Writer(s) Peadar Ó Doirnín | Language English/Irish | |
Genre Folk song (Irish rebel music), Aisling Composer(s) Seán Ó Riada
(most popular tune setting) | ||
"Mná na hÉireann" (English: Women of Ireland), is a poem written by Ulster poet Peadar Ó Doirnín (1704–1796), most famous as a song, and especially set to an air composed by Seán Ó Riada (1931–1971). As a modern song, Mná na hÉireann is usually placed in the category of Irish rebel music; as an eighteenth-century poem it belongs to the genre (related to the aisling) which imagines Ireland as a generous, beautiful woman suffering the depredations of an English master on her land, her cattle, or her self, and which demands Irishmen to defend her, or ponders why they fail to. The poem also seems to favor Ulster above the other Irish provinces. Ó Doirnín was part of the distinctive Airgíalla tradition of poetry, associated with southern Ulster and north Leinster; in this poem he focuses on Ulster place-names, and he sees the province as being particularly assaulted (for instance, he says that being poor with his woman would be better than being rich with herds of cows and the shrill queen who assailed Tyrone, in Ulster, i.e. Medb who attacked Cooley, as the borderlands of Ulster, which would have lain in ancient Airgíalla). This may be because, besides being the poet's home, until the success of the Plantation of Ulster the province had been the most militantly Gaelic of the Irish provinces in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Contents
Poem
Here is the Irish text of the poem. The verses most often performed by modern singers are the first two and the last.
Mná na hÉireann
Women of Ireland (Kate Bush version)
This is the translation performed by Kate Bush on the album Common Ground - Voices of Modern Irish Music. No translator is given, but the song is credited as arranged by Bush with Dónal Lunny and Fiachra Trench.
Women of Ireland (Michael Davitt version)
This translation (of the same three verses) is by Michael Davitt. Davitt plays with the second couplet of each verse, reversing the meaning and turning the poem into the song of a womanizing drunkard, who favors no particular woman (second verse), resorts to drink instead of avoiding it (third verse—though this may be ironic in the original), and whom his lover wants dead (first verse).
Recordings
The poem in song form was first recorded by Ceoltóirí Chualann, with lead vocal by Seán O Sé (on the 1969 live album Ó Riada Sa Gaiety). Subsequent recordings include:
Live performances
The song is also a frequently played song at concerts. One example of a notable act performing "Women of Ireland" is guitarist Jeff Beck, who at times performs it with Irish violinist Sharon Corr. It also appears on her first solo album, Dream of You.
Use in film and television
"Women of Ireland" has been used in various film and television productions.