Do you know the words of ‘Amhrán na bhFiann’?

WE haven’t heard our national anthem being sung on sports fields so far this summer - pictured by Sportsfile back in August 2019 are members of the Mayo team standing together for ‘Amhrán na bhFiann’ prior to their championship quarterfinal between against Donegal at Elverys MacHale Park.

In his column this week, Tom Gillespie asks: Do you know the words of ‘Amhrán na bhFiann’?

HOW many of you remember the playing of the Irish National Anthem, ‘Amhrán na bhFiann’, in our cinemas at the end of a screening of a blockbuster back in the 1960s and ‘70s?

Likewise, at hops in the Tennis Pavilion, dances in the Royal Ballroom and dances and pantomimes in the town hall, or at the end of an evening’s entertainment in the Travellers Friend Hotel in Castlebar.

Back then we all stood proud as Irish people and showed respect to the tune. We all learned the words off by heart while in national school.

Sadly, I have to admit I am a bit rusty on them now.

But here is a refresher:

Sinne Fianna Fáil,

atá faoi gheall ag Éirinn,

Buíon dár slua

thar toinn do ráinig chugainn,

Faoi mhóid bheith saor

Seantír ár sinsear feasta,

Ní fhágfar faoin tíorán ná faoin tráill.

Anocht a théam sa bhearna bhaoil,

Le gean ar Ghaeil, chun báis nó saoil,

Le gunna scréach faoi lámhach na bpiléar,

Seo libh canaig amhrán na bhfiann.

Nothing annoys me more that a supposed ‘miming’ of the words of the National Anthem by sportspeople as they face the national flag before a big game.

It should be compulsory that those privileged enough to grace the hallow grounds as players at Croke Park or the Aviva Stadium to, at least, know the words of ‘Amhrán na bhFiann’.

In fairness, the rugby fraternity all know by heart the words of ‘Ireland’s Call’, composed by Phil Coulter, but not all can boast of knowing the words of ‘Amhrán na bhFiann’.

It is known in English as ‘The Soldier’s Song’, the music of which was composed by Peadar Kearney and Patrick Heeney, the original English lyrics by Kearney, and the Irish-language translation, now usually heard, by Liam Ó Rinn. The song has three verses, but only the choral refrain has been officially designated the national anthem.

The Presidential Salute, played when the Irish President arrives at an official engagement, consists of the first four bars of the national anthem immediately followed by the last five.

The song, as ‘A Soldier’s Song’, was composed ‘early in 1910 or late in 1909’. Kearney assisted Heeney in setting the refrain.

Seán Rogan, later of the Irish Citizens Army, may also have helped with the music, and first wrote it in musical notation.

Kearney wrote much of the text in the Swiss Café at the corner of O’Connell Street and North Earl Street. The first draft of the text, handwritten on copybook paper, sold at auction in Dublin in 2006 for €760,000.

After being rejected by The United Irishmen, Bulmer Hobson’s magazine Irish Freedom published the text in 1912. Whelan & Son of Ormond Quay, Dublin, published the lyrics for sale as a flysheet. It was used as a marching song by the Irish Volunteers and Seamus Hughes first sang it in public at a Volunteer fundraising concert.

It was sung by rebels in the GPO during the Easter Rising of 1916. Its popularity increased among rebels held in Frongoch interment camp after the Rising.

The sheet music was first published in late 1916 by Whelan & Son, in an arrangement by Cathal Mac Dubhghaill (Cecil Grange MacDowell). In December 1916, in New York City, Victor Herbert published his own piano and orchestral arrangements under the title ‘Soldiers of Erin’, the Rallying Song of the Irish Volunteers’, on the instigation of R. F. O’Reilly, an Irish priest.

O’Reilly arranged for proceeds to go to the Gaelic League, but paid royalties to Kearney and Heeney once he discovered they were the authors. With later cheques from the US, Kearney earned ‘not much more than £100’.

By 1917 the song was being parodied by British soldiers in Ireland. Éamon de Valera’s platform at the June 1917 East Clare by-election featured a large banner with the opening two lines. That October the Irish Volunteers allied with Sinn Féin under de Valera and during the Irish War of Independence (1919 to ‘21) the Volunteers evolved into IRA. The song’s popularity led to its being called the ‘Sinn Féin anthem’.

Victor Herbert’s version was well known to Irish Americans by 1919, when de Valera arrived as President of Dáil Éireann of the self-proclaimed Irish Republic. In the 1922/23 Civil War, the IRA split into the ‘National Army’ of the nascent Irish Free State and the ‘Irregulars’, loyal to the defunct Republic. Both sides continued to sing ‘The Soldier’s Song’. After the war, it remained popular as an Army tune, and was played at many military functions.

The Free State did not initially adopt any official anthem. The delicate political state in the aftermath of the Civil War provoked a desire to avoid controversy.

Ex-unionists continued to regard ‘God Save the King’ as the national anthem, as it had been for the rest of the British Empire.

The fact that ‘The Soldier’s Song’ described Irishmen fighting a foreign foe allowed it to overlook the painful memory of the Civil War.

Public perception that it was officially recognised sprang from a concert on February 3, 1924, at the Theatre Royal, Dublin, by the Irish Army music school under its German-born director, Colonel Fritz Brasé.

The national anthem was played by Radio Éireann at closedown from its inception in 1926. Cinemas and theatres did so from 1932 until 1972.

Peadar Kearney, who had received royalties from sheet music publishers, issued legal proceedings for royalties from those now performing the anthem. He was joined by Michael Heeney, brother of Patrick Heeney, who had died in 1911.

In 1934, the Department of Finance acquired the copyright of the song for the sum of £1,200 (£980 to the copyright holders plus £220 expenses). Copyright law changed in the 1950s, such that the government had to reacquire copyright in 1965 for £2,500.

While the state held the copyright, most requests for publication were accepted, although several of a purely commercial nature, such as its use in advertisements, were refused.

However, as per EU copyright law, the English lyrics’ copyright expired on January 1, 2013, following the 70th anniversary of Kearney’s death.