''Mise Éire'' (, Irish for "I mIreland") is a

1912 This year is notable for Sinking of the Titanic, the sinking of the ''Titanic'', which occurred on April 15. In Albania, this leap year runs with only 353 days as the country achieved switching from the Julian to Gregorian Calendar by skippin ...

Irish-language Irish (Standard Irish: ), also known as Irish Gaelic or simply Gaelic ( ), is a Celtic language of the Indo-European language family. It is a member of the Goidelic languages of the Insular Celtic sub branch of the family and is indigenou ...

poem by the Irish poet and Republican revolutionary leader

Patrick Pearse Patrick Henry Pearse (also known as Pádraig or Pádraic Pearse; ; 10 November 1879 – 3 May 1916) was an Irish teacher, barrister, Irish poetry, poet, writer, Irish nationalism, nationalist, Irish republicanism, republican political activist a ...

Background

''Mise Éire is'' a

poem by the Irish poet and Republican revolutionary leader

Political relevance

In the poem, Pearse personifies Ireland as an old woman whose glory is past and who has been sold by her children.

Later use

Described as both a literary and historical text, it was regularly used by Republican prisoners in Long Kesh as a means of learning and teaching Irish. ''Is Mise'' continues to be relevant in post- partition Ireland, suggest scholars, as illustrating of the difficulties in identifying "Irishness" in

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

Counter view

The title of the poem was used as a title for a 1959 documentary film by George Morrison, which dealt with key figures and events in Irish Nationalism between the 1890s and the 1910s, including Pearse himself. Seán Ó Riada wrote a

soundtrack A soundtrack is a recorded audio signal accompanying and synchronised to the images of a book, drama, motion picture, radio program, television show, television program, or video game; colloquially, a commercially released soundtrack album of m ...

for the film, also titled 'Mise Éire'. A poem of the same name by

Eavan Boland Eavan Aisling Boland ( ; 24 September 1944 – 27 April 2020) was an Irish poet, author, and professor. She was a professor at Stanford University, where she had taught from 1996. Her work deals with the Irish national identity, and the role o ...

was written as a counter to Pearse's poem, and its treatment of Ireland and her children. Pearse had already written optimistically on the fate of Ireland's strong sons' martyrdom in his poem "The Mother"; ''Is Mise'' takes the opposite, more pessimistic view of the sacrifice. In the words of Boss, Nordin and Orlinder, Boland "opposes and corrects Pearse's view on Ireland...No longer, as in the earlier poem, is the personification of the country 'older than the Old Woman of Beare' but 'a sloven’s mix'. The glory of having born 'Cuchulain the valiant’ is turned into the picture of the woman ‘holding her half-dead baby to her'.

Cultural usage

In 2016, the poem was set to music composed by Patrick Cassidy and performed by the

RTÉ Concert Orchestra The RTÉ Concert Orchestra is a professional radio orchestra in Ireland and is part of RTÉ, the national broadcaster. Since its formation as the Radio Éireann Light Orchestra in 1948, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra has grown from a small studio-bas ...

for the score of the

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

documentary series 1916: An Irish Rebellion, curated by the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies at the University of Notre Dame. It was also performed by Sibéal Ní Chasaide at the Centenary concert commemorating the

1916 Rising The Easter Rising (), also known as the Easter Rebellion, was an armed insurrection in Ireland during Easter Week in April 1916. The Rising was launched by Irish republicans against British rule in Ireland with the aim of establishing an i ...

The text

Notes

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Mise Eire Irish poetry Irish language Personifications of Ireland 1950s in Irish music