Ireland in Song and in Story

By Frances Geraldine Fahy

Ireland in Song and in Story takes the reader on a journey to capture the essence of the development of what people associate with the term ‘Irish’.  Its insularity, harmonious scenic beauty, climate, as well as its complex history, its language, culture and lifestyle all contribute to the mystique we associate with Ireland, the place that many people know as the birthplace of their ancestors and, so, very dear to their hearts.

The book is accompanied by a YouTube playlist with versions of all the songs mentioned. You will find it in the Frances Fahy Writings channel.

• Language: English
• Publisher: fgfahy
• Release date: May 21, 2021
• ISBN: 9791220806718

Book preview

Frances G. Fahy

Ireland in Song and in Story

Dedicated to all who feel even a little bit Irish

‘Ir eland in Song and in Story’ is a simplified history diluted with songs, poems and tales that reflect the resilience of the Irish spirit. It is written for the reader who is curious about Ireland but wants its history told in a captivating manner. I hope I've achieved this aim. The songs included in the book can be listened to here.

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Topics

There's something about the word Ireland

The Distant Past Is Still Around Us

Gaeilge - The language that refuses to die

The Viking Visitors from the North

The Norman Visitors from the South

Tudor turmoil in Britain affects Ireland

Cromwell – Ireland’s Greatest Enemy

The Price and Outcome of Loyalties

Nationalist Awakenings Trickle into Ireland

Disregarded in Britain – The Irish Famine

Parnell – Avondale’s Proud Eagle

Celtic Revival – Our Past Takes Us Forward

The Thorny Path to Nationhood

Ireland in the twenty-first century

About the author

Suggestions for visiting

Credits

There's something about the word Ireland

Introduction

When people sing that the ‘cares of tomorrow must wait till this day is done’ they've got their priorities right. There are many versions of this beautiful melody. The Irish language title of this song is Buachaill ón Éirne

Come by the Hills

Come by the hills to the land where fancy is free

And stand where the peaks meet the sky and the rocks reach the sea

Where the rivers run clear and the bracken is gold in the sun

And cares of tomorrow must wait till this day is done.

Come by the hills to the land where life is a song

And sing while the birds fill the air with their joy all day long

Where the trees sway in time, and even the wind sings in t une

And cares of tomorrow must wait till this day is done.

Explaining Ireland is no easy task so I'll rely on a scenario I'm familiar with to illustrate this point.

– Where are you from? Since I live in Italy, the person asking this is most likely Italian and quite talkative.

– I’m from Ireland.

– Oh! Really? I love Ireland!

I’ve been through this so many times. I make a new acquaintance and, at the first mention of my homeland, the listeners' eyes light up and in that completely natural, sometimes unnerving and typically Italian way that merges both sign and spoken language, their index finger points upwards, indicating the ‘North’ on an invisible map. I point downwards in answer to the implied question. We have established that I’m from the south, the Republic. I’ve never quite understood if that increases or diminishes my charm!

And the next question is as predictable as green on St. Patrick's Day.

– Are you Catholic or Protestant?

– Catholic.

Again, I’m not sure, but I think that earns me a point.

I’ve lived more of my life in Italy that I have in Ireland but, as I presume happens to people who move to another country in their adult life, in a number of little ways, I’ll always be a foreigner here. Just as an example, I might mention that it’s cold, which will inevitably evoke surprise – Oh! But you should be used to much colder weather than this. Others sometimes worry that I don’t always understand the nuances of the local dialect and feel they have to explain jokes! A colleague of mine was even astonished that I have strong political convictions because, he sympathised, the Italian political process may perhaps be a bit beyond your comprehension. He might be right there, but not because of a language barrier! Thankfully though, in my case, foreigner is synonymous with interesting and charming as opposed to threatening and unacceptable. I’ve often wondered why Italians, in general, react to the word ‘Ireland’ in a way they might not react to, let’s say, Austria, Denmark or Portugal. And this seems to be true of a cross section of all Italians – not just backpackers or young students going on their study holiday abroad but intellectuals, retired colleagues, taxi drivers, everyone. Fascination, curiosity and confusion are all part of the interest that Italians have in ‘Irish’ things. They have a preconceived notion of a romantic, hazy, different place. Different from what exactly, they are not quite sure. They just love saying ‘Ireland is different’. They feel they can express an opinion on the country even though they may never have set foot in it. What do they identify with? What is it about Ireland that they think they know? This is a question that baffles me, and I hope to find some answers as we go along. Maybe part of the answer is already in the images that the words, the music and the sounds of the above song, Come by the Hills, conjures up. How refreshing to think of a place where the cares of tomorrow must wait till this day is done.

The Italians are complicated. When an Italian is really convinced that he or she is right about something, he will start by affirming I may be wrong but…! Then, when they realise they are not being convincing enough, the catchphrase is more or less ‘that’s not the issue’, which translated from the Italian, ‘ il problema è un altro’, sounds more like, ‘the problem is another’! For many, the problem is always an other! Yet, the Irish are complicated, too. They love to disagree on things as much as the Italians do and are not shy about expressing these differences. But in a more guarded way. An Irish person usually wants to know the other person’s opinion before getting too open about his or her own thoughts on the matter. It’s just built into the Irish psyche. So, before I even begin, I am fully aware that whatever I write about Ireland for this hypothetical Italian, Irish American or, indeed, anyone who loves the country, someone is going to take offence. That’s just the way it is. If you talk about the past, an Irish person will be quick to point out: ‘we’re not like that anymore’; if you talk about the present, they will say: ‘don’t forget where we were just a generation ago’. A rather talkative nation, yes. Quite like the Italians, when you think about it.

To limit offence, therefore, we’ll take the vibrant, modern Ireland with its good and bad elements as a given and go from there. Because an account of the twenty-first century, post-Celtic-Tiger, fast-paced, secular, economically booming, motorway-building, urban, American-accented, yuppie Ireland, with an estimated three million tourists per year and enormous foreign technological and pharmaceutical companies availing of generous tax concessions providing employment for a well-educated, young population – a country with its fair share of inflation, social issues, stress-related illnesses, crime, suicides, which is comparable to any other society in a moment of economic good times – is not, I imagine, what would hold the interest of my readers. They want to know something about the country that, for some reason, fires their imagination and takes them where that imagination leads them. It’s hard to pinpoint what that something is but they are convinced they know.

Let’s start by saying that things in Ireland are not always as they seem. First of all, there are two official languages, English and Irish, the latter also known by non-Irish speakers as Gaelic or, more correctly, in the native tongue, as Gaeilge. Traditionally, Irish was spoken on a daily basis by only a small minority of people scattered on the western seaboard, in pockets from Donegal in the north, through Galway and down to Kerry. It is also the language of a number of people in the north of Ireland, in Ulster, most of whom wish to make a political statement. It is taught in almost all schools as a curricular subject so almost every Irish person has a sprinkling of the language, often leaving school with just the basics. The two languages are completely distinct and have totally different structures. Irish (part of the Celtic branch of the Indo-European languages) predates English by many centuries. The Republic of Ireland is also officially called Éire in the Irish language.

All this will be dealt with later, as will the fact that for an Irish person, Éire is more than just the translated word for his/her native country. Éire is a state of mind. Éire is thousands of years of history encapsulated in a four-letter word that sounds warm and soft and that, once written down, conjures up so many images and so many contradictions. All town names, road maps and road signs can be found in both languages and, for the discerning traveller, this detail adds to the country’s charm. This coexistence of two languages has, of course, influenced the English spoken