Séarlais Óig, a mhic Rí Shéamuis
a' Shéarlais Óig, a mhic Rí Shéamuis
Se mo chreach do thraill ar Eirinn
Gan ruainne broig, stoca no leine
Ach a’ choscairt leis na Gaillibh
Seisd:
Oro se do Bheatha 'un a bhaile
Oro as cionn a'n duine eile
Oro 'se do bheatha 'un a bhaile
Ta tu amuigh le raithe
O 'se mo lean gear nach bheicim
Muna mbeinn beo 'na dhaidh ach seachtain
Searlas Og agus mile gaisgioch
Ag fógairt fáin ar Ghallaibh
Seisd
Ta Searlas Og a 'triall thar saile
Beidh said leisean cupla garda
Beidh siad leis Francaigh agus Spainnigh
'S bainfidh siad rinc' as na eiricigh
Seisd
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Young Charles son of King James
It is my sorrow your coming here
Without a stitch of a shoe, sock or shirt
But you struggling with the foreigners
Chorus:
Oro you're welcome home
You're welcome above other men
Oro you're welcome home
You've been away for a quarter-season
My bitter grief that I'm not seeing
If I only lived for a week
Young Charles and a thousand warriors
Dispersing the foreigners
Chorus
Young Charles is coming over the water
Some guards will be with him
The French and Spanish will be with him
And they will make the heretics dance.
Chorus
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A Jacobite song from Tyrone, c. 1746, about Prince Charles Edward Stuart after the failure of the 1745 Rising. The word Gaillibh in the chorus means "foreigner" but usually signifies
the English. The reference to "heretics" in the last verse is because the bulk of the Irish were Catholics, but the English were by that period Anglican, and hence "heretics."
I first heard it from the singing of Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin, a well-known Irish singer, songwriter, and academic. Her father was a great font of knowledge on the origins of many traditional songs. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pádraigín_Ní_Uallacháin) I later was able to retrieve a different version which appears to give the historic events it describes mpore accurately, which is the one shown here.
Pádraig Mac Piarais, a leader of the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland, later adapted words from one of the songs in his "Óró, 'Sé Do Bheatha 'Bhaile." prior to 1916, but it was inspired by older versions like this, and there may be a version about Gráinne Mhaol Ní Mháille (i.e., "Bald Grace O' Malley") a female sea captain (and sometime pirate) of Elizabeth I’s time. She was described by an English administrator as "A most remarkable woman" and was later summoned to Greenwich Palace by Elizabeth herself, following which, she received a full pardon. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_O'Malley )
Mac Piarais called it "An Dord Feinne" (The Warrior's Chant, "dord" in music meaning a bass humming or chanting sound.)
Prof. G. Stockman of Queen's University, Belfast, collected a version from an old Irish speaker in the Sperrin Mountains of Tyrone in the 1950s or 60's.
The notes from Ó Bríain and Ní Úallacháín's A Stór 's A Stóirín says it can be found in Céad de Cheoltaibh Uladh by Enrí Ó Muigheasa, 1915.