I never heard ‘The Wind That Shakes The Barley’ before, thanks for sharing it.

The Wind That Shakes The Barley:

I sat within the valley green, I sat me with my true love
My sad heart strove the two between, the old love and the new love
The old for her, the new that made me think on Ireland dearly
While soft the wind blew down the glen and shook the golden barley

‘Twas hard the woeful words to frame to break the ties that bound us
But harder still to bear the shame of foreign chains around us
And so I said, “The mountain glen I’ll seek at morning early
And join the bold united men, while soft winds shake the barley”

While sad I kissed away her tears, my fond arms round her flinging
The foeman’s shot burst on our ears from out the wildwood ringing
A bullet pierced my true love’s side in life’s young spring so early
And on my breast in blood she died while soft winds shook the barley

But blood for blood without remorse I’ve taken at Oulart Hollow
And laid my true love’s clay cold corpse where I full soon may follow
As round her grave I wander drear, noon, night and morning early
With breaking heart when e’er I hear the wind that shakes the barley

WWW - While searching for some information about Danny Boy I found this Are there Gaelic words to Danny Boy?

Darlene - The Eily is most lightly a shortened version of the name Eileen, very common in Ireland - we had two in out house!

Nancy - My post was very long and I needed to leave you something to write about!

You have outdone even yourself (And that is not easy)
with your wonderful essay on Ireland,The UK and National Anthems.

I enjoyed reading it very much and learned quite a bit about your Country as I read.

You mentioned “God Save The King/Queen” being the National Anthem of Great Britian and Ireland. I admire your restraint in not mentioning that the tune was stolen from your country and new lyrics were added to make your Anthem OUR Anthem here in America.

The following is from Wikipedia:

“My Country, ‘Tis of Thee”, also known as “America”, is an American patriotic song, whose lyrics were written by Samuel Francis Smith. The melody is that of the British national anthem, “God Save the King or Queen”, although Smith encountered it by way of a German adaptation. The song served as a de facto national anthem of the United States before the adoption of “The Star-Spangled Banner” as the official anthem.

“My country, ’tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing;
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrims’ pride,
From every mountainside
Let freedom ring!

There are able five more verses but I will spare you having to read them.

So I guess we’re all correct and all incorrect, depending on who interpreted it. It was sometimes interpreted as a dying father to his son because of the line “the pipes, the pipes are calling.

In the final analysis I guess we can each interpret it as what feels best to us.

Our national anthem of “O Canada” was only sang during special assembly, but the Queen was acknowledged daily.

Your mention of apologies reminds of some time back there was talk of the Japanese apologising for what they did during the war. There was one friend of Jack’s who asked every time they met “Did you get your bowl of rice yet”!

Thanks for the links they will keep me out of mischief for awhile.

It would seem that the profusion of anthems across the Irish Sea tells us a lot about that island’s history.

I’m not a Tony Blair who seems to think that saying sorry so late in History can make things right but i do acknowledge my country’s parts in Irish History and we should never forget it.

I watched the clip on You Tube and was not at all surprised at some of the responses posted. I would love to know what the deleted ones said.

If one can move from Anthems to Flags: I was brought up by a man who believed in “My country right or wrong.”… Not really a scoundrel my father, just proud to be English. The cross of St. George being hijacked by the National Front would have sickened him but he never complained about the Ulster Unionists use of it. However that is one thing that makes me very uneasy.

It was Weatherley’s sister in law who sent him a copy of Londonderry Air from America. This reminds me of the work of Francis O’Neill, Chicago Chief of Police in the late 1890’s. He built up and edited a collection of Irish Folk Music from among the Irish immigrants.
Published as O’Neill’s Music of Ireland.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIEy7s_GAcM&NR=1

And then there’s O’Carolan…..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARBEBF94Yyg

http://www.celticguitarmusic.com/carolan.htm

See where you take us marianne?

Marianna - Not an easy subject for me by any manner or means. The interesting thing about the 21 comments so far is that Gaelikaa & WWW are the only ones to have been born on this Island of Ireland. Gaelikaa has lived in India for 15 years and WWW is in Newfoundland.

BHB - Ireland is a beautiful country and could be wonderful if people forgot about the past and the politics, and worked together for tomorrow.
PS I dig people!

Gaelikaa - soon!

WWW - I never heard of Danny Boy “as Gaeilge”, maybe Paddy Bloggit, Conn or Primal might know. I also thought it was about a mother and her son. Can we both be wrong?