Just Irish Music

A Chuisle Mo Croí — An Irish Ballad of Love, Loss, and Eternal Devotion “A Chuisle Mo Croí” — meaning  “ Pulse of My Heart ”  in Irish — is more than a love song. It’s a soul-deep ballad that bridges time, language, and emotion, telling the timeless story of a love so strong it lingers beyond goodbye. Sung in both English and Irish, this haunting melody speaks directly to the heart, offering comfort, connection, and a sense of something eternal. From the opening line,  “Since the day we met, love, you’ve been my guide,”  the listener is drawn into a relationship built on unwavering support through life’s storms. The chorus —  “A Chuisle Mo Croí, the pulse of my heart…”  — acts as a heartbeat itself, anchoring the song in love’s quiet strength. Laced with poetic Irish phrasing like  “Feicim thú i mo bhrionglóidí”  ( “I see you in my dreams” ), this ballad honours the traditions of Irish storytelling while weaving a modern emotional truth. Whether...

Tinte na Tíre – Fires of the Land: A Cinematic Tribute to Ireland’s Ancient Pulse Step into the ancient heartbeat of Ireland with “Tinte na Tíre” — Fires of the Land — a stirring visual and musical journey that blazes through rhythm, ritual, and the resilience of Irish spirit. This short film isn’t just a performance; it’s a cinematic ritual that reawakens the primal soul of the Gael. As the bodhrán strikes with steady defiance and embers spiral into the twilight air, you are drawn into a world where past and present burn side by side. Set against windswept hills and stone-walled fields, the fire becomes more than flame — it is the eternal hearth of memory, community, and ancestral calling. Dancers move with instinct, not choreography, echoing footsteps taken a thousand years ago, around fires that once lit the high places of Éire. Every beat in Tinte na Tíre evokes a forgotten tale — the whispered chants of druids, the stomp of rebel boots, the roar of tribal joy. Music is not e...

The Perfect Holocaust — A Ballad of Ireland’s Great Hunger (An Gorta Mór) This is not a famine song. This is a cry from the soil. “The Perfect Holocaust” is a modern Irish protest ballad rooted in the Great Hunger of 1845–1852 — a catastrophe that reshaped the Irish identity forever. The common schoolbook line calls it “the potato famine.” The real history is harsher. Ireland during those years was exporting grain, beef, butter, and provisions at industrial scale, while entire parishes starved. This ballad points directly to that contradiction — that the land was productive, yet the people were dying. In this piece, the music is built around uilleann pipes, low whistle, fiddle laments, and the relentless pulse of the bodhrán. The sound is intentionally stark — not romanticised, not softened — because the story demands uncomfortable honesty. The ballad names the policy makers and the ideology behind them. Trevelyan’s famous belief that starvation was “a moral lesson” echoes through t...

The Wraggle Taggle Gypsies O — From Silk Gowns to Leather Hose “ The Wraggle Taggle Gypsies O ” is one of those folk songs that refuses to die. It has moved through centuries, accents, and counties, yet its story is instantly recognisable even today: a noblewoman, smothered by wealth, hears the wild song of wandering men at her door — and leaves everything behind to follow them. In a world obsessed with safety, status, and comfort, this little ballad quietly raises a deeper question: who is truly free? In the song, we see her dressed in silk gowns, surrounded by feather beds and privilege. That is the world she is supposed to love. But she throws the entire social structure into chaos by simply changing clothes — stripping off the silk, and choosing leather hose like the gypsies themselves. One garment symbolised property and class. The other symbolised independence, risk, and the open road. People often interpret the song as a romantic fantasy, but it is something sharper: she doe...