ANÚNA (1993)

Media Vita
The First Day
Invocation
The Raid
Sanctus
Pater Noster
Faigh an Gleas
Suantraí
Bean Pháidín / An Poc ar Buile
Cormacus Scripsit
Silent, O Moyle
Jerusalem
Fionnghuala
Crist and St. Marie
The Blue Bird
‘Sí do Mhaimeo Í

All tracks produced by Michael McGlynn and Brian Masterson
Cover Artwork Brendan Donlon
Recorded in Blackrock College Chapel February 1993.
Mixed at Windmill Lane Studios.
Engineered by Brian Masterson.

ANÚNA

Artistic Director Michael McGlynn

Caron Hannigan
David Clarke
Emer Lang
Garrath Patterson
John McGlynn
Katie McMahon
Máire Lang
Mairéad Ní Fhaoláin
Miriam Blennerhassett
Monica Donlon
Paula Byrne
Peter Harney
Richard Boyle
Sara Clancy
Shane Lillis
Stephen Kenny
Tara O Beirne
Tony Davoren

This is the first time I have really had the chance to talk about the ANÚNA debut album which arrived quietly in Irish record shops in the spring of 1993 and largely slipped under the radar on its initial release. By the end of that year word of mouth had begun to spread and interest in it grew steadily. The following year saw the emergence of Riverdance and it is not unreasonable to say that this recording and the one that followed it played a part in shaping the atmosphere out of which that phenomenon emerged.

So what is it that makes this ramshackle collection recorded in four hours in a freezing church with radiators clicking away in the background so distinctive? If I had to reduce it to a single word it would be energy. There is an urgency and directness here that I have rarely encountered in choral recordings either before or since. We were at the very beginning of the digital recording era which in theory allowed for flexible editing but almost none of that was applied. That was largely down to Brian Masterson who engineered the session and whose instincts were very different from mine. Coming from classical traditional and rock backgrounds his view was that a recording should capture what a group actually is warts and all. For him the transmission of intent mattered far more than immaculate tuning or perfectly aligned entries.

Because of that the album sounds less like a polished choral release and more like a debut record by a late 1970s rock band recorded in someone’s garage. That is part of its character. It is also part of why it is strange even now to realise that ANÚNA remain just as singular today as they were then. At the time I genuinely believed this album might help shift attitudes towards choral music in Ireland which was a marginalised art form. In that respect I was wrong. The opposite happened. ANÚNA remain marginalised in Ireland to this day. And yet the reach of this recording has travelled far beyond the choral world it came from. Wherever I go people talk about the first time they heard it. One of my most treasured possessions is a crude pirated copy given to me by a devoted Russian couple in London. The idea that someone would go to the trouble of faking a record made in four hours on a dark winter day is still astonishing to me.

When this album first appeared many criticised the treatment of the traditional songs as over-complex and fussy and missing the idiom entirely. In fact this form of criticism has persisted right up to today. Which pleases me very much. I remember having an argument with a traditional singer over my setting of “Jerusalem”, an arrangement that has been performed since then across the world. Her assertion was that the solos should not have been sung by a classically trained singer as it distorted the tradition in some way. If the tradition is to live it cannot be guarded this way. I own it as much as any fluent Irish speaker or dynastic traditional musician. It has to be carried forward, and people who were not raised the tradition still have every right to approach it, learn it, and make it speak in their own voice. It is a living tradition.

The group was already seven years old when this album was made and that shows not in polish but in the confidence and sophistication of the musical language. I want to acknowledge very directly the extraordinary contribution of my brother John in his preparation of the soloists and his encouragement throughout the process to keep the faith in what I was trying to do.

What followed a year later Invocation (1994) represents a dramatic leap forward in texture and refinement, but this first album remains deeply important to me. It occupies a unique place in the vocal ensemble genre and in Irish musical life, whether or not that is formally recognised. As we approach our fortieth anniversary perhaps the work will be reassessed. Either way I remain immensely proud of what we achieved together.

Michael McGlynn, January 2026

Media Vita

Solo & Arranged Michael McGlynn
Percussion Lloyd Byrne

The text Media vita in morte sumus is attributed to Notker Balbulus “the Stammerer” (c. 840 - 912) of the Abbey of St Gall in Switzerland. I first encountered the melody while rummaging through the college library in UCD at a time when access to recordings was non-existent. I came across it in A History of Irish Music by W. H. Grattan Flood who repeats the tradition that the responsory was suggested to Notker by his Irish teacher Moengal (also known as Marcellus), and goes so far as to imply that it should be acknowledged as owing something to Irish writers and composers. That claim is, at best, a reach, reflecting the speculative nationalism typical of Flood’s time rather than firm evidence. The melody itself nonetheless stayed with me, and this arrangement came to me years later while overlooking the Skellig rocks from the early monastic site of Cill Rialaig (yes, really). It remains extraordinary to me that this setting has since been streamed many millions of times worldwide and continues to be our best-known piece and was the opening track on our first proper release.

One line from the traditional responsory is omitted in this setting, namely Ad te clamaverunt patres nostri, clamaverunt et non sunt confusi, meaning “To you our fathers cried, they cried out and were not confounded.” I left this verse out simply because it did not fit the underlying pulse of the setting which is pretty unforgivable. In this case my instincts as a composer overrode my instincts as an Early music practitioner. That decision, for better or worse, is part of why this piece occupies the position it does in our history. What can I say?

Media vita in morte sumus:
quem quaerimus adiutorem,
nisi te, Domine,
qui pro peccatis nostris…
Sancte Deus,
Sancte fortis,
Sancte misericors Salvator,
amarae morti ne tradas nos.

In te speraverunt patres nostri,
speraverunt et liberasti eos.
Sancte Deus,
Sancte fortis,
Sancte misericors Salvator,
amarae morti ne tradas nos.

In the midst of life we are in death:
whom shall we seek as a helper,
if not you, O Lord,
who for our sins…
Holy God,
Holy Mighty One,
Holy Merciful Saviour,
do not deliver us to bitter death.

In you our fathers trusted,
they trusted and you delivered them.
Holy God,
Holy Mighty One,
Holy Merciful Saviour,
do not deliver us to bitter death.

THE FIRST DAY

Traditional, arranged Michael McGlynn
Solo Katie McMahon, tin whistle Michael McGlynn.

A medieval hymn (reconstructed by Professor Brendán Ó'Madagain of University College Galway), sung to invoke Mary's protection. Framing it is an elaborate whistle melody, based on the 18th century Kilmore carol, “The First Day of the Year”, which comes from Co. Wexford.

Stiúraigh mé dod’ mholadh, cé nach ollamh mé um éigse
A ghnúis ainglí gan locht thug sú t’ochta dom réiteach
Tiomnaim mé fad’ chomairc, a bhuime mhúirneach an Aen-mhic
Is fá do scéith díon mo chorp, mo chroí, mo thoil is mh’éifeacht.
A theampaill na dtrí bpearsan, Athair Mac is Naomh Spioraid
Guím thú dom fhurtacht uair mo bhreatha is mh’éaga.
A Rioghain, dá dtug an Rí an tAthair, síorbhuíochas,
Óigheacht is bheith ad’mháthair, gabhaim do pháirt dom réiteach.
A shoithig iompair an lóchrainn, a ró-shoillse os cionn gréine
Tarraing mé fad’ dhíon i gcuan as loing diomuan an tsaoghail
A Mhuire mhodhail, mhaiseach is ceannsa, cneasta, maorga,
Ní tuirseach mé fad’ ghairm ‘S tú mo chrann bagair lá an bhaoghail.

Tell me how to praise you, although I am no master of poetry
Angelic face without stain you gave me breast milk to save me.
I throw myself on your protection, loving Mother of the one Son
Under your shield protect my body, my heart, my will and strength
Temple of three persons, Father, Son and Holy Ghost
I pray to you to aid me in my hour of judgement and death.
Queen who was given by the King, the Father, thanks forever,
Motherhood and virginity, I beseech your part in my salvation.
Vessel who carries the light, great brightness that outshines the sun
Pull me under your protection, from the short journey of life.
Mary, gracious and beautiful, gentle, mild and stately
I don't tire calling to you. You defend me on the dangerous day

Invocation

Solo Voice Michael McGlynn

Amergin Glúingel is a figure from the Irish mythological cycle, described in medieval sources as poet, judge, and druid of the Milesians, traditionally credited with uttering the incantation that allowed them to land in Ireland. The phrase Ailiu iath nÉrenn is associated with that utterance and with the group of elemental declarations often referred to as the Song of Amergin, preserved in later manuscript tradition rather than as a fixed, singular text. What survives is fragmentary and fluid, closer to a ritual proclamation than to a poem in the later literary sense.

This piece was composed entirely the day before the performance. That immediacy is central to the music. The energy of its creation carries directly into the recording, and it is clearly audible in the urgency, focus, and physicality of the performance itself. The text is my own impression of some of the original sources. This piece formed part of the epic “Wind on Sea” which was to appear on our next album Invocation (1994)

Ailiu iath nÉrenn (I am the land of Ireland)
From the breeze on the mountain to the lake of deep blue
From the waterfall down to the sea
Never changing or ending on the voice of the wind
Sing the dark song of Éireann to me
From the breeze through the heather to the lake of deep pools.
From the waterfall down to the sea
Never changing or ending on the voice of the wind
Sing the dark song of Éireann to me

The Raid

Solo voices, Michael McGlynn, David Clarke
Guitar Padraic Carroll
Percussion Lloyd Byrne

This text comes from Duanaire Finn (The Book of the Lays of Fionn), a manuscript anthology compiled in the early seventeenth century, but the poem itself is older. On linguistic and stylistic grounds it belongs to the late medieval period, probably the fourteenth or fifteenth century, and almost certainly reshapes much earlier material for a later audience. That process of re-casting something archaic into a contemporary voice is exactly what I find so compelling about it.

The poem is a collective declaration spoken by the Fíanna. Blunt, physical, and practical: spears are sharpened, ships are launched, and a hostile expedition is announced against Lochlann, the Norse world. There is nothing misty or symbolic about it. These are not distant mythic figures but warriors preparing for a real campaign.

I found this text incredibly inspiring because many of these so-called mythological poems are, in fact, impressions of something ancient re-worked to make sense in their own time. This one feels especially immediate. The music was assembled from fragments of earlier music I had written, primarily my first choral piece “Triar Laoch” (Three Heroes) which won the Seán O’Riada Trophy at the Cork Choral Festival sung by my then ensemble, UCD Chamber Choir in 1985, and “Dirgidh Bhar Sleagha Sealga” (Sharpen your hunting spears) which won the same competition in 1990 performed by An Uaithne.

Dirgidh bhar sleagha sealga
lé a ngoinmheois fearba fíre;
mar do bhámar re gaiseadh,
ní dhéanaimis aistear aoíne.

Seólfaidh bhar mbolca corra
go borbhaibh loma Lochlann,
lé bhar gcraoísreachaibh go ndaingean,
ro gonsam Ráighni roscmall.

Sharpen your hunting spears
with which true men strike;
as we were used to hardship,
we will not delay our journey.

Your curved ships will sail
to the fierce, bare lands of Lochlann,
with your branching weapons held fast,
until we strike down Ráighni Roscmall.

Sanctus / Pater Noster

Music Michael McGlynn
From The O’Malley Mass (1988-1991)

These two settings come from the largest full-scale work I undertook as a composer, a multi-movement Mass originally commissioned for the O’Malley clan. It was first known as the O’Malley Mass and later retitled the Celtic Mass. At this distance, it is difficult for me to hear the work as a single unified whole, largely because I am so aware of the different stylistic influences moving through each movement. Of all of them, these two remain particular favourites. The Sanctus has continued to live its own life and is still performed frequently in concert by Anúna.

The Sanctus is built around the idea of a solitary voice sounding in an immense space. Sustained soprano notes hover above a central tenor solo, creating a deliberately stark image. For me, this was an overt depiction of a remote and sterile firmament. This is not a Sanctus written for human warmth or consolation, but for something celestial, cold, and distant. At the time I was deeply influenced by the music of Hildegard of Bingen and that influence is clear in the long, arching vocal lines and the sense of suspended time.

The Pater Noster comes from a completely different place. It is strongly inflected with Byzantine colour and was shaped as a homage to the extraordinary arrangements and vocal techniques found in Bulgarian folk singing, which obsessed me at the time. Where the Sanctus looks upward into an unreachable space, the Pater Noster is grounded in the physicality and intensity of communal vocal tradition, filtered through my own language.

Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus
Dominus Deus sabbaoth
Pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria tua,
Hosanna in excelsis.
Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini.
Hosanna in excelsis.

Holy, holy, holy
Lord, God of power and might;
Heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.

Pater noster qui es in caelis sanctur nomen tuum
Ad veniat regnum tuum fiat voluntas tua
Sicut in caelo et in terra.
Panem nostram quotidianem da nobis hodie
Et dimmite nobis sicut et nos dimmitimus debitoribus nostris
Et nenos in ducat in tentationem
Sed libera nos amalo. Amen.

Our Father, who are in heaven, hallowed be your name.
May your kingdom come, may your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.
And do not lead us into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. Amen.

Crist and St. MariE

Arranged Michael McGlynn
Soloist Máiréad Ní Fhaoláin

This text and melody are attributed to Godric of Finchale (c. 1065 - 21 May 1170), an English hermit whose surviving songs are among the earliest known songs in the English language to be preserved with musical notation. Four songs are attributed to Godric, transmitted through the writings of Reginald of Durham. While the songs are attributed to Godric and survive with their melodies, the precise circumstances of their composition are recorded through hagiographical sources rather than through authorial claims in the modern sense. I first encountered these songs through an obsessive interest in early music during my college years. This setting is deliberately simple, using drones to frame the material.

Kyrie eleison.
Christe eleison.
Crist and Sainte Marie swa on scamel me iledde
That ich on this erthe ne silde
With mine bare footen itredde.

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Christ and Saint Mary so led me on a stool,
That I should not tread upon this earth
With my bare feet.

Faigh An GleAs

Arranged Michael McGlynn
Irish Harp Máireád Ní Fhaoláin

When I first heard this beautiful air, what struck me immediately was how strange its harmonic language feels to the contemporary ear. Denis Hempson (Donnchadh Ó hAmsaigh, c.1695 - 1807) himself remarked on the difficulty of playing these old harp tunes, noting that so much of their original practice and context had already been lost in his own lifetime. What survives is therefore not a complete system, but a rare sonic trace of an earlier time.

The title Faigh an Gleas is usually understood to mean “find the tuning” or “find the setting”. In older harp usage, gleas can refer not only to a key or tuning, but to the correct adjustment, disposition, or readiness of the instrument itself. The phrase may originally have referred to the act of bringing the harp into the proper state before performance, suggesting a music that belongs as much to preparation and attunement as to formal display.

Suantraí

Traditional, arr. Fiontán O'Cearbhaill
Soloist Monica Donlon

I chose to include this beautiful setting by Fiontán Ó Cearbhaill (1922 - 1981), and the Irish text by Seán Óg Ó Tuama (1926 - 1995), because of its simplicity and directness. The text derives from the Scottish Gaelic Christmas poem “Tàladh Chrìosda” of which the opening verse is used here. Very often, traditional melodies that are arranged distort the original context of a work. More rarely they are transformed into something that goes far beyond the original intent. The soloist, Monica Donlon, exceeds any other performance of this work that I have heard. The title is shortened here; the original title is “Suantraí ár Slánaitheora”, meaning “The Lullaby of Our Saviour”. Below you will find the original Scottish text and its English translation.

Aleluiah, Aleluiah, Aleluiah, Aleluiah.
Mo ghaol, mo ghràdh, a’s m’ fheudail thu,
M’ ionntas ùr a’s m’ èibhneas thu,
Mo mhacan àlainn ceutach thu,
Chan fhiù mi féin bhith ’d dhàil.
Aleluiah.

Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.
My love, my beloved, and my treasure are you,
My new wonder and my joy are you,
My beautiful, dear little son are you,
I am not worthy myself to delay you.
Alleluia.

Bean Pháidín / An Poc ar Buile

An Poc ar Buile is best known today through the version brought to wide attention by Seán Ó Sé, with its musical realisation shaped by Seán Ó Riada and Ceoltóirí Chualann in the early 1960s. The song itself is closely associated with Dónall Ó Mulláin of Cúil Aodha, from whom Ó Sé learned it, and whose singing lies behind the version that entered the public ear.

What is striking about the song is how convincingly it inhabits an older world. Although it belongs to the twentieth century in the form we know it, it is built fluently out of much earlier material. The mock-heroic pursuit, the escalating chaos, the piling up of place-names, and the image of an animal wreaking havoc across a recognisable landscape all belong to a long tradition of Irish comic narrative song. These are well-established tropes, handled here with such ease that the song feels far older than it is. That sense of age does not come from antiquity, but from a deep understanding of inherited forms and how they work in performance, something that allowed the song to pass seamlessly into the tradition once it was taken up by Ó Riada and Ó Sé.

Bean Pháidín was one of those songs I learned as a child in Ring College in Dungarvan, and it puzzled us at the time. Unlike An Poc ar Buile, which can live happily in both the children’s world and the adult world, this one is blunt. The jealousy is absolute, black and white, and as an adult you realise it is not a fairy story at all. It is about a real woman, alive in her own mind, consumed by envy of the wife she is not. What I latched onto in arranging it was the sense of gossip, women talking together, the chorus almost like a circle of voices repeating the same thought until it becomes cruel. I also wanted to do something that was not like the traditional arrangements I had heard. There is a strange descant that makes no attempt to support the melody and instead makes it more chaotic. I have always loved unison singing, and I keep coming back to it, but I make no apology for not trying to preserve an idiom I did not grow up inside.

These songs were not part of my background. I only experienced them for one year of my youth which was spent in the Ring Gaeltacht. I arranged them as I remembered them as a child with no effort to make them authentic to the tradition.

’S é an trua ghéar nach mise, nach mise,
’S é an trua ghéar nach mise bean Pháidín;
’S é an trua ghéar nach mise, nach mise,
’S an bhean atá aige bheith caillte.

Rachainn go Gaillimh, go Gaillimh,
Is rachainn go Gaillimh le Pháidín;
Rachainn go Gaillimh, go Gaillimh,
Is thiocfainn abhaile sa mbád leis.

Rachainn go haonach an Chlocháin,
Is siar go Béal Átha na Báighe;
Bhreathnóinn isteach tríd an bhfuinneog,
Ag súil go bhfeicfinn bean Pháidín.

Go mbristear do chosa, do chosa,
Go mbristear do chosa, a bhean Pháidín;
Go mbristear do chosa, do chosa,
Go mbristear do chosa is do chnámha.

It is the sharp sorrow that I am not, that I am not,
It is the sharp sorrow that I am not Pháidín’s woman;
It is the sharp sorrow that I am not, that I am not,
And that the woman he has were lost.

I would go to Galway, to Galway,
I would go to Galway with Pháidín;
I would go to Galway, to Galway,
And I would come home in the boat with him.

I would go to the fair of An Clochán,
And west to Béal Átha na Báighe;
I would look in through the window,
Hoping that I might see Pháidín’s woman.

May your legs be broken, your legs,
May your legs be broken, Pháidín’s woman;
May your legs be broken, your legs,
May your legs and your bones be broken.

Ag gabháil dom siar chun Droichead Uí Mhórdha,
Píce i mo dhóid is mé ag dul i meithil,
Cé chasfaí orm i gcumar ceo,
Ach pocán crón is é ar buile.

Curfá
Aililiú, puililiú, aililiú, tá an poc ar buile,
Aililiú, puililiú, aililiú, tá an poc ar buile!

Do ritheamar trasna trí ruilleogach,
Is do ghluais an comhrac ar fud na muinge,
Is treascairt dá bhfuair sé sna turtóga,
Is chuas ina ainneoin ar a dhroim le fuinneamh.

Curfá
Aililiú, puililiú, aililiú, tá an poc ar buile,
Aililiú, puililiú, aililiú, tá an poc ar buile!

Níor fhág sé carraig gan scoth ann,
Ná gur rith le fársa chun mé a mhilleadh,
Ansan do chaith sé an léim ba mhó
Le fána mór na Faille Brice.

Bhí gárda mór i mBaile an Róistigh,
Is bhailigh fórsaí chun sinn a chlibeadh,
Do bhuail sé rop dá adhairc sa tóin ann,
Is dá bhríste nua do dhein sé giobláil.

I nDaingean Uí Chúis tráthnóna,
Bhí an sagart paróiste amach inár gcoinne,
Is é dúirt gurbh é an diabhal, dar leis,
A ghaibh an treo ar phocán buile.

As I was going west towards Droichead Uí Mhórdha,
A pike in my fist and I going to the threshing,
Whom would I meet at a misty crossing,
But a brown little he-goat, and he raging mad.

Chorus
Aililiú, puililiú, aililiú, the goat is raging mad,
Aililiú, puililiú, aililiú, the goat is raging mad!

We ran across through the scrubby undergrowth,
And the fight spread across the bog,
And every blow he landed among the clumps,
I went against him onto his back with force.

Chorus

He left no rock without a crack in it,
Nor did he fail to charge at me to do me harm,
Then he made the greatest leap of all
Down the great slope of the Brice cliff.

There was a great guard in Baile an Róistigh,
And forces gathered to beat us back,
He struck a jab of his horns into a backside there,
And he tore the seat out of a new pair of trousers.

In Daingean Uí Chúis in the evening,
The parish priest came out against us,
And he said that it was the devil, in his view,
Who had taken possession of the raging little goat.

Cormacus Scripsit

Arranged Michael McGlynn
Soloist Sara Clancy

The starting point for this piece is a very short and remarkable fragment preserved in British Library Additional MS 36929, dating from the late twelfth or early thirteenth century. “Cormacus scripsit” literally “Cormac wrote this” is set in three independent musical parts. That alone makes it highly unusual, particularly in an Irish or insular context where so little notated polyphony survives from this period.

Chronologically, it sits alongside the emergence of the Notre Dame school in Paris, with composers such as Léonin and Pérotin developing large-scale liturgical polyphony. Stylistically it has very little to do with that world. It is not organum, it does not use rhythmic modes, and it is not concerned with expanding chant. Nor does it sit comfortably beside contemporary English polyphony, which, even in its simplest forms, remains clearly devotional. Instead, this feels almost private and marginal. What is being asserted here is not theology or liturgy but authorship itself.

Medieval music is frequently anonymous. Cormac’s presence becomes the subject. In an Irish context, this is almost without parallel. It does not lead to anything we can trace forward, and it does not obviously derive from anything we know behind it. It simply survives, oddly and tantalisingly, on its own terms.

What inspired me was the glimpse this gives into what may have been lost. If music of this kind could be written almost casually into the margin of a manuscript, we can only imagine the level of musical experimentation that must once have existed and has since vanished. That sense of loss, and of possibility, was central to my response.

In making this setting, I was drawn to the way early English lyric writers often framed their texts, using elements of the natural world to surround and propel the core idea. Here the original melody and text remain at the centre. Around them I have built a surrounding structure from fragments derived from the original musical material itself, allowing that extraordinary, anomalous polyphony to remain the focus, while giving it space to speak to us today.

Cormacus Scripsit hoc psalterium ora pro eo qui legis hec ora procese qualibet hora

Cormac wrote this psalter; pray for him. You who read this, pray continually, at every hour.

Silent, O Moyle

Arranged Michael McGlynn
Solo voice Sara Clancy
Irish Harp Máiréad Ní Fhaoláin

Silent, O Moyle is a poem by Thomas Moore (1779 - 1852), first published in Irish Melodies in 1808. Moore wrote the text to the Irish air known as “The Song of O’Ruairc, Prince of Breffni”, a traditional melody drawn from the collections of Edward Bunting (1773-1843).

Silent, O Moyle, be the roar of thy water,
Break not, ye breezes, your chain of repose,
While murmuring mournfully Lir's lonely daughter
Tells to the night-star her tale of woes?

When shall the swan, her death note singing,
Sleep, with wings in darkness furled?
When will heaven, its sweet bell ringing,
Call my spirit from this stormy world?

Sadly, O Moyle, to thy winter-wave weeping,
Fate bids me languish long ages away;
Yet still in her darkness doth Erin lie sleeping,
Still doth the pure light its dawning delay.

When will the day star, mildly springing,
Warm our isle with peace and love?
When will heaven, its sweet bell ringing,
Call my spirit to the fields above?

Jerusalem

Traditional, arranged Michael McGlynn

Jerusalem is one of the Kilmore Carols, a group of traditional English-language carols associated with the Catholic community of Kilmore, County Wexford. The text Jerusalem, my happy home was first published anonymously in England in 1601 and circulated widely thereafter. It is traditionally associated with an English Catholic cleric, though no secure authorship can be established, and the attribution remains part of local and later tradition rather than documented historical fact. The text later entered the Kilmore repertory through manuscript and oral transmission, alongside material drawn from printed devotional collections such as Bishop Luke Wadding’s A Smale Garland of Pious and Godly Songs (Ghent, 1684), and was further shaped locally in the eighteenth century, particularly through the work of Father William Devereux. The melody, like many in the Kilmore cycle, appears to have been adapted from earlier English devotional song and preserved through communal singing rather than fixed notation.

The arrangement here takes its inspiration not from the Kilmore performance practice itself, which is predominantly unison with individual ornamentation, but from the tradition of Gaelic psalm singing in the Western Isles of Scotland. This style is still practised today in churches associated with the Free Church of Scotland, where a precentor intones the psalm and the congregation responds collectively, each singer shaping the melody slightly differently. The result is a dense, slow-moving heterophony, devotional in intent and often almost ecstatic in effect. It was this communal, emotionally charged form of singing that informed my approach to the refrain, using heterophony not as an academic device but as a way of evoking a shared, immersive act of devotion.

Jerusalem our happy home
When shall we come to thee.
When shall our sorrow have an end?
Thy joy, when shall we see?

There’s cinnamon that scenteth sweet;
There palms spring on the ground.
No tongue can tell, no heart can think,
What joy do there abound.

For evermore the trees bear fruit,
And evermore they spring
And evermore the saints are glad,
And evermore they sing.

There Magdalen she has less moan
Likewise there she doth sing;
The happy saints in harmony
Through every street doth ring.

Fair Magdalen hath dried her tears;
She’s seen no more to weep,
Nor wet the ringlets of her hair,
To wipe our Saviour’s feet.

Fionnghuala

A fine example of Scottish mouth music, in an energetic arrangement by the Bothy Band.

Thuirt an gobha fuirighidh mi
'S thuirt an gobha falbhaidh mi
'S thuirt an gobha leis an othail
A bh' air an dòrus an t-sàbhail
Gu rachadh e a shuirghe
'S a gheala nam botham nam botham
Pe ho ro bha hin an doicheam
'S hala ham to han an doicheam
Am bothan a bh' aig Fionnghuala
Bheirinn fead air fulmairean
Bheirinn fead air falmairean
Liuthannan beaga na mara
Bheireamaid greis air an tarrainn
Na maireadh na duirgh dhuinn
Cha d'thuirt an dadan a' seo
Cha d'thuirt an dadan a' seo
Cha d'thuirt an dadan a' seo
Bheireamaid greis air an tarrainn
Na maireadh na duirgh dhuinn

The smith said he would stay,
the smith said he would go,
the smith said to the great crowd
that was at the door of the barn
that he would go courting
to the fair one of the bothy, the bothy.
Pe ho ro bha hin an doicheam
’s hala ham to han an doicheam
The bothy that belonged to Fionnghuala.
I would whistle to the fulmars,
I would whistle to the kittiwakes,
the little waves of the sea.
We would take a while at the drawing,
if only the hardship would last for us.
The little fellow here said nothing,
the little fellow here said nothing,
the little fellow here said nothing.
We would take a while at the drawing,
if only the hardship would last for us.

Crist and St. Marie

Arranged Michael McGlynn
Soloist Máiréad Ní Fhaoláin

This text and melody are attributed to Godric of Finchale (c. 1065 - 21 May 1170), an English hermit whose surviving songs are among the earliest known songs in the English language to be preserved with musical notation. Four songs are attributed to Godric, transmitted through the writings of Reginald of Durham. While the songs are attributed to Godric and survive with their melodies, the precise circumstances of their composition are recorded through hagiographical sources rather than through authorial claims in the modern sense. I first encountered these songs through an obsessive interest in early music during my college years. This setting is deliberately simple, using drones to frame the material.

Kyrie eleison.
Christe eleison.
Crist and Sainte Marie swa on scamel me iledde
That ich on this erthe ne silde
With mine bare footen itredde.

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Christ and Saint Mary so led me on a stool,
That I should not tread upon this earth
With my bare feet.

The Blue Bird

Soloist Katie McMahon

“The Blue Bird” was composed in 1910 by Charles Villiers Stanford (1852 - 1924), setting a poem by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge (1861 - 1907). This was one of the first choral works I performed as a singer with UCD Chamber Choir in 1982, and it made a deep impression on me thanks to the approach taken by the conductor Gráinne Gormley, with soloist Frances Lucey.

Since then have found subsequent interpretations of this piece by choral groups ponderous and slow. At the tempo at which most choirs perform it the text becomes completely unintelligible. The poem itself, in this instance, is easily as important as the setting. I don’t believe that stasis needs to be portrayed without energy. While this performance may be rough and ready, the inherent energy of the singers and their intensity in relation to the delivery of the text represent, in my view, a refreshing reappraisal of a song, bringing it into the contemporary sphere rather than leaving it in an Edwardian drawing-room.

The lake lay Blue, below the hill.
As I looked, there flew across the water
cold and still, a bird,
Whose wings were palest blue.

The sky above was blue at last.
The sky beneath me blue in blue;
A moment, ere the bird had passed.
The lake lay blue below the hill.

Sí Do Mhaimeo Í

Traditional Arranged Michael McGlynn
Percussion Lloyd Byrne

This song comes from the Connemara Gaeltacht, and I first heard it as a child in Coláiste na Rinne (Ring College) in Dungarvan, Co. Waterford. One of the striking things about Irish-language songs sung by children is how often they carry complex subtexts beneath an apparently playful surface. They frequently sit at odds with later ideas about the social conservatism of Irish life.

This song tells the story of a woman with money and a young man without it, fully aware of the imbalance between them and the implications of such a relationship. I choose to hear it as a very contemporary tale, with the frenetic title phrase functioning like the whispering of the townsfolk, a kind of joyous gossip that circles the characters. An interesting detail from the original recording session is that I arranged this piece the day before it was recorded, which probably explains its slightly wild, energetic quality, allowing the singers’ unguarded, non-idiomatic performances to shine through.

’S í do Mhaimeo í, ’s í do Mhaimeo í, ’s í do Mhaimeo í, cailleach an airgid;
’S í do Mhaimeo í, ó Bhaile Iorrais Mhóir í,
’S chuirfeadh sí cóistí ar bhóithre Chois Fharraige.

’Bhfeicfeá an “steam” ag dul siar go Tóin Uí Loing,
’S na rothaí ag dul timpeall siar óna ceathrúna;
Chaithfeadh sí an stiúir naoi n-uaire ar a cúl,
’S ní choinneodh sí siúl le cailleach an airgid.

An measann tú go bpósfá, an measann tú go bpósfá,
An measann tú go bpósfá cailleach an airgid?
Tá a fhios agam nach bpósfainn, tá a fhios agam nach bpósfainn,
Mar tá sé ró-óg agus dhólfadh sé an t-airgead.

’S gairid go bpósfaí, ’s gairid go bpósfaí,
’S gairid go bpósfaí beirt ar an mbaile seo;
’S gairid go bpósfaí, ’s gairid go bpósfaí,
Seán Shéamais Mhóir agus Máire Ní Chathasaigh.

She is your granny, she is your granny, she is your granny, the old woman of the money;
She is your granny, she is from Baile Iorrais Mhóir,
And she would put coaches on the roads of Cois Fharraige.

You would see the steam going west to Tóin Uí Loing,
And the wheels turning back from their quarters;
She would throw the steering nine times behind her,
And she would not keep pace with the old woman of the money.

Do you think you would marry, do you think you would marry,
Do you think you would marry the old woman of the money?
I know I would not marry, I know I would not marry,
For he is too young and he would squander the money.

It will not be long until they are married, it will not be long until they are married,
It will not be long until two in this place are married;
It will not be long until they are married, it will not be long until they are married,
Seán Shéamais Mhóir and Máire Ní Chathasaigh.