Just Irish Music

The Flight of the Earls tells the story of a fateful September in 1607 when the proud Gaelic lords of Ulster set sail from the shores of Ireland, carrying with them the last light of the old Gaelic order. The song captures that moment not as quiet tragedy but as a storm of emotion — the clash of loyalty, loss, and hope that marked the end of an age. Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, and Rory O’Donnell, Earl of Tyrconnell, once the great defenders of Ireland against Elizabeth’s armies, found themselves surrounded by betrayal, spies, and the tightening chains of conquest. Knowing their lands would soon be seized and their heads hunted, they gathered their families, followers, and priests and boarded ships at Rathmullan on Lough Swilly. As the sails caught the wind, Ireland watched its nobility vanish into the western sea. Yet this Irish ballad does not weep in silence; it beats like a drum of farewell. The fiddles rise, the bodhrán strikes, and the voices of the people send their lords away...

Gráinne Mhaol’s Lament — A Satirical Visual Chronicle of Ireland’s Occupation Gráinne Mhaol’s Lament re-imagines the life and legend of Gráinne Ní Mháille (Grace O’Malley) — Ireland’s fearless “Pirate Queen” of the 16th century — through the lens of satire and sorrow. Rather than the usual heroic ballad, this modern lament becomes a visual and musical chronicle of Ireland’s long occupation: proud, defiant, and bitterly aware of the cost of resistance. Born into the chieftain family of Umhaill in County Mayo, Gráinne commanded ships and men at a time when women were expected to obey rather than lead. She traded, raided, and fought to preserve Irish autonomy along the western coast while Elizabethan forces tightened their grip on the land. In legend she became the embodiment of Irish defiance — a woman who would parley with a queen yet never bow to one. In Gráinne Mhaol’s Lament , that defiance is refracted through art and irony. The song and imagery weave together scenes of bu...

Ireland, 1779 — A Land on the Edge of Memory A grey fog hung low over the sea, and in the hush before dawn, a foreign fleet emerged on the horizon. The wind carried no sound, only the steady advance of masts and sails—tall, foreign, and full of silent menace. The people along the Irish coast watched from behind stone walls and gorse-covered hills, eyes narrowed, hearts clenched. Ireland, already bruised by centuries of conquest, stood once more on the edge of uncertainty. The year was 1779, and Ireland found herself again at a crossroads between survival and surrender. Though these ships bore no army this time, their arrival cast a long shadow—an omen of cultural erasure more potent than cannon fire. It was not only land or sovereignty that hung in the balance, but the very soul of the nation. For what is a people without their voice? A Language Silenced Long before the first gunfire of invasion, there was another war—a quieter one. A war fought in the schools, in the churches, a...