Lyr Add: Grace (Frank & Sean O'Meara)

Subject: Lyr Add: GRACE (Frank & Sean O'Meara)
From: Ezio
Date: 16 May 98 - 03:07 AM

GRACE

As we gather in the chapel here in old Kilmainham Jail
I think about these past few weeks, oh will they say we've failed
From our schooldays they have told us we must yearn for liberty
Yet all I want in this dark place is to have you here with me.

Chorus
Oh Grace just hold me in your arms and let this moment linger
They'll take me out at dawn and I will die
With all my love I place this wedding ring upon your finger
There won't be time to share our love for we must say goodbye.

Now I know it's hard for you my love to ever understand
The love I bear for these brave men, my love for this dear land
But when the Padhraic called me to his side down in the GPO
I had to leave my own sick bed, to him I had to go

Chorus

Now as dawn is breaking, my heart is breaking too,
On this May morn as I walk out my thoughts will be of you
And I'll write some words upon the wall so everyone will know
I love so much that I could see his blood upon the rose.

Chorus

^^

---

Note: This song was written in 1985 by Frank & Sean O'Meara.
-Joe Offer-

Click for related thread

Subject: RE: LYR ADD: Grace
From: Brack&
Date: 16 May 98 - 08:39 AM

If ever you have a trip to Dublin, visit Kilmainham Jail and do the tour. You'll learn the story of this lovely song. Joseph Plunkett was arrested for taking part in the Easter rising in Dudlin 1916. On May 3rd in the evening he was allowed to marry Grace Gifford in the prison chapel. The couple were then separated. Next morning she was summoned to say goodbye to her husband of a few hours. They spoke for about ten minutes and then Joseph was executed. (shot)

The line that says " I had to leave my own sick bed" refers to the fact that Joseph was suffering from TB at the time.

The last verse mentions the blood upon the rose which was the title of a poem by Joseph which was taught in Irish Schools according to my mother!

The blood upon the rose is a reference to Christ's blood.

Mick

Subject: RE: LYR ADD: Grace
From: Ezio
Date: 19 May 98 - 02:30 AM

Thanx Brack& for your comments - now I can understand better this beautiful song. Ciao

Subject: RE: LYR ADD: Grace
From: MissMac
Date: 05 Jul 99 - 10:23 PM

Does any one know were to get a copy of the poem by Joseph that Brack& was talking about? Is it still taught in Irish schools? My partner sings this song and I would like to see the poem to see if it could be used in conjunction with the song. curiosity strikes again. MissMac

Click Here, Miss Mac - "Blood Upon the Rose"
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: LYR ADD: Grace
From: Hummybird
Date: 06 Jul 99 - 01:07 PM

Have you heard Tony Kearns (the Irish Tenors, what a voice!) sing that? It is so touching. Brack&, Do you know what the GPO is? By the way, if you're in the Phila. area, the Tenors will be in concert there this month.

Subject: RE: LYR ADD: Grace
From: SingsIrish Songs
Date: 06 Jul 99 - 01:12 PM

Bet it is a sold out event! (Irish Tenors)

Subject: RE: LYR ADD: Grace
From: Wolfgang
Date: 07 Jul 99 - 10:33 AM

GPO: general post office, rebels' headquarter and site of the proclamation of the Irish Republic in 1916

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: LYR ADD: Grace
From: Hummybird
Date: 07 Jul 99 - 03:05 PM

Thank you. I'll be seeing the Irish Tenors concert in Phila. this month. After all this talk about "Grace", I sure hope they perform that song. For anyone's interested, they're on tour in the NY, PA, Conn. area this month. (Ticketmaster would have the dates and places)

Subject: RE: LYR ADD: Grace
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Jul 99 - 03:14 PM

Anybody know who wrote "Grace," and when? I have a recording from Paddy Reilly that credits it to "O'Meara/O'Meara Asdee Music" - does anybody have full information? Know of other recordings of the song?
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: LYR ADD: Grace
From: MudGuard
Date: 08 Jul 99 - 02:32 AM

It was also recorded by "The Fighting Men From Crossmaglen" on their "50 Complete Irish Rebel Songs" album (don't know why it says complete: most songs on this recordings are known to have more verses, and sure there are more than these 50 Irish rebel songs...).

Subject: RE: LYR ADD: Grace
From:
Date: 08 Jul 99 - 07:23 AM

In the last verse of this song, to what does the line

"And I'll write some words upon the wall so everyone will know"

refer?

Subject: RE: LYR ADD: Grace
From: SingsIrish Songs
Date: 08 Jul 99 - 12:41 PM

Here's the link to the thread re Joseph Plunkett's poem referred to in the song "Grace". (just to tie the related threads together.) Thread name: Blood Upon the Rose - poem by Joseph Plunkett

to poem

Subject: RE: LYR ADD: Grace
From: Frank
Date: 09 Jul 99 - 10:08 AM

still looking for an answer to this question:

In the last verse of this song, to what does the line

"And I'll write some words upon the wall so everyone will know" refer?

Anyone???

Subject: RE: LYR ADD: Grace
From: Martin Ryan.(duplicate)
Date: 11 Jul 99 - 07:02 PM

FranK

As in most prisons, I suspect, the walls of Kilmainham Jail are covered wiht the graffiti of generations of prisoners!

Regards

Subject: RE: LYR ADD: Grace
From: Joe Offer
Date: 12 Jul 99 - 03:20 AM

Did we come up with a name of the songwriter and date of composition for "Grace"?
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: LYR ADD: Grace
From: Hummybird
Date: 13 Jul 99 - 08:08 PM

Joe: From my Irish Tenors CD, the songwriters are Frank & Sean O'Meara, not dated.

Subject: RE: LYR ADD: Grace
From: JedMarum
Date: 08 Feb 00 - 04:28 PM

Joseph Plunkett was a poet and a scholar. He had a passion for the mystic poets; St Francis, John Donne ... he was passionate, likewise for the cause of Ireland's freedom, and turn out to be an unlikley, and perhaps unsuitable military leader. His acts of bravery and love in the final days of life are commemorated in this most beautiful of songs ... which are taken in part, from his very own verse. Plunkett gave his life for a cause he believed in, and Frank & Sean O'Meara have given the world a gift in this song not so much about Plunkett's acts, as much as his love. The song tells a moving story.

Subject: RE: LYR ADD: Grace
From: JedMarum
Date: 08 Feb 00 - 04:41 PM

by the way ... I have to say this is the loveliest song I have ever heard.

Subject: RE: LYR ADD: Grace
From: JedMarum
Date: 08 Feb 00 - 08:07 PM

I believe the last verse reference, "And I'll write some words upon the wall so everyone will know" is the author's way to tie Plunkett's own words, to the song. As said in the thread above, it is not uncommon for the "I was here" sort of graffiti to accumulate in prison cells, and as we know, the real Joseph Plunkett penned a poem that in deed left behind his deepest thoughts to share with others ... and that poem expressed the thought that he 'loved so much that he could see His blood upon the rose'

I believe the author pictures Plunkett penning those words on the prison cell walls.

Subject: Lyr Add: THE PLANETS SEVEN (Joseph Mary Plunkett)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Feb 00 - 09:35 PM

Joseph Mary Plunkett. I've got a battered selection of his poems I picked up in a junk shop in Clonmel. It must have been printed fairly soon after he was shot - because it talks of him as being dead, buit never mentions the circumstances of his death. Wartime censorship I imagine.

Anyway, here's a ballad he wrote that's included in the introduction written by his sister Geraldine. I've never seen it anywhere else:

The planets seven that swing through Heaven
On a golden tether round their Lord the Sun,
Are not so humble, but they sometimes grumble,
That their life is humdrum with but little fun.
Though that shining sickle the moon's not fickle,
Yet she's sometimes mickle and more times less,
But my love, my blessing, would give them a lesson
Both the stars and crescent in graciousness.

There's many a flower in a heavy shower
Would say that its hour of grief was black
And the bearded barley would take it hardly
In the morning early to be cut and stacked;
The silver herring off the coast of Kerry
Is not so merry to meet with death,
But my love, my children, she would beguile them
With her easy smiling while he stopped their breath.

If the stars lack teachers, or ever a preacher
To recall the creatures to the ways of God,
Let them cease to whistle and come and listen
Kneeling like Christians upon the sod;
Then Saint Columba will shake the slumber
Of Death that cumbers their tired eyes
And my love will glance with a look entrancing
And send them dancing to Paradise.

"The flowers of heaven and earth are the same flowers."

Subject: RE: LYR ADD: Grace
From: JedMarum
Date: 09 Feb 00 - 08:48 AM

have you ever heard this ballad sung?

Subject: RE: LYR ADD: Grace
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Feb 00 - 02:44 PM

Never heard it sung - the only place I've found it is in that introduction by Geraldine Plunkett - it's one of two included there (she reckoned that they would have been "out of place in the text", presumably since it's a song rather than a poem as such)). It was originally published in the National Student, the magazine of the students of the University of Dublin.

The other one included is "The Foot and Mouth", which appears in Colm O Lochlann's Irtish Streets Ballads, with the tune given as "The Groves of Blarney". That would fit to this one as well, since the metre is identical. (I'll post the Foot and Mouth ballad here soon - what with the Mad Cow disease it's got a new kind of topicality.)

And there's a third ballad "better than either of these which follow, that it is perhaps too soon to publish." I think that has to mean it is more directly to do with rebellion. If anyone can point me to it anywhere, I'd love to see it.

Subject: RE: LYR ADD: Grace
From: GUEST,ray
Date: 20 Sep 08 - 07:17 AM

could any one tell me the finger play order as im learning this as my first song on guitar.ta.

Subject: RE: LYR ADD: Grace
From: goatfell
Date: 20 Sep 08 - 09:34 AM

it is a lovely song I was brought up as a protestant but now I'm a Christain so I don't have the baggages that both Catholics and Protestants have, because when you're a born again Christian, you have that burden taken away and you wake up every morning with a new mind set.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Grace (Frank & Sean O'Meara)
From: GUEST,Darren O'Meara
Date: 21 Jun 09 - 04:25 PM

I am the son of Frank O.Meara who wrote Grace with his Brother my uncle sean. the Line in the last verse refers to the poem Joseph Mary Plunkett
himself wrote I see His Blood upon the rose.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Grace (Frank & Sean O'Meara)
From: GUEST,Sara
Date: 15 Jan 10 - 03:06 AM

Does anybody know where I can find a backing track for this song?
Its on of my favorites, but apparently I need a backing track for it for my Junior Cert music practical.
Thanks in advance.