Ireland and Amhrán na bhFiann

Today, we dive into the rich tapestry of Irish culture, exploring "The Soldier's Song," which serves as the national anthem of the Republic of Ireland. This episode intricately weaves together the historical and cultural significance of this anthem, shedding light on the journey from its humble origins to its current status as a symbol of national pride. As we traverse the landscape of Ireland's complex history, we'll uncover the fascinating stories of the song's creators, Patrick Heaney and Peter Kearney, who channeled their revolutionary spirit into music that transcended time and politics. We also explore the nuances of language and identity, discussing how the anthem was originally penned in English but later embraced in Irish, reflecting the ongoing evolution of cultural heritage. So, grab a cup of tea (or perhaps a pint of Guinness), and join us as we march through the notes and narratives of a song that resonates deeply in the hearts of the Irish people.

Speaker A: 00:00:15

Hello and welcome to the Anthems Podcast.

I'm Patrick and I'm here to tell you the story of a song that helps to tell the story of a nation Today we are making a jump that is similar enough in distance to others in the group that they constitute 23% of the jumps we've taken so far. That's fun enough, but also at 6,851 miles, or 11,026 kilometers, the International Space Station covers that distance in roughly 23 minutes.

And in a further coincidence, that is the same amount of time as an American sitcom with no commercials. That of course prompted me to look for and find no sitcoms from today's country that I've heard of.

if comedy about priests from: 1995

If you've beaten me to seeing the thing, then you already knew that Today I'm going to be talking about Ireland, officially the Republic of Ireland.

d sixth best on the planet in: 2024

My great grandmother was a citizen and my namesakes are from the island, so this was an excellent chance to take a glance at somewhere I share in the genetic consequences of Given that I'm a podcaster, I'd certainly like to share in the supposed gift of gab that kissing the Blarney stone is supposed to grant you. There is no definitive story about this specific stone for me to share with you, so research that on your own.

But there are many specific, historically significant and unremarkable looking stones in English, Scottish and Irish history. Maybe it's the seeming permanence of the things on our non geological time scales, but I've got no idea.

Regardless, the stone of Significance at Blarney Castle is 85ft in the air and you need to lean backwards out over that air to kiss it. Which is a good reason to tell you about O Ron Navian or in English, the Soldier's Song.

My memories of Irish food are centered around cooking and eating corned beef and cabbage. The thing is that this is really an American dish though, because Irish immigrants could not afford bacon and Corned beef is actually a Jewish food.

A traditional St Patrick's dinner in Ireland is really bacon and cabbage. But like pretty much all the things I run into in this life, cuisine is deliciously complicated stuff.

Just like the way people feel about anthems, including the one that you're about to hear. My initial reaction is that it sure sounds Irish, and I immediately felt foolish for thinking that, because of course it does.

But after more thought, I decided that it's not really a silly thing to think regarding national anthems, among other examples, Chile's anthem is literally an Italian style opera, not a Chilean song. I can definitely hear a bit of March in this one, though it's also in Irish and that made me happy.

Because in Ireland, despite the name of the country, that is not the dominant language. 39% of the population says that they know Irish, but only 5% use it on a daily basis. And most people just speak English.

It's something that speaks to the depth of the English imperial footprint and something that I might mull over a pint of Guinness, perhaps Ireland's most famous export.

They say that in order to really know the taste, you must drink it in Dublin, or at least on the island, which is a statement that rings true if you're even a little bit of a beer aficionado, because fresher beer is in fact better tasting beer. There are satellite breweries in 40 countries, but as far as I know there are only two of them in the United States.

So most of what I have access to generally comes all the way from Dublin and has been packaged for a while. So where do I have to go if I want to get it fresh? If you remember where we've been on the show, at least a little bit.

since we can just head north: 1400

So once again I'm going to fall back on Italy because it is easy enough to find that country. It looks like a high heeled boot in the Mediterranean Sea. And then we go northeast over Switzerland and France.

The smaller of the two large islands off the coast of Europe is Ireland, making it the second largest of the British Isles, but 20th largest overall on the planet. However, the 5.38 million people in the Republic do not get the whole place to themselves.

The only land border is with Northern Ireland, and we're just going to put two pins in there because they are part of the United Kingdom. The Republic is not. And it's complicated. Ish.

Anyway, for the rest of the episode I'll be referring to the Republic as either the Republic or Ireland, and Northern Ireland as that. This island has a warmer than normal climate and a cooler than usual summer due to the Atlantic.

It also rains a lot here, which coupled with the climate gives a high growth rate to trees, which is good because the country is pretty well deforested.

In fact, only 10% of the land has native forest on it and 64% of the land is used for agriculture, making biodiversity one of the nation's chief concerns. Which obviously leads us to birds and the 30,000 pairs of them that nest in the cliffs of Moore.

Our geology diversion for today is home to some 20 different species of them, even though the reason that the habitat is so variable is erosion, and that's eventually going to steal a living laboratory from scientists.

These cliffs represent about 20 million years of sedimentary deposit at the end of a deep water river delta, and they got started about 313 million years ago.

The place is a treasure trove of trace fossils and as a bonus to the geology and paleontology that we all learn, it's also stunningly beautiful and is in fact the largest tourist attraction in the Republic. Before we walk off these cliffs into the timeline, we're going to pull a pin regarding Northern Ireland and their national anthem.

The short story is that there really is not one there. I mean, other than God Save the King.

That is because the north stayed with the Empire, whereas places like Scotland and Bermuda have developed an unofficial anthem alongside their distinct cultural identities. That just didn't happen here.

I don't really know why yet anyway, and I'm not going to dig into it too much here, but eventually I will almost certainly address things of this sort on my show. We will get a glimmer of understanding if I get to pull the other pin though.

For now we'll say that officially God Save the King is the anthem in Northern Ireland. But there are three types of occasion where you will hear something different.

The first is the Commonwealth Games where they used London Bit dairy air, which I recognized as the tune to Danny Boy and usually uses those words. Second is when the Irish Rugby union or league team or the Ireland cricket team or the men's or women's Ireland field hockey teams play.

Because these teams represent the entire island of Ireland, they use Aran Navian. The third is that some sports organizations operating in Northern Ireland and the Republic use Oran Navian as well, but I don't know why.

So not all of the places are going to have episodes, but the Republic of Ireland does.

Ireland really starts with Gaelic culture, and that starts not quite as far back as a place like Burundi, but still pretty far back with evidence showing that people were properly Gaelic as early as 10,000 BCE, which is way earlier than I thought.

And for a long time the culture existed as a collection of tribal kingdoms with loosely shared values, cultural traditions and a mostly oral history rooted in paganism, clothing, music and sports that they all shared. As usual, though that is for other shows.

itain and Ireland in the year: 1800

And actually it's the same for the consequences as well, except that it meant that England got the Union Jack as its flag.

Napoleonic War and the War of: 1812

tly in a revolution France in: 1798

So despite telling you, I wouldn't tell you why the Acts of Union were pursued. That is in fact why the act of Unions were pursued.

in: 1819

And it started about five years into a roughly century long period where the British Empire only fought in one war. It springboarded an increase in prosperity and in general health across the entirety of the Crown's holdings.

t was Ireland. Because in the: 1840

The people began to starve, they asked Britain for help and the Empire mostly said, we're going to take a hard pass on that one, guys. Which meant that a million people die, a million people emigrate, and the Irish language is nearly eradicated.

rm throughout the rest of the: 1800

Thrilled to be under the British Empire despite them, but not enough of them for a concerted revolutionary effort to really pick up, although there were some rebellions. Talking about what really started the Irish War of Independence, though, requires leaping to the end of World War I and working back a bit.

We're briefly going to do something resembling that, and we'll also be skipping the very detailed bulk of the 19th century History in Ireland. I'd love to get there, but I'm not Dan Carlin and I need to get to the point much faster than that.

th October: 1881

I don't know much about about Patrick because he was a regular guy like the bulk of the anthem involved folks, but he's not a complete ghost. I know that he went to St. Patrick's National School and that he was in a hurling club. Hurling is one of those Gaelic sports I mentioned.

It's similar to football, which is soccer for my fellow Americans, but uses a stick similar to field hockey. Plus a whole bunch of other key differences that I don't have the wherewithal to tell you about.

a postman at least as late as: 1901

As far as I know, Heaney was not formally trained in as a musician and did all of his composition by trying things out on a melodeon, which is a reed driven organ that you pump with your feet or something that looks very much like an accordion, but I have been assured by Melodian players that it is definitely not an accordion. I'm pretty sure Patrick played the handheld version more on the most well remembered of the poet and composers collaboration in a few minutes.

e a member of the Oliver Bond: 1798

th of: 1911

ue there commemorating him in: 2010

. His father died sometime in: 1897

working as a house painter in: 1900

r with the Abbey Theater from: 1904

rching tune that he penned in: 1910

In: 1901

writer and revolutionary. In: 1913

part in the easter rising of: 1916

led to him being arrested in: 1920

th in: 1886

I don't know much about this guy like I do about the composer, but we do need him in the story for the Irish anthem, and we'll get there soon.

ve it's a UK lawyer. And from: 1907

nd he was also interred until: 1916

Starting in: 1920

From: 1922

After: 1924

His legacy leaves a real impact on the content of Irish culture and government. Okay, with the story of these three men, all born within about 300ft of each other in Dublin.

We have some pieces of the song's timeline, but also some questions, namely two of them. Why is there a translator? And why didn't Pater, a man that taught Irish language, write his Irish nationalist marching tune in Irish?

The first we will get to in moments, but the second is straightforward enough to answer. As I said, Irish is not the dominant language in Ireland. It was not at the time.

It is also, sadly, still recovering from getting very nearly wiped out because of the famine, plus the mandatory English schooling in the 19th century century. The fact is, more people spoke English, so the poet wrote in that language.

had been collaborating since: 1903

al. It was first published in: 1912

By: 1913

was published in New York in: 1916

By: 1917

We're gonna pass by the majority of the war and just say that there were more very close to atrocities than normal for the British. I suspect this is because the islands were close and the IRA was able to bomb Britain directly.

We are also going to skip the Irish Civil War because history has lots of downs and I do have to mention that sectarian violence happens and that it sucks sometimes. You.

It does have to enter into the story in a little bit more detail, but we're trying to learn about a song here, and this is one of the times I get to avoid talking about that stuff.

n internment camp in Wales in: 1916

Other versions of the translation did exist, but O'Ren disliked them in the way that a native Spaniard dislikes the Spanish that I learned in high school textbooks. His translation was in the spoken vernacular that, despite his effort, was decried by some as non native.

course, Regardless, after the: 1930

ong. And by the middle of the: 1920

At the same time, it was becoming clear to the government that they did in fact need an anthem. Unionists were trying to assert God Save the Queen as the song, and foreign dignitaries were requesting scores for the country's anthem.

f an anthem contest twice, in: 1924

th of: 1926

Musically speaking, we've got something uncomplicated and the song is straightforwardly a march, meaning it has a strongly rhythmic tune in 4 4, designed to be sung by a large group of people, hence the narrow range. It's generally played moderato, meaning a steady and martial beat at 96 beats per minute.

The song has a tonal melody, is generally in B flat major or C major, with the easy harmonic scheme of 19th century military marches. So strong downbeats, dotted rhythms, repeated notes, and a sort of call and response feeling to it.

This paragraph represents a fun moment for me because I realize that I'm starting to understand music much more than I used to due to my sustained effort at studying meaning I am learning. It also means that I can say more about something without saying a lot of unnecessary stuff cluttering up my meaning.

Hopefully that makes this easier to listen to. Lyrically, we have something that's kind of interesting, and it took me a while to figure out how to talk about the writing.

Recall that the Soldier's Song is originally written in English, but is sung in Irish after the translation's popularity eclipsed the originals.

The official anthem is sung as just the chorus, which is not unusual, but we're gonna hear the entire thing read as written in order to get the full feel of an Irish rebel song. The translation I'll be talking about is in the Munster dialect of the language, and variations do exist depending on who's singing it.

ore note about the lyrics. In: 1937

This prompted Kearney to write an additional verse for the song so folks in the north that wanted to protest the British partition could do so. The verse was published, but as far as I can find it has not been recorded and it's not part of the official song.

And it's also not something I'm going to read you. Please look it up on your own. I will read through the entire anthem in English, because it was written in English.

And it will be read as verse one chorus, verse two, verse three, but the chorus is included after verse one and verse two. Will sing a song, a soldier's song with cheering, rousing chorus.

As round our blazing fires we throng the starry heavens o' er us Impatient for the coming fight and as we wait the morning's light Here in the silence of the night Will chant a soldier's song.

Soldiers we are Whose lives are pledged to Ireland Some have come from a land beyond the wave Sworn to be free no more Our ancient sireland shall shelter the despot or the slave to night we man the varn of Wal In Arryn's cause Come woe or wheel mid cannons roar and rifles peal we'll chant a soldier's song in valley green or towering crag Our fathers fought before us and conquered neath the same old flag that proudly floated o' er us we're children of a fighting race that never has yet known disgrace and as we march the foe to face we'll chant a soldier's song. Then the chorus.

Sons of the gale, men of the pale the long watched day is breaking the serried ranks of Innisfail shall set the tyrant quaking Our campfires now are burning low See in the east a silvery glow out yonder waits the Saxon foe so chance A soldier's song. Then it finishes with the chorus again. Like I said before, reading through this is firmly in the genre of Irish rebel songs.

These are folk songs written about the various rebellions in Ireland against the British.

since the Irish Rebellion of: 1978

This is certainly the case about Oran Navian when Pater writes about the children of a fighting race that march to face their foe. That's not the main thrust of the song, though.

This is writing that's about brotherhood, justice for one's people, and the momentum of a force that wants to win. They're proud of their land, their flag, and also quite ready to have the British gone.

There is a two word phrase in the original that's in Irish already, which is varna. Voil. It translates best as the gap of danger. More colloquially we can refer to it as the breach it refers to a moment of extreme peril.

oss in the Irish Rebellion of: 1798

I'm honestly not the biggest fan of Kearney's writing. He has some pretty inspired and thought provoking stuff out there if you want to look that up.

But this song's lyrics, while well written and inspiring for the circumstances, just don't really light me up the way that some of the other anthems do.

Of course, what I think about it is only of passing importance since I'm just some guy that lives in the US and has a healthy curiosity about the history of national anthems. The writing here is deliberately simple stuff that is made easy to learn. He uses the rhyme scheme A, B A B C C C D in verses, ending chorus.

More importantly though, the song is exactly what it's supposed to be, a marching tune that is written specifically to remind the men singing it that they're not just some gathering of rebels, they're a force of soldiers fighting for a noble cause deeply rooted in their people, while being inspired by the desire for justice and freedom from the oppressive British Empire. It makes it make sense that the Soldier's song became incredibly popular and then refused to go away.

Despite the repeated effort of a bunch of people. The tune almost couldn't have avoided becoming the anthem in Ireland.

What you heard at the outset of the show was sung in a Celtic language, and it does not translate super cleanly or clearly into something in a different language family. English is Indo European, which means Oran. Navian is not a direct word for word from the Soldier's song as originally written.

As with the Burundian anthem going from Karundi to French, Orin was forced to resort to a vernacular adaptation that focuses on sense, singability and idiom. I found myself reading a lot lately about singable translations, and it seems like it's hard to do well.

There are the grammatical differences, of course, that which is a language thing, but there's also a whole slew of other considerations like syllable counts, stress patterns, rhyme schemes, singability, and of course the translated work has to fit with the original music, so we get compromises and adaptations that lead to sometimes dramatic differences. Here, though, we have the benefit of Liam's very skilled efforts, and the differences are manageable things. The main ones are as follows.

Soldiers we are becomes sheena fina foul, which is closer to warriors of Ireland. Dor slu hartin daronig chun refers to a host of people while preserving the meaning of land beyond the wave.

A nacht AHE im se varnavual preserves the gap of danger, but is a more active phrasing, so instead of just manning the gap, we go to the gap ready to fight.

Throughout the work, the meaning is held fairly true, explaining while it has managed to become the better known version, Liam was really good at what he did and now again you have listened right to the end of a show.

And again we have a story that tells us a lot about a song, but barely even begins to diptoes into the story of the country the anthem came to represent. I've done what I usually do and learned a lot of stuff and got to fill in some of the backstory for where friends, family and myself came from.

You hopefully know that I've put this work in with the aim of helping you learn something too. The best part is that there is so, so much more to learn. We're never going to be bored, my friends. Literally ever onto the credits.

The writing, recording and production for the show are done by me and I wrote and played the theme music. The music is used with my permission unless otherwise noted. The anthems I play are free to play because most anthems are.

This time I have reached out to the Irish tenor singing the song through several channels, but as of this recording he has not written me back. My sources are in the show notes and they live@anthemspodcast.com I can be found on Facebook and WhatsApp as the Anthems podcast.

I post about the show, but mostly I'm depending on word of mouth for getting into ears with this. That means that I'm asking you to help me by using the hashtag anthemspod or Anthems Podcast.

It would be cool if you shared this content and maybe it will inspire ever more people to take part in the Irish Native Tree Scheme and contribute to the effort at Reforestation in Ireland.

hemspodmail.com call or text +: 1203

-: 4255

Maybe you have managed to gain access to the audio system at your favorite coffee shop and decide that instead of tasteful background music, you're gonna play this very episode. Or maybe you're just gonna get an amazing black sesame seed latte and latibulate for a while. Look that one up, folks.

Either way, I'll be drinking coffee too, and thinking of you. See you next month.

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