Just Irish Music

The West’s Awake — A Cry of Freedom from Ireland’s Western Heart The West’s Awake is one of the great anthems of Irish nationalism — a song that rouses the sleeping spirit of the western counties to remember their courage, their pride, and their duty to a free Ireland. Written by the 19th-century patriot Thomas Davis , founder of The Nation newspaper, the song appeared during the Young Ireland movement — a time when poetry and song were weapons of conscience against British rule. In the ballad, Davis calls to the long-silent West — Connacht, Clare, and Kerry , lands that had suffered centuries of invasion, famine, and silence. “Long, long the West’s asleep,” he writes, lamenting how its proud people have been subdued by poverty and despair. Yet the song is no elegy — it’s a call to rise. He recalls how the West once rose for freedom: the men of 1798, the defenders of faith and land, those who refused to bend the knee. The refrain — “The West’s awake!” — is both prophecy and c...