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Mise Éire (pronounced [ˈmʲɪʃə ˈeːɾʲə], Irish for "I Ireland") is a 1912 Irish-language poem by the Irish poet and Republican revolutionary leader Patrick Pearse.

Background

Mise Éire is a 1912 Irish-language poem by the Irish poet and Republican revolutionary leader Patrick Pearse.

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 Gaeilge. Is Mise continues to be relevant in post-partition Ireland, suggest scholars, as illustrating of the difficulties in identifying "Irishness" in Northern Ireland.

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.

A poem of the same name by Eavan Boland 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 with vocals by Sibéal Ní Chasaide, for the score of the PBS documentary series 1916: An Irish Rebellion, curated by the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies at the University of Notre Dame.

The text

Irish (direct translation)

Notes

1. Officially, the only literature allowed in the prisoners' cells was the Bible, which was also translated in and out of Irish.

References

1. Foster, Robert Fitzroy (2001). The Oxford Illustrated History of Ireland. Oxford University Press. pp. 283–84. ISBN 0-19-289323-8.
2. ^ Diarmait Mac Giolla Chriost (5 January 2012). Jailtacht: The Irish Language, Symbolic Power and Political Violence in Northern Ireland, 1972-2008. University of Wales Press. ISBN 978-0-7083-2497-4.
3. James P. Byrne; Padraig Kirwan; Michael O'Sullivan (2009). Affecting Irishness: Negotiating Cultural Identity Within and Beyond the Nation. Peter Lang. pp. 15–. ISBN 978-3-03911-830-4.
4. "Mise Éire". The Irish Music Review. Retrieved 30 March 2014.
5. Bourke, Angela (2002). The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing: Irish Women's Writing and Traditions. New York University Press. p. 1295. ISBN 0-8147-9908-6.
6. R. F. Foster; Robert Fitzroy Foster (2001). The Oxford History of Ireland. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-280202-6.
7. Michael Boss; Irene Gilsenan Nordin; Britta Olinder (1 May 2006). Re-Mapping Exile: Realities and Metaphors in Irish Literature and History. Aarhus University Press. ISBN 978-87-7934-922-3.
8. "Young Gaeltacht vocalist brings Pearse poem to life". Raidió Teilifís Éireann. Retrieved 26 March 2016.
9. "Making 1916 An Irish Rebellion - Creative Team". Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Retrieved 26 March 2016.

External links

• Mise Éire at IMDb

• Irish poetry
• Irish language
• Personifications of Ireland