Transcript

A Neilí bhán dheas, go mbeannaí Dia dhuid,
Go mbeannaí an ghealach, (a rún amháin), agus an ghrian dhuid,
Go mbeannaí na haingil[1] atá i bhflaitheas Dé dhuit,
Mar a bheannaíonns do mháthair bhocht a chaill a ciall dhuid.

Rach' mise amárach go (guidhe) an phobail,
Agus múscail' mé na mná ghreadtha atá ina gcodladh,
Agus cuirfidh muinn Mairéad[2] ar thoisidh an tórraidh[3]
Agus dhéanfaidh[4] Síle go díreach an t-eolas.

A bhean úd thall romhainn a rinn an gáire,
Nár fhágaidh[5] sí an saol seo go ngeobh' sí croí cráite
(Fháil) ó[6] mo níonsa atá ag goil i (gcónra an chláir uaim).

Translation

O fair Nellie, may God bless you,
May the moon, my only darling (?), and the sun bless you,
May the angels in God's heaven bless you,
As your poor mother who has lost her senses blesses you.

I'll go tomorrow to the public prayers(?),
And I'll awaken the keening women who are asleep,
And we'll put Margaret leading the funeral
And Sheila will guide us directly.

O woman who laughed before us over there,
May she not leave this life until she gets a broken heart
From(?) my daughter who is going from me into a wooden coffin.

Footnotes

Commentary

These verses are from the song 'An Bhean Chaointe' ('The Keening Woman'), one of the most celebrated songs of southeast Ulster. The story behind the song appears (in Irish) in Lorcán Ó Muireadhaigh, Amhráin Chúige Uladh (Dundalk, 1927). See new edition by Colm Ó Baoill (Indreabhán, 2009), 102-3. It may be summarized as follows: There was a woman in the Omeath area in the early nineteenth century with twelve children, five daughters and seven sons. Eleven of her children died following their marriages but the youngest, Neilí, married and continued to live with her mother. The woman took to roaming the countryside as she struggled to cope with the grief she had suffered. Neilí died not long after getting married and on that same day it happened that her mother was wandering in the area looking for accommodation. She met with some young girls who were travelling to a wake and decided to join them. At the wake, the keening women welcomed the young girls but they mistook the mother for a poor rambling woman, offering her potatoes previously prepared for the pigs. The mother came to her senses and recognised that she was in her own house. She then realised that she was at her youngest daughter Neilí's wake. She began to weep and composed this song extempore.

Ó Muireadhaigh made phonograph recordings of Cáit Ní Ghuibhirín and other singers from Omeath singing this song. He published sixteen verses along with tonic solfa notation of the melody in Amhráin Chúige Uladh (Ó Baoill edition, pp. 31-3, 102-3, 166) and attributes the song to Peadar Ó Doirnín but does not provide any supporting information. For the keening tradition in general, see Breandán Ó Madagáin, Caointe agus seancheolta eile: keening and other old Irish musics (Indreabhán, 2005) and Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin, A hidden Ulster: people, songs and traditions of Oriel (Dublin, 2003), 137-50. This item is transcribed also in Róise Ní Bhaoill, Ulster Gaelic voices: bailiúchán Doegen 1931 (Belfast, 2010), 272.