It is an Irish song sung in the Gaelic languish which was first sung around 1750. The Lyrics tell of a young lady who mournfully sings of her brave warrior lover who has gone away, and how she laments in pain that she may never see him again.
Yet the song's true meaning is hidden from the plain texts of its lyrics. The Lady is the spirit of Eire and the gallant warrior who will never return is Bonnie Prince Charlie, the rightful Stuart heir to the throne of England. England had at that time done away with the Stuarts and auctioned its monarchy off to foreigners in the glorious revolution by beheading its rightful King James II, mostly over fears he would reestablish Catholicism in England.
The second Jacobite revolution, or restoration as it should be called, was the attempt to return the true king to the throne. In it the Irish, and Highland Scots fought for Bonnie Prince Charlie the rightful heir, who was also supported by the French and disaffected Tories. The restoration failed on the battlefield where the English fielded Dutch Mercenaries against their rightful king once again as they had done in the Glorious Revolution. After the failure the Highlanders were evicted from their homes in the Highland Clearance Act and a great part of them came to the Colonies and settled the frontier, which at that time was Appalachia. The Irish were repressed. The Kingship of England passed to Hanoverian usurpers and the robber House of Windsor who rule Britain to this day.
All in all it was a very confused time where Protestantism and Catholicism were mixed up in patriotism and revolution and more often than not people fought for the "right" side for the wrong reasons and for the "wrong" side for the right reasons. How that is still true today. The song Mo Ghile Mear speaks of a changing world where the rightful kings have become dispossessed from their lands and the spirit of their people mournfully languishes. There were to be no more kings in this new world, the people were to be dispossessed from the land of their ancient fathers, and there is something else which has been been lost to us, which is difficult to explain yet leaves a sore mark in modernity.
As an aside in my head this is the song when I read the Silmarillion that I imagine Luthien Tinuviel sung in the court of the Valar to free Beren from the halls of Mandos.
The saddest song I know of is Mo Ghille Mear:
It is an Irish song sung in the Gaelic languish which was first sung around 1750. The Lyrics tell of a young lady who mournfully sings of her brave warrior lover who has gone away, and how she laments in pain that she may never see him again.
Yet the song's true meaning is hidden from the plain texts of its lyrics. The Lady is the spirit of Eire and the gallant warrior who will never return is Bonnie Prince Charlie, the rightful Stuart heir to the throne of England. England had at that time done away with the Stuarts and auctioned its monarchy off to foreigners in the glorious revolution by beheading its rightful King James II, mostly over fears he would reestablish Catholicism in England.
The second Jacobite revolution, or restoration as it should be called, was the attempt to return the true king to the throne. In it the Irish, and Highland Scots fought for Bonnie Prince Charlie the rightful heir, who was also supported by the French and disaffected Tories. The restoration failed on the battlefield where the English fielded Dutch Mercenaries against their rightful king once again as they had done in the Glorious Revolution. After the failure the Highlanders were evicted from their homes in the Highland Clearance Act and a great part of them came to the Colonies and settled the frontier, which at that time was Appalachia. The Irish were repressed. The Kingship of England passed to Hanoverian usurpers and the robber House of Windsor who rule Britain to this day.
All in all it was a very confused time where Protestantism and Catholicism were mixed up in patriotism and revolution and more often than not people fought for the "right" side for the wrong reasons and for the "wrong" side for the right reasons. How that is still true today. The song Mo Ghile Mear speaks of a changing world where the rightful kings have become dispossessed from their lands and the spirit of their people mournfully languishes. There were to be no more kings in this new world, the people were to be dispossessed from the land of their ancient fathers, and there is something else which has been been lost to us, which is difficult to explain yet leaves a sore mark in modernity.
As an aside in my head this is the song when I read the Silmarillion that I imagine Luthien Tinuviel sung in the court of the Valar to free Beren from the halls of Mandos.
