risen in rebellion four decades earlier.

John Kells Ingram 1823-1907 (1890) by Sarah Purser (1848 – 1943). (Photo sourced: Internet)

Supporting O’Connell initially, The Nation sought to create a patriotic and indeed revolutionary culture through its pages. One of The Nation’s founders and editors, Thomas Davis was perforce also one of the periodical’s contributors and his compositions The West’s Awake and A Nation Once Again are still sung today, the latter very nearly becoming Ireland’s national anthem. The lyrics of Who Fears to Speak celebrated historical memory of resistance and lamented death and exile, the latter to the USA, where many of the surviving United Irish had gone (“across the Atlantic foam“). Davis’ In Bodenstown’s Churchyard, commemorated and celebrated Theobald Wolfe Tone, remembered as the father of Irish Republicanism and martyr.

Portrait of Thomas Davis (Sourced on: Internet)

Three years after co-founding The Nation, Thomas Davis died of scarlet fever in 1845, a few months short of his 31st birthday. Two years later, in “Black ‘47”, the worst year of the Great Hunger, the Young Irelanders finally and formally split from O’Connell’s Repeal Movement and in 1848 had their ill-fated and short uprising – again jail and exile for the leaders followed. Just under a score of years later, 1867 saw the tardy and unsuccessful rising of the Fenians with again, resultant jail sentences and exile (in addition to the executions of the Manchester Martyrs).

Two years following the rising of the Young Irelanders, in 1850 Arthur M. Forrester was born near Manchester in Salford, England (the “Dirty Old Town” of Ewan McColl) and in 1869 his stirring words of The Felons of Our Land appeared in Songs of a Rising Nation and other poetry (Felons reprinted by Kearney Brothers in a 1922 collection including songs by Thomas Davis). Songs of a Rising Nation was a collection published by the militant and resourceful Ellen Forrester from Clones, Co. Monaghan, who struggled to raise her children after the early death of her husband and included poems by her son Arthur and daughter Cathy.

Felons of Our Land indeed contains some of the themes of Who Fears to Speak (of which Arthur was doubtless aware) but in addition those of jail and death on the scaffold. By that time, the Young Irelanders had been added to the imprisoned and exiled, some in escape to the USA but others to penal colony in the Australias. And Forester added the theme of pride in our political prisoners:

A felon’s cap’s the noblest crown

an Irish head can wear.

and

We love them yet, we can’t forget

the felons of our land.

Twenty years after the publication of The Felons of Our Land, in 1889, another Irishman, Jim Connell, writing in SE London, would contribute the lyrics of the anthem of the working class in Britain, The Red Flag. Although commonly sung to the air of a German Christmas carol, Connell himself put it to the the traditional Jacobite air of The White Cockade. Connell, from Crossakiel in Co. Meath, also invoked historical memory and included the theme of martyrdom in explanation of the flag’s colour:

The workers’ flag is deepest red —

it shrouded oft’ our martyrs dead,

And ‘ere their limbs grew stiff and cold

their life’s blood dyed its every fold.

Jim Connell (Sourced on: Internet)

The traditions and themes of resistance and struggle are handed from generation to generation and song is one of the vehicles of that transmission. But songwriters borrow themes not just from history but from the very songs of the singers and songwriters before them. In 1869 Arthur M. Forrester wrote in Who Fears to Speak of ‘98:

Let cowards mock and tyrants frown

ah, little do we care ….

Jim Connell, three decades later, took up not only the themes but also that line:

Let cowards mock and traitors sneer,

we’ll keep the red flag flying here.

End.

APPENDIX

References in lyrics to themes

of exile:

In Who Fears to Speak of ‘98 (1843)

Some on a far-off distant land

their weary hearts have laid

And by the stranger’s heedless hands

their lonely graves were made.

But though their clay

be far away

Across the Atlantic foam …

In The Felons of Our Land (1869)

“…We’ll drink a toast

to comrades far away …

and

…. or flee, outlawed and banned

In The Red Flag (1889)

None.

of imprisonment:

In Who Fears to Speak of ‘98 (1843)

None.

In The Felons of Our Land (1869)

(Apart from the title and refrain)

… though they sleep in dungeons deep

and

Some in the convict’s dreary cell

have found a living tomb

And some unseen unfriended fell

within the dungeon’s gloom …

also

A felon’s cap’s the noblest crown

an Irish head can wear……

In The Red Flag (1889)

Come dungeons dark or gallows grim ….

of martyred death:

In Who Fears to Speak of ‘98 (1843)

Alas that might should conquer right,

they fell and passed away …..

In The Felons of Our Land (1869)

….. Some on the scaffold proudly died …

In The Red Flag (1889)

….. their life’s blood dyed its every fold ….

and

….. to bear it onward til we fall;

Come dungeons dark or gallows grim,

this song shall be our parting hymn.

of cowards and/ or traitors:

In Who Fears to Speak of ‘98 (1843)

Who fears to speak of ‘98,

who blushes at the name?

When cowards mock the patriot’s fate,

who hangs his head for shame?

He’s all a knave or half a slave

Who slights his country thus …

In The Felons of Our Land (1869)

…. And brothers say, shall we, today,

unmoved like cowards stand,While traitors shame and foes defame,

the Felons of our Land.

and

Let cowards mock and tyrants frown, …

In The Red Flag (1889)

. ..Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer (repeated in the chorus, sung six times)

and

It suits today the weak and base,
Whose minds are fixed on pelf and place
To cringe before the rich man’s frown,
And haul the sacred emblem down.

of the higher moral fibre of revolutionaries:

In Who Fears to Speak of ‘98 (1843)

Repeated reference in every verse to such as

a true man, like you man and you men, be true men etc.

Alas that Might should conquer Right ….

In The Felons of Our Land (1869)

… No nation on earth can boast of braver hearts than they ….

also

And every Gael in Inishfail,

who scorns the serf’s vile brand,

From Lee to Boyne would gladly join

the felons of our land.

In The Red Flag (1889)

The banner bright, the symbol plain,
Of human right and human gain.

and

With heads uncovered swear we all
To bear it onward till we fall;
Come dungeons dark or gallows grim,
This song shall be our parting hymn.

of eventual victory:

In Who Fears to Speak of ‘98 (1843)

… a fiery blaze that nothing can withstand …

In The Felons of Our Land (1869)

None – but inferred.

In The Red Flag (1889)

It well recalls the triumphs past,
It gives the hope of peace at last;
The banner bright, the symbol plain,
Of human right and human gain.

SOURCES AND REFERENCES

John Kells Ingram: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kells_Ingram

https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Kells-Ingram

Arthur Forrester: https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/the-felons-ofour-land-frank-mcnally-on-the-various-lives-of-a-republican-ballad-1.4185803

Ellen Forrester https: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Forrester

Lyrics Felons of Our Land: https://www.workersliberty.org/story/2010/10/12/felons-our-land

Jim Connell and The Red Flag: https://www.historyireland.com/20th-century-contemporary-history/jim-connell-and-the-red-flag/

Monument to Daniel O’Connell in Dublin’s main street, now named after him. (Photo sourced: Wikipedia)

ALBUM REVIEW: TIR NAN OG – ‘Sing, Ye Bastards!’ (2021)

On By rebelbreezeIn Cultural Comment, Folk Custom, History, Ireland, SongLeave a comment

Love, life, death and lots of alcohol! Yeah the sort of themes you expect to hear on a Celtic-Punk album but in the hands of German band Tir Nan Og on their new album Sing, Ye Bastards! these traditional themes are anything but traditional!

Read the rest of the review on https://londoncelticpunks.wordpress.com/2021/03/07/album-review-tir-nan-og-sing-ye-bastards-2021/

LANGUAGE IS A TREASURE CHEST 3: THE POWER OF THE WISH AND THE CURSE

On By rebelbreezeIn Cultural Comment, Folk Custom, Language, Language Treasure Chest, Traditions & Folk CustomLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

Apparently the Subjunctive Mood is disappearing from modern languages, including the Indo-European groups of Celtic, Germanic, Nordic, Romance and Slavonic. The Subjunctive is the grammatical mood by which we expressed wishes and desires, with an underlying feeling that their realisation was uncertain. But why is the Subjunctive disappearing? I think that its disappearance reflects a profound change in our general thinking, a definite shift towards a scientific view of the world.

“Subjunctive forms of verbs are typically used to express various states of unreality such as: wish, emotion, possibility, judgement, opinion, obligation, or action that has not yet occurred; the precise situations in which they are used vary from language to language.” (Wikipedia)

Wishing while blowing the seed parasols off a dandelion ‘clock’. The form of words combined with an object and perhaps an element of chance was believed to have a power of realisation. (Image sourced: Internet)

Firstly, let’s look at relatively common phrases where we find the Subjunctive Mood and in English, these are not as common as in other Indo-European languages such as Irish and Castillian (Spanish), for example.

In its article on the grammatical use of the subjunctive mood in English, the online Collins Dictionary gives, among others, these examples:

  • God save the Queen!
  • God bless you!
  • God help us!
  • Heaven help us!
  • Heaven forbid that that should happen to me.
  • Suffice it to say he escaped with only a caution.

As an antidote to monarchical and religious expression, I give you the example Long live the Revolution! which is also in the subjunctive mood.

Often we can arrive at the subjunctive form by beginning the sentence with the word “May”: e.g May God bless you; May Heaven help us; May Heaven forbid. Sometimes when we use “May” we have to change the order of words a little: May it suffice to say from Suffice it to say; May you go with God from Go with God; May the Revolution live long from Long live the Revolution! And sometimes the May or even more words might have disappeared in common modern usage but be understood as in (May) thy Kingdom come1 and (May you be) welcome or (May) God speed (you).

Certainly the calling or greeting of Happy Christmas and a Merry New Year heard and read everywhere around this time of year were originally preceded by May you have a ….

Well and good2 but what has that to do with the “profound change in our general thinking, a definite shift towards a scientific view of the world” which I interpreted as the cause of the disappearance of the subjunctive?

Well, although the use of the subjunctive expressed a wish about the outcome of which we were not certain, it seems clear that its use was believed to have power. So to wish someone to (May you) go with God in English ((Que) Vaya con Dios3 in Castillian and still common in most of South and Central America and in the USA Southwest4) expressed a feeling that by saying those words, one could invoke protection upon the person leaving. Go5 dté tú slán, an equivalent in Irish but without any mention of God, one can find in the last line of the chorus in the Irish Jacobite song Siúil a Ghrá. And when we did not wish someone well, we might express a curse, invoking ill upon them: May you go to Hell! May you never prosper!

A curse tablet from ancient Athens — sometimes it was not enough to say or to write the curse but one had to attach it to an object (or to the object of the curse). (Image sourced: Internet)

Uncertain as the outcome of expressing a wish for another, whether good or ill, was believed to be in more ancient times, we are fairly convinced today that it is empty of any predictive or enforcement power, i.e we can’t make it happen by wishing alone. The only power left in the words is in the expression of emotion for us and to convey a strong wish of good (even if only socially conventional) or conversely an intense dislike towards the object of the phrases.

So when we wish someone well today we are only expressing a positive regard (whether strongly emotional or only as a social convention) and similarly the reverse with an ill-wish. Gone is the belief that the use of the words themselves had any power at all over the outcome. If we were to say nowadays May you go to Hell or the truncated Go to Hell, we would do so without the slightest belief that we can somehow convey the person to that destination6 by the use of those words – we’d merely be saying something like “I really dislike (or hate) you” or perhaps “I am angry with you at the moment”. To really express a malevolent feeling, we might instead use “I hope” but again with without any expectation of realisation, as when Bob Dylan sang to the Masters of War:

“I hope that you die

and your death will come soon”.

Today, we find the remains of the Subjunctive mostly in prayers and greetings7 and to some extent in curses and in prayers. In religion, the traditional forms of prayer tend to be preserved, whether through strong devotion, convention or habit. The survival of the Subjunctive in greetings is probably retained through the inertia of convention. We also find its survival in a few grammatical constructions and in the feeling that “I wish I were in Carrickfergus8” is somehow better than the more commonly-heard “I wish I was in Carrickfergus”.

Hands in prayer, by Albert Durer. (Image sourced: Internet)

In general we no longer believe in the power of invocation, in making things happen by expressing a wish for them in a certain verbal way. We know now or believe that to make something happen, that we need to act. Even if wishful thinking can still be seen in much of political and social expression, that is more a reflection of a reluctance to confront reality or of hope for the future, rather than a real belief in the power of expression in verbal form. A scientific outlook has replaced that of the religious, of the otherworld, giving us a stronger intellectual tool to govern our actions, to bring a wish to reality.

As with the study of history, the study of language tells us a lot about who we were and who we are now — and helps us to speculate on who we are becoming.

End.

La Malediction Paternelle (the Curse of the Father) by Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725–1805). (Image sourced: Internet)

FOOTNOTES

1 go dtaga do Ríocht in Irish, from The Lord’s Prayer of Christians.

2 Or the full Conditional Mood: That may be all well and good 🙂

3“May you go with God” — the subjunctive mood – compare with Ve te con Dios (“Go with God”), the imperative mood.

4 And sometimes in Hollywood “Westerns”.

5The Irish word Go (pronounced as guh might be in English) in the Subjunctive precedes the verb to correspond to the use of the word May in English we saw earlier. In Irish, the name for the group of greetings is Beannachtaí which interestingly translates as “Blessings”.

6If we even believe any more in the existence of that place.

7And since greetings are important for social communication the Subjunctive often gives the learner of a language some difficulty, as in the Irish Go raibh maith agat, for example.

8A line in a centuries-old macaronic Irish song (i.e a verse in Irish followed by one in English etc), Do Bhí Bean Uasal or in English, Carrickfergus. Sadly most people are probably completely unaware of the verses in Irish.

FURTHER READING

https://grammar.collinsdictionary.com/easy-learning/the-subjunctive

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_subjunctive

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjunctive_mood

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_mood

LEFT IN THE LURCH BUT SINGING

On By rebelbreezeIn Cultural Comment, Folk Custom, History, Ireland, Irish Language, Poetry, Song, Song in Struggle, Traditions & Folk CustomLeave a comment

“Mo Ghile Mear”, lyrics composed later in the the 18th Century lamenting the failing of an earlier Rising, a traditional Irish air at least generations old, combined in the 1970s, sung today in great style.

I have not researched the origins of this myself but the theme is well-known, so from relying on Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: “Mo Ghile Mear” (translated “My Gallant Darling”, “My Spirited Lad” and variants) is an Irish song. The modern form of the song was composed in the early 1970s by Dónal Ó Liatháin (1934–2008), using a traditional air collected in Cúil Aodha, County Cork, and lyrics selected from Irish-language poems by Seán “Clárach” Mac Domhnaill (1691–1754).

 

The lyrics are partially based on Bímse Buan ar Buairt Gach Ló (“My Heart is Sore with Sorrow Deep” (but “Gach Ló” means “every day” and there is no mention of “My Heart” in the title – D. Breatnach), c. 1746), a lament of the failure of the Jacobite rising of 1745.[1][2] The original poem is in the voice of the personification of Ireland, Éire, lamenting the exile of Bonnie Prince Charlie.[3] Mo ghile mear is a term applied to the Pretender in numerous Jacobite songs of the period. O’Daly (1866) reports that many of the Irish Jacobite songs were set to the tune The White Cockade. This is in origin a love song of the 17th century, the “White Cockade” (cnotadh bán) being an ornament of ribbons worn by young women, but the term was re-interpreted to mean a military cockade in the Jacobite context.[4]

Jacobite musketeers, reenactment.
(Source: Internet)

Another part of the lyrics is based in an earlier Jacobite poem by Mac Domhnaill. This was published in Edward Walsh‘s Irish Popular Songs (Dublin, 1847) under the title of “Air Bharr na gCnoc ‘san Ime gCéin — Over the Hills and Far Away”. Walsh notes that this poem was “said to be the first Jacobite effort” by Mac Domhnaill, written during the Jacobite rising of 1715, so that here the exiled hero is the “Old Pretender”, James Francis Edward Stuart.

The composition of the modern song is associated with composer Seán Ó Riada, who established an Irish-language choir inCúil Aodha, County Cork, in the 1960s. The tune to which it is now set was collected by Ó Riada from an elderly resident of Cúil Aodha called Domhnall Ó Buachalla. Ó Riada died prematurely in 1971, and the song was composed about a year after his death, in c. 1972, with Ó Riada himself now becoming the departed hero lamented in the text. The point of departure for the song was the tape recording of Domhnall Ó Buachalla singing the tune. Ó Riada’s son Peadar suggested to Dónal Ó Liatháin that he should make a song from this melody.[5]

Ó Liatháin decided to select verses from Mac Domhnaill’s poem and set them to the tune. He chose those that were the most “universal”, so that the modern song is no longer an explicit reference to the Jacobite rising but in its origin a lament for the death of Seán Ó Riada.[6]

THIS RENDITION is to my mind and ear an excellent one in traditional-type arrangement and voices (not to mention looks of certain of the singers) and all involved are to be commended. I have not always liked the group’s rendition but this is just wonderful.

In history, we fought in Ireland for two foreign royals at two different times and on each occasion they left us in the lurch.

end.