Composed by Patrick Cassidy, this version of Mise Éire (I Am Ireland) was performed at the Ireland 2016 Celebration Concert on New Year’s Day by the Cross Border Orchestra of Ireland and sung by the young Irish singer, Sibéal Ní Chasaide.
The song is a poem written by Padraic Pearse in Gaelic. Pearse was a writer and activist in Ireland’s attempt to gain independence from Britain and a member of the 1916 Easter Rising. In the poem, Pearse personifies Ireland as an old woman whose glory is a thing of the past and who has been sold by her own children. The song evokes the kind of sorrow and longing with which the poem was written.
And today we celebrate...