Irish Jacobite Music?

By M.D. Amesse

Today is the feast of St. Columba, a royal descendant of High Kings of Ireland, and one of the great missionaries to the Celtic peoples of Scotland and Ireland. My wife, who we guess to be about half Irish and Scottish, has a great fondness for Celtic aesthetics. When it comes to music, she would much rather listen to Celtic folk music than classical. This is perhaps ironic, since I dabble with the Irish tin whistle, while she plays the clarinet. While I am not a musician, I credit her for developing my own interest in Celtic music. Sure, it is not the symphony, but I would rather judge it by what it is, rather than what it is not. The tin whistle was played for the Irish kings, though today it played in a great many folk songs which are less than counter-revolutionary. I would like to change that.

I have, for the last few years, been listening to Jacobite music. It was a disappointment to my children to learn that Bonnie Prince Charlie was, in fact, not coming back again, but rather buried in Rome, but despite this, they each have their favourite song. The most well known of the Jacobite folk songs come from Scotland. Many of them were written by the Bard of Ayrshire, Robert Burns, who was not really a counter-revolutionary, ironically enough. Here is a selection of some common Scottish Jacobite songs I am sure all of our readers have heard:

Will Ye No Come Back Again

White Cockade

Skye Boat Song

Bonnie Dundee

O’re The Water Tae Charlie

For wha'll be King but Charlie?

Loch Lomond (Some versions)

Most of these songs are of the last Jacobite uprising, thence the frequent reference to Charles III, so I was delighted that Mr. Wainscott found a song on You Tube which is both new to me, and speaks of James III & VIII. It is entitled, There'll Never be Peace till Jamie Comes Hame. There I also found another of Burns’ songs, written in 1789, entitled Awa’ Whigs Awa’. The lyrics for these songs can be found here and here.

Though primarily French, recently I learned that I have a great deal more Irish ancestry in my family than I had once suspected (though not without Anglo-Saxon too). Consequently, my interest in Irish Jacobite music has been piqued. Yet where is the Irish Jacobite music? One would think that none was ever written. This is not so. It seems that most (all?) of the Jacobite poems and lyrics were written in Irish Gaelic. Worse yet, for one who does not read Gaeilge, some of the songs were changed to fit the new republican nationalism, or so I have read. So what are these songs, and do we have any translators? My search continues but if there are any readers who could help me in it, please leave a message in the comment box.

Posted on the Feast of St. Columba, Abbot, a.D. MMIX