Hiya people! 🙂
For today, I’d like to share with you a song from the famous Irish all-female group Celtic Woman, whose music I’ve enjoyed for years and have shared a few of their songs on here already. This one comes from their album Ancient Land. Mná na hÉireann is actually a 18th-century poem, written by Ulster poet Peadar Ó Doirnín, but it was later set to an air composed by Seán Ó Riada another of whose compositions, Mo Ghile Mear,, sung by a former Celtic Woman member, I’ve featured on here before. Women of Ireland has been performed by all kinds of musical artists, not even just Irish ones. I believe the first one I heard was by Mike Oldfield when I was a kid, others include Sinéad O’connor, Kate Bush or Jeff Beck. A lot of such old Irish poems personify Ireland, whether as a mother or a goddess, or, as is the case here, as a beautiful woman who is mistreated by the English and the Irishmen need to defend her, though are not always successful at it. Here, the lyrical subject is also mutually in love with the woman in question. As you may know, I myself don’t speak Irish (yet), so couldn’t write a translation, but there is an article about it on Wikipedia which contains several different translation of this song. At the time of releasing Ancient Land, Celtic Woman consisted of Eabha McMahon, Mairead Carlin, Megan Walsh and Tara McNeill, the latter also playing the violin and harp.
My Inner MishMash 