Lyr Add: Grainne Mhaol

Subject: Lyr Add: GRAINNE MHAOL
From: Big Mick Lane
Date: 15 Dec 98 - 07:23 AM

Gearoid,

The Irish Brigade request got me listening to that Wolfetones tape again. Here is a great lyric to another of the songs from it. It is political, but what a way with a lyric this guy has.

One night as abreast with soft slumbers I lay
and dreamed of old Ireland, oft thought of by day
with the long wasting war between Saxon and Gael
Up rose the bright vision of Grainne Mhaol.
Old Erin's green mantle around her was flung
and on her fair shoulders the rich tresses hung
Her eyes like the sun of the young morning shone
Whilst the harps set forth strains of The Days Now Done.

Of Erins fair daughters the circle was seen
Each one with her distaff surrounding the Queen
Whose sweet vocal prowess was heard to prolong
The soul stirring anthems of Harp and Song
To Erin, what shame and what lasting disgrace,
that her sons should be crushed by a vile foreign race
who has banished her priests and polluted her fains,
and turned to a desert, her fertile plains.

Subject: RE: LYR ADD: Grainne Mhaol
From: Bruce O.
Date: 15 Dec 98 - 04:04 PM

See file ADFINNA (in Gaelic) in DT, and 'Old Grannu Weal' (c 1775) in the Scarce Songs file on my website for others on Grace O'Malley/ Granuaile. What is the tune for the one above? There is an old thread relative to Gra/inne Mhaol also.