Aiteall Prog 16 - 14june2024

Summary: This is a bilingual program on Connemara Community Radio about the poet Michal Mac Saibhne. The original documentary about him has been expanded with new material and contributors. Mac Saibhne was a poet from West Connemara who lived from 1780 to 1820. His poems and songs were passed down through the oral tradition and he was known for his character. The program includes his poetry, songs, and comments from scholars. Mac Saibhne is still remembered and revered in Connemara and other Gaeltacht regions. One of his well-known poems is about a lavish wedding, which is actually ironic as the people involved were poor. Mac Saibhne was also involved in the United Irishmen movement. He sought protection in Connemara and was given sanctuary by a local magistrate. 🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷� bilingual program here on Connemara Community Radio or one of our bilingual programs I should say. My name is Michael Gannon. Now some years ago we brought you a documentary here on Connemara Community Radio on the poet Michal Mac Saibhne or Michael Mac Sweeney. Michal Mac Saibhne lived in West Connemara from around about the year 1780 to 1820. His songs and his poems survived carried down in the oral tradition from generation to generation and also many many anecdotes around Michal Mac Saibhne because he was also quite a character. We made that program as I said some years ago and it was around about a half an hour long. It carried some of his poetry and his songs and recollections of the man himself and also some comments on the wider context of the times as well as being remembered in the oral tradition. Scholars such as Thomas O'Malley and James Hardiman the Galway historian they all wrote about Michal Mac Saibhne. We were quite happy with that documentary at the time but as often happens when you make a program about a person more information emerges as people respond to that and as the research continues into the subject and this is indeed the case with Michal Mac Saibhne. So we were able to go back over that documentary to add new material and we have emerged now with a documentary that's over three quarters of an hour long and that is our program for you today. We're delighted to have new contributors such as Máire Ní Céide. Máire Ní Céide from Litchell Moor was a special guest on an actual program a few weeks ago. She lives mainly in Boston but she took part in the program from Boston. Her family, the Seoige family from Litchell Moor were always very very fond of the poetry of Michal Mac Saibhne. So we're delighted that Máire is included in the new program. We remember also very fondly two contributors to this program Josie Goodham, Josie Goodham and Paddy Vitz were on board. I don't remember if we did this program a few years ago but Paddy and Josie have passed away since making this program. So this is the next song for this week. It's a song about Michal Mac Saibhne's life. I hope you enjoy it. He was called he was known as the Robert Burns of Connemara and he was and but not only because of his poetry but also because of the smuggling and the whatever the woman I think. But I read somewhere that Antonio Rafferty was aware of Michal Mac Saibhne. He was. And why wouldn't he be? He seemed to command a bit of you know he had a presence and even to this day even I don't you know but to this day he has some kind of hold over people that you know that even my father even would mention him from time to time and as we need said as we need said it wasn't yes we need to point to the women as we need said so. I will rise to my own the Sunday spirit and go to live on the little white hill I will build me a house there on the roadside close to the whispers from here and there in a place where I'd have journeymen and tramps communication with scholars seamen and fishermen will be a school for the artist the youth and the young in search of the knowledge that comes from my street. In 1846 at the height of the Great Famine the Galway historian James Hardiman wrote this about Michal Mac Saibhne or Michael Mac Sweeney a poet who lived most of his life in northwest Connemara and composed in his native Gaelic in the vernacular of the district. In this district Doon Omi Island Clifton there lately lived a neglected poetical genius whose name was Michael Mac Sweeney who though held in high repute by his countrymen was suffered to die in poverty but this it is said often occurs in half civilized communities where pride and ignorance are generally prevalent. Mac Sweeney was the bard of the west he composed love poems venomous attacks on villages who did not give him due hospitality and satires which give us a native view of the troubled political and economic times the people of west Connemara endured at the turn of the 18th century. He was a small man and not handsome. This is the only description that we have of Mac Sweeney or Sweeney but the shamacus or local tradition of Connemara elevated this poet to almost mythic status over the generations. Despite the decline of the Gaelic language in northwest Connemara Sweeney is still remembered both there and of course further south in the Gaeltacht regions from Carna to the Aran Islands. He is known variously as Mícheál Mac Sibhne, Mícheál Mac Saibhne, Michael Mac Sweeney or simply Sweeney or An Taibhneach. Bánis Seigi Ní Ada Peggy O'Hara's wedding or the Connemara wedding is one of his best known poems and was sung widely although it is now rarely heard. The song describes the wedding feast of a poor couple where the occasion is lavished with all the trappings of royalty and attended by heads of the great Gaelic clans and token foreigners, the British aristocracy. The poem contains a rich assortment of all that makes up the finest of weddings dresses for the bride and for the feast, an abundant supply of wine and whiskey, beer in boatloads, tea and spices of all kinds including nutmegs and saltpeter, pipes, tobacco, cards, backgammon boxes and bands of music. A profusion of fish from the herring to the tortoise, wild fowl in great variety and all kinds of meat from the ox to the badger with the humorous hint that it would be prudent to have these latter vines either boiled or roasted. The guests to be invited are the great Milesian families of Connacht with some Strongbonians and Cromwellians, though not deserved, and they end with a neighbouring gentry and others of ear Connacht who are summed up with some keen touches of wit. All of this of course is ironic. Egi Ní Ada and her husband are as poor as church mice as were all the Connemara people at the turn of the 18th century. According to my mother that was this big hit. Irene Whelan is a native of the Sky Road, Clifden and a descendant of Níol Machsibhne. She learned much about Sweeney from her mother Esther Roach. And everybody loved it, it was something similar to O'Rourke's great feast, you know, it was about a wedding. But it was a satire, it was a skit, like they were so poor. Múch maith deante, chum ag léiste, le hái fath a chóidhain. Ná rosch a thín, quick make haste, for as you that's fit and able, and bring thee home some strong cloth roll, and cloak of silk stock even. Patent shoes are neatly jeweled, with ribbons fixed on neatly, gloves and bobs and fancy poms, the way our maids be treated. All of that and Pampadour, spangles, silk, and hats of gnoll. Múch well made to most impress, a dintron and a stately dress. Fianas brandy, sugar, candy, tibber, crappies, taillat. An fianas a fark is mias mór gáil, is na dharmad chuaith an pétair. An chúd a bhéas an mhánas mór, cáthar ar a hít doacht seoil. Bands of music ag a goldfinn, is éil go suagach ag sinne tune al héidh. Rise tomorrow and with hearth prepared, move away quite early, down to Galway's Merchant's Dare, and bring home all your able. Wine and brandy, sugar, candy, pepper, coffee, tea grains, the knife, the fark, the dish so grand, and pewter jugs most rated. Then there'll be the wedding feast, where twenty bards will play, and bands of music everywhere, playing their stringed pictures. There are many versions of the background to Sweeney's writing of this poem. One came from John Millington Sing, from two fishermen he met in a pub on the Aran Islands. There was a poor servant girl out in the country, and she got married to a poor servant boy. Mac Sweeney knew the two of them, but he was away at the time, and it was a month before he came back. When he came back he went to see Peggy O'Hara – that was the name of the girl – and he asked her if they had had a great wedding. Peggy said it was only middling, but they hadn't forgotten him all the same. And she had a bottle of whisky for him in the cupboard. He sat down by the fire and began drinking the whisky. When he had a couple of glasses taken, and was warm by the fire, he began making a song. And this was the song he made about the wedding of Peggy O'Hara. Another came from Professor Thomas O'Maldy, who heard it from a man named Paddy Cobourke, from Delphi, across the border in Mayo. Peggy O'Hara worked in Geoffrey Conniss's house in Balnahinch Barony. Conniss was told that Sweeney was with her at the time. Conniss said he would have to marry her. OK, said Sweeney, I have no fault with the girl, except I have no money for a wedding. What will you need for the wedding, asked Conniss. What Sweeney wanted was listed in the song. That was the end of the wedding, because Conniss was a bit thick-skinned. Sweeney spent most of his life in North West Connemara, but he was not a Connemara man. We know that he came from a village called Fwyntionoch, on the northern shore of Loch Corrib, east of Cong. His stock was from Fanad, in Donegal, and his forefathers came to Fwyntionoch shortly after Cromwell's time. It's not known exactly when he first came to Connemara, but he may have left the fertile lands and gone west into the wilds of Connemara out of necessity. Mach Thibna would have been 38, in the prime of his life, at the time of the 1798 rebellion. What's not known about him at all, and which is a terrible shame, he was a united Irishman. He and some of his brothers fought at the Ballinamoch and the races of Castle Barr. He was one of the people that came across the mountains into Connemara after the repression of the rebels in Mayo. And he was given sanctuary by Connus, who had a house in Clegan, and it was a smuggling connection like they were tickish thieves, as they say. Connemara was still a wild area, where the rule of law was in the hands of the local magistrate. Mach Thibna sought protection in Connemara, and found it from the local magistrate, Mr. Connus. When I say he was protected by Connus, what I mean is the law couldn't touch him. The Connuses came into Connemara at the time of Cromwell. They were beneficiaries of what was called the Mile Line, that was a mile of land from, I believe, Sligo, taken in Mayo, Galway, and Clare, where Protestant settlers were given like a mile strip to guard the coast against Catholic enemies from Europe, you know, coming in, landing. And that was their origins. But by the 18th century, they could hold their own, more than their own with the Amoyas and the O'Flahertys and so on, when it came to the smuggling, because they were all assets, including the merchants. And it was a very democratic affair. All the Connemara people, they had a share in the smuggling. They'd be paid off like that. They'd carry the stuff inland. Michael McSweeney, along with his brothers Paddy and Turlough, found sanctuary in the area and settled first in Turin, in Bannachill. Michael worked for a landlord named Stuart and trained as a blacksmith. Irene Whelan can trace her family back to Michael and his brothers. There were several other brothers. There was his brother Paddy, who was the progenitor of my mother's line. And there was a stepbrother called Turlough, who settled in Ballynew, and who was the progenitor of Joe Sweeney of Claddagh Duff and John and Terry Sweeney, you know. Irene's knowledge of Sweeney was handed down to her by her mother Esther Roach, who was the granddaughter of Celia Sweeney, who was born before the famine. My mother was Esther Roach, and her grandmother was Celia Sweeney. According to my mother, Celia Sweeney was his niece. And according to Thomas Roach, Celia Sweeney was an only child. She was only one of 12 children to have survived. Now if she was born in 1842, did that mean the others died in the famine? You know, it's a good question. But I still think that if he died in 1820, that was too long ago for him to have been her uncle. That's true. It's likely then that Celia was a grandniece. Michael and Paddy Sweeney settled in Fahey, north of Clifton. As fate would have it, the Sweeney house became famous for another reason much later, when it featured in one of the iconic postcards of John Hynde. Thomas gave him the lease of a piece of land in Fahey, which is at the end of the Sky Road over in Erfurt. And it seems he married in there. You know the postcard with the little house, the John Hynde postcard, the Roach Cottage? That was Paddy Sweeney's home, and Michael Sweeney had a house that ran alongside it. Old memory holds that he was happy in Connemara and well-received by the people. Paddy Fitzpatrick of Carna and Runfael has had a keen interest in Mac Lhafne from when he was a young man. I got a Sweeney, and I'm into that since I was very, very young, that he came to that end of the country back there where I'm living at the moment, and he loved it, and he visited in there so good, and he went all around there, and there was the Gaelic, and there was the stories. Why move? Why move? Why move? That's it. That's it. Wandering poets and musicians were a feature of the Irish landscape in the 18th and 19th centuries. They carried songs and stories from place to place. They were often penniless and dependent on the hospitality of the people, who had little enough for themselves, but shared what they had. Sweeney could be lyrical in his praise of the people who showed him hospitality, as Paddy Fitzpatrick recites from Sweeney's praise of Runfael's hospitality. My blessings on Runfael back by the sea, and all its fine people there generous to me, for if I arrived there early or late, the pot would be full and the welcome be great. He said to me, I'm going to tell you a story, maybe it's not too bad, after he had told me about it. He said, I told him a story, and he told me a story, and I told him a story, and he told me a story, and I told him a story, and he told me a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and he told me a story, and I told him a story, and he told me a story, and I told him a story, and he told me a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and he told me a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and he told me a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and he told me a story, and I told him a story, and he told me a story, and I told him a story, and he told me a story, and I told him a story, and he told me a story, and I told him a story, and he told me a story, and I told him a story, and he told me a story, and I told him a story, and he told me a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and he told me a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and he told me a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, and I told him a story, Ná b'fára bhéas a siacht, Grám chodontain a maithí grúin, I solchus nua, agus níon maith anonach. Ere's big, and ere's more, And ere's O'Donnell of the North Shore, Ere's Lannan cruel to behold, Wretched am I after. After that, and for evermore, May your kin be less than great, Contrary horde with dark-brows low, Wicked woman to scorn their face. Grach gan ar a mudach fúa, Cúisne crúaigh agus blithe díor, Ere Grám chodontain an drímíon crúaigh, Gur béan bhíon gach áls agal a mach. A mach an trá ag abas é, Sé dhér a gach gurs díon morá, Scílí har é anus na chéit an. Face of want and a svagrant race, Head of heart and judgment grows, And these contrary horde from there, Who know nothing coming forth. Forth, when where he goes, The women would say all, Let him pass you on the road, As if it wasn't him at all. Trá chonaic mé héan, Sálas an ghae dhíol brá, Déis am a hassú, Agus brannan mé women all. Gha ghaire an mhaidinn, Nár hasgairm díocht sa sná, Agus dág a mé mo bháileacht, An bháileann an grúamíocht thábh. When I awoke to the bright light, I rose to my feet and a cold sight. Though cold amorn, To swim away I wouldn't mind, But curse that gloomy village, And leave it far behind. Sweeney does not tell us why he took offence with Eris Lannan. We assume he did not receive the hospitality he felt he was entitled to. But Irene Whelan believes that the people of Eris Lannan may have been under severe pressure, on occasion, during those troubled political times. There was some kind of an agrarian rebellion, like a white boy episode, and Eris Lannan was kind of dragooned, or they put sentries to stop people getting out of it. And it could be that Sweeney was in Eris Lannan looking for sanctuary, and they wouldn't give it to him. Poets can be a tetchy crowd, hard to please and quick to compose. Sweeney's attacks survive, and they are worth keeping for their lyrical power, and they are important records of those times. Those qualities live on, long after any offence passes. While Sweeney travelled around North and West Cunnamara, he was well settled in the area, and much less a wandering bard than his contemporary, and the much more celebrated poet, Anthony O'Rastra. Blind Raftery came from Mayo, and he spent most of his life in East and South Galway. Raftery knew of Sweeney, and respected him. He composed a wedding satire similar to Sweeney's, and he thanked the Cunnamara poet, in verse, for inspiration. The reason Raftery is much more celebrated than Sweeney is not because his verse is superior, but because it was collected some generations later from the local people by the most famous luminaries of the Celtic Renaissance. The reason Raftery is remembered, and Sweeney isn't, is because Raftery's work was collected by Lady Gregory from somebody in the Loughrey workhouse, and printed, and it went into the curriculum. Lady Gregory went in to visit these two old ladies in the poorhouse, the famous story, and they were poor, didn't have a penny to their name, and yet they could argue, who was the better poet, Raftery or Carna? And we still have, you know, we would have an old argument about something like that ourselves. The Carna poet Josie Goodham grew up hearing of Sweeney from his father and neighbours. Later, he read the printed versions of Sweeney's poetry in two collections published by Professor Thomas O'Mawdley, who came from Maham, in the early 1900s. These are Óraann Chomhnaigeal and Níol Macsibhne agus Fili an Sléide. Recently, Macsibhne, and indeed all poets from Connemara, have been left out of Thomas Kinsella's major anthology, Poems of the Dispossessed, Gaelic poetry from 1600 to 1900. This is perhaps a double dispossession then for Sweeney and for Connemara. Josie resents this exclusion and feels keenly that Sweeney is in danger of being forgotten. Upon reading Macsibhne's songs in Óraann Chomhnaigeal, he felt as if Sweeney the poet came to his side. Josie then composed a poem to Sweeney, lamenting his neglect, wondering if he is still remembered in Arislannan, praising the scholars who published him for posterity. The poem is called An Lúbhar Láir The Missing Link. The poem is called An Lúbhar Láir The Missing Link. The poem is called An Lúbhar Láir The Missing Link. The poem is called An Lúbhar Láir The Missing Link. The poem is called An Lúbhar Láir The Missing Link. The poem is called An Lúbhar Láir The Missing Link. The poem is called An Lúbhar Láir The Missing Link. The poem is called An Lúbhar Láir The Missing Link. The poem is called An Lúbhar Láir The Missing Link. The poem is called An Lúbhar Láir The Missing Link. The poem is called An Lúbhar Láir The Missing Link. The poem is called An Lúbhar Láir The Missing Link. The poem is called An Lúbhar Láir The Missing Link. The poem is called An Lúbhar Láir The Missing Link. 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The poem is called An Lúbhar Láir The Missing Link. The poem is called An Lúbhar Láir The Missing Link. The poem is called An Lúbhar Láir The Missing Link. The poem is called An Lúbhar Láir The Missing Link. The poem is called An Lúbhar Láir The Missing Link. The poem is called An Lúbhar Láir The Missing Link. The poem is called An Lúbhar Láir The Missing Link. The poem is called An Lúbhar Láir The Missing Link. The poem is called An Lúbhar Láir The Missing Link. The poem is called An Lúbhar Láir The Missing Link. The poem is called An Lúbhar Láir The Missing Link. The poem is called An Lúbhar Láir The Missing Link. The poem is called An Lúbhar Láir The Missing Link. The poem is called An Lúbhar Láir The Missing Link. The poem is called An Lúbhar Láir The Missing Link. The poem is called An Lúbhar Láir The Missing Link. The poem is called An Lúbhar Láir The Missing Link. The poem is called An Lúbhar Láir The Missing Link. The poem is called An Lúbhar Láir The Missing Link. The poem is called An Lúbhar Láir The Missing Link. The poem is called An Lúbhar Láir The Missing Link. An Lúbhar Láir An Lúbhar Láir An Lúbhar Láir An Lúbhar Láir An Lúbhar Láir An Lúbhar Láir An Lúbhar Láir An Lúbhar Láir An Lúbhar Láir An Lúbhar Láir An Lúbhar Láir An Lúbhar Láir An Lúbhar Láir An Lúbhar Láir I was told that she was going to give birth and that she was going to give birth and that she was going to give birth or perhaps that Micheál was too old to say the few words she had to say. Micheál MacSibne's son was born in my yard with a black letter on his ear and it's said that he's in the hospital. He was a very young boy when he was born in my yard. But a new family came into the house in the night and they said to him that he was too old to say the few words he had to say. Micheál MacSibne's son was born in my yard with a black letter on his ear and it's said that he's in the hospital. Micheál MacSibne's son was born in my yard with a black letter on his ear and it's said that he's too old to say the few words he had to say. He was a very young boy when he was born and it's said that he's too old to say the few words he had to say. He was a very young boy when he was born and it's said that he's too old to say the few words he had to say. He was a very young boy when he was born and it's said that he's too old to say the few words he had to say. He was a very young boy when he was born and it's said that he's too old to say the few words he had to say. He was a very young boy when he was born and it's said that he's too old to say the few words he had to say. He was a very young boy when he was born and it's said that he's too old to say the few words he had to say. He was a very young boy when he was born and it's said that he's too old to say the few words he had to say. He was a very young boy when he was born and it's said that he's too old to say the few words he had to say. He was a very young boy when he was born and it's said that he's too old to say the few words he had to say. He was a very young boy when he was born and it's said that he's too old to say the few words he had to say. He was a very young boy when he was born and it's said that he's too old to say the few words he had to say. He was a very young boy when he was born and it's said that he's too old to say the few words he had to say. He was a very young boy when he was born and it's said that he's too old to say the few words he had to say. He was a very young boy when he was born and it's said that he's too old to say the few words he had to say. I'm not that old, it's all they were saying. I was a young boy when I was born and it's said that he's too old to say the few words he had to say. He was a very young boy when he was born and it's said that he's too old to say the few words he had to say. He was a very young boy when he was born and it's said that he's too old to say the few words he had to say. He was a very young boy when he was born and it's said that he's too old to say the few words he had to say. He was a very young boy when he was born and it's said that he's too old to say the few words he had to say. He was a very young boy when he was born and it's said that he's too old to say the few words he had to say. He was a very young boy when he was born and it's said that he's too old to say the few words he had to say. He was a very young boy when he was born and it's said that he's too old to say the few words he had to say. He was a very young boy when he was born and it's said that he's too old to say the few words he had to say. He was a very young boy when he was born and it's said that he's too old to say the few words he had to say. He was a very young boy when he was born and it's said that he's too old to say the few words he had to say. That's what Thomas Roach had now. The father and son were in Galway with the Bawd Moor and they died and it's likely if that happened that they died of cholera or something that killed them very quickly and the wife was left widowed, bid flatterty and the Sweeneys married in. It seems Neil Moxibna did not have children. Perhaps he married late in life. Most surviving poems and songs give no insight into married life. They're more concerned with his yearning for young women, with activities of the time such as smuggling, with poems in praise of hospitality or the lack of it. The times were hard and there's no doubt Sweeneys fell on hard times on more than one occasion. The classic song of hard times in Connemara is The Rocks Are Bone and there is a belief that this song, although in English, is actually a Sweeney song. Now the period after the Napoleonic War that ended in 1815, there was a severe famine at the time and he fell on very hard times. He ended up in a jail of Boer. And what you were quoting there, the language about his shoes being ripped and his stockings torn and he's always inside in the pubs. It was part of what was handed down in the Roach family that The Rocks Are Bone was the Sweeney song. That either Sweeney or the stepbrother wrote The Rocks Are Bone and the language is exactly the same. The Rocks Are Bone The Rocks Are Bone The Rocks Are Bone The Rocks Are Bone The Rocks Are Bone The language of The Rocks Are Bone mirrors Sweeney's Irish work, especially his biographical song, Mí Chulmachtaibhne. In this song, he talks about himself as a failed farmer whose family would be glad to see him off to newfound land. He enjoyed socialising and drinking and warned the young women not to take him too seriously. Perhaps his words to them are meant for all listeners, in particular those whose villages he cursed in his moments of anger throughout the years. Mí Chulmachtaibhne Mí Chulmachtaibhne Mí Chulmachtaibhne Mí Chulmachtaibhne Mí Chulmachtaibhne Mí Chulmachtaibhne Mí Chulmachtaibhne Mí Chulmachtaibhne Mí Chulmachtaibhne Mí Chulmachtaibhne Mí Chulmachtaibhne Mí Chulmachtaibhne Mí Chulmachtaibhne Mí Chulmachtaibhne Conversing about Mí Chulmachtaibhne Conversing about Mí Chulmachtaibhne Produced and presented by Mike O'Gannon. This programme was kindly funded by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland with the television licencee. Mí Chulmachtaibhne Mí Chulmachtaibhne Mí Chulmachtaibhne Mí Chulmachtaibhne Mí Chulmachtaibhne Mí Chulmachtaibhne Mí Chulmachtaibhne Mí Chulmachtaibhne Mí Chulmachtaibhne Mí Chulmachtaibhne