Dánta Dé: AN INVITATION TO A TALK ON FAITH EXPRESSION IN TRADITIONAL IRISH HYMNS AND SONGS

By Niamh Ni Bhriain

Máel Ísu Ua Brolcháin was the Abbot of Iona, a cleric, a poet, and a teacher from Donegal. He was described in the Annals of Ulster as “being eminent in wisdom and piety and poetry”. Those attributes are captured pithily in his hymn which has endured and is still sung almost a thousand years after Ua Brolcháin died in 1086.

That hymn is, of course, Deus Meus, the much-loved song of praise which is also an invocation, a plea for God’s help in realising the gift of faith. It is a macaronic hymn, written in Latin and Irish.

Ancient as Deus Meus is, older macaronic hymns are on record, such as that written by Colman Ó Cluasaigh, head master of the renowned seminary founded by St Finbar – Naomh Fionnbarra - in Cork who wrote a hymn of 27 stanzas in the 7th century also in Latin and Irish.

These are old records, then, of what we might call Dánta Dé: poems or hymns of and for  God – and this intertwining of the language of the people and the language of the church. These ancient hymns give us a window into the deep roots and long tradition of the Catholic faith in the lives of the Irish people.

But those expressions of faith and spirituality are not confined to ecclesiastical songs and music: they are to be found everywhere in the tradition, and in the particularly beautiful poetry and sean-nós songs that are amongst the highest art-forms in our culture.

The historian Vincent Morley, in his seminal research on understanding the popular mind – meon na ndaoine – of the Irish people at a time when both our faith and way of life was under attack, makes the observation that such an understanding is gleaned from “the vernacular song and verse of the period.”

On August 8^th, in the Franciscan Friary in Wexford at 7pm, as part of the events around Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann, I will discuss some of the profound expressions of faith in the great body of our traditional songs, and also discuss the unique perspective of some of our most splendid hymns, in particular: their very human compassion and empathy for the sacrifice of Calvary and the sorrow of a mother’s heart; the expressive form of conveying a desire for God’s love or love of God; and the reliance on God for all things, in each and every day.  

Songs will be sung, as will hymns. You are most cordially welcome. Ta fáilte roimh cách.