Just Irish Music

Rain On Kilmainham – A Ballad for the Fallen of 1916 In the grey hours of the morning on May 3rd, 1916, the stone walls of Kilmainham Gaol bore witness to something Ireland would never forget — the execution of the leaders of the Easter Rising. No cheers. No fanfare. Just rain tapping gently on rusted gates, as if the sky itself mourned what was about to unfold. “Rain On Kilmainham” is not just a song. It’s a **ballad woven from silence, sorrow, and the unyielding spirit of rebellion. Every word carries the echo of a name once called in the yard. Every image remembers what so many were meant to forget. This cinematic tribute reimagines the final moments of Pearse, Connolly, and their comrades through a Film Noir lens — stark shadows, cold stone, the chill of inevitability. But within that darkness, there is light: candles in cell windows, flags flying low in defiance, the whisper of rebel lore passed from child to child. From Cell to Execution Yard The opening scenes show the pri...

The Ballad of McCafferty – A Tragic Tale of an Irish Soldier Hanged at 19 In 1861, a young Irish lad named Patrick McCaffery stood before a judge in Liverpool. He was just nineteen years old. The sentence was swift and final: “Go prepare your soul for eternity.” Within weeks, he was hanged at Kirkdale Gaol in front of a massive crowd. Today, his name lives on through a haunting Irish ballad — “McCafferty.” But behind the verses lies a chilling true story of poverty, power, and a system that broke the very people it claimed to serve. From Athy to the Barracks Patrick McCaffery was born in Athy, County Kildare , in 1842 — a time of famine and hardship across Ireland. Orphaned young and raised in poverty, like many others, he turned to the British Army as a way out. He joined the 60th Rifles (King’s Royal Rifle Corps) at around 17 or 18 years of age, hoping for a steady wage and a future. Instead, he found humiliation, cruelty, and a rigid system where Irish lads were often tre...

The Bantry Girls’ Lament – A Song of Love, War, and Exile In the haunting verses of The Bantry Girls’ Lament , we hear more than just a tragic love story — we hear the echo of Ireland’s torn heart, scattered across foreign fields and tangled in the wars of empires. This traditional Irish ballad centres around Johnny , a young Irishman who leaves the green hills of Bantry to fight in a faraway war — and never returns. The song is sung from the perspective of the women left behind, who mourn his loss with a quiet, enduring sorrow. But behind their lament lies a deeper political and historical truth, one that connects Ireland to the storm of war that swept through Europe in the early 1800s. The War Behind the Song The “wars of Spain” mentioned in the ballad refer to the Peninsular War (1808–1814) — a brutal conflict fought on the Iberian Peninsula between Napoleon’s French army and the allied forces of Spain, Portugal, and Britain . The war erupted after Napoleon invaded Spain and re...

“Youghal Harbour” is more than just another Irish ballad — it’s a haunting story wrapped in melody, passed down through generations like salt on the Atlantic wind. What begins as a simple tale of lost love soon stretches across counties, hearts, and oceans. The result is a song that feels deeply personal, yet universally Irish. At the heart of the ballad is Jamie, a young man once full of hope and love, whose world begins to unravel not through betrayal, but through the slow grind of other people’s decisions. He falls in love with Nancy, a girl from Youghal whose family believes she’s too good for him. Her parents, cold and proud, banish her — not to punish her, but to punish him. They tear the young couple apart before it even begins, sending Jamie walking with nothing but heartbreak and the road ahead. As he wanders through the sweet green valleys of Ireland, Jamie arrives in County Cavan, where fate introduces him to another woman. She’s gentle, fair, and kind — but already tied i...

Few songs stir the Irish heart like The Boys of Wexford — a proud and defiant ballad that echoes across generations. Its verses tell of ordinary men and women who rose against tyranny, of rebels who fought with pikes and passion, and of sacrifices made in the name of Irish freedom. And now, this historic anthem has been given a new life — not just in song, but in vision. In this special project, The Boys of Wexford has been reimagined through a fully illustrated video, with each line matched to a cinematic image. Thirty-six in total. Each one crafted to follow the story as it unfolds: the captain’s daughter offering to fight for liberty, the call to arms at Vinegar Hill, the cannon fired into Lord Mountjoy, the victories at Ross and Wexford — and the bitter lessons of drink, loss, and betrayal. The result is not just a music video — it’s a visual journey through one of Ireland’s most significant uprisings. Every scene is infused with historical realism and emotional weight. The rag...

Boulavogue – The Song That Carries the Spirit of 1798 “Boulavogue” is more than a traditional Irish ballad — it is an echo of a moment in history when ordinary people rose with extraordinary courage. Written to honour the heroes of the 1798 Wexford Rebellion , the song has become one of Ireland’s most powerful musical memorials, capturing the bravery, tragedy, and hope of a community pushed to the edge. Though centuries have passed, the fire in this song has never dimmed. The story begins in the quiet Wexford village of Boulavogue, where Father John Murphy served as the local parish priest. Murphy was not a political agitator by nature; he was, in every sense, a reluctant rebel. For years he urged his parishioners to avoid uprising and keep peace. But when Crown forces began burning homes, harassing families, and dragging innocent people from their beds, Murphy saw that neutrality was no longer an option. The people were defenceless — and he knew they needed someone to guide them. W...

The Rath of Mullaghmast stands as one of the darkest and most haunting places in Irish history, remembered for a massacre that symbolised the total betrayal of Ireland’s ancient clans. In the late sixteenth century, as English rule tightened its grip across Leinster, the Gaelic chieftains were invited to a grand assembly at Mullaghmast in County Kildare. The summons came under the seal of friendship, a promise of peace and protection from the Lord Deputy of Ireland, who claimed that reconciliation would end the turmoil between the Irish lords and the English Crown. Trusting in his word, the chiefs of Leinster came unarmed, accompanied by their families and followers, dressed in the rich garments of their rank and carrying the pride of generations that had ruled long before foreign power came to their shores. What awaited them was treachery. Hidden among the English soldiers and servants who welcomed them with smiles were the very men chosen to destroy them. At a prearranged signal, the...

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 Famine Year – Lady Jane Wilde’s cry from the grave of a starving nation “The Famine Year” remains one of the most important poetic documents of Irish suffering, anger, and historical truth. Written by Lady Jane Wilde — mother of Oscar Wilde, and known in her own right as a fierce nationalist, a radical intellectual, and a woman who risked her position in society to speak for the poor — this poem is not simply literature. It is testimony. A direct accusation. A written scream from the shores of a nation left to die. When we talk about the Great Famine (1845–1852) in general terms, we often hear cold language: crop failure, blight, emigration, poverty, “famine conditions.” But Lady Wilde strips away the polite terms. She removes the veil. In “The Famine Year,” she writes from inside the wound. This is a poem written as the horror unfolded — not as history, not from academic distance, not with comfortable hindsight. Lady Wilde stood in the middle of a country where mothers buried th...