Coping With The Unspeakable.
My husband and I love music of all kinds. We love to sing and we play several instruments (some less well than others.) There is something about music that charms us, soothes us, inspires us. And we find ourselves constantly circling around music.
Some years ago, when my husband was learning to play the bagpipe, we acquired a taste for Scottish and Irish things. One day, while doing a little research trying to find authentic Irish and Scottish music, we came across an interesting cassette tape (anyone remember THAT technology? It followed 8-tracks). The cassette we found was of immediate interest to us. It was quite charming in its earnestness, and its particularly quaint folk style.
That CD was by the Grehan Sisters. We were instantly charmed.
In particular, I was drawn to a particular song, and their singing of it. The WEXFORD MASSACRE. On the sleeve it says: “The Wexford Massacre was written in 1649 by M. J. Barry. It is a beautiful and pathetic ballad with an equally beautiful air and tells of the mass murder of innocent men, women and children carried out by the hated Cromwell in the town and county of Wexford."
This song is a reminder to me, that music is often an effort to speak on, and deal with the unspeakable. It reminds us that we are not the first to feel crushing pain, or sharp injustice. Others, too, long before us, have felt the pain and emotions we feel. Even if the situation the music speaks to is not the same as we might experience, we can feel a bond and know that others have also felt that pain,or that suffering.
The Wexford massacre is a cry about injustice and devastation. Because the words of the Grehan sisters are very difficult to understand (perhaps muffled articulation is a part of the styling for this type of song), I thought it would be helpful to you to be able to read the lyrics.
THE WEXFORD MASSACRE
They knelt around the cross divine
The matron and the maid
They bowed before redemption's sign
And fervently they prayed
Three hundred fair and helpless ones
Whose crime was this alone
Their valiant husbands, sires and sons
Had battled for their own
Had battled bravely but in vain
The Saxon won the fight
The Irish corpses strewed the plain
Where valour slept with right
And now that man of demon guilt
To fated Wexford flew
The red blood reeking on his hilt
Of hearts to Erin true
He found them there, the young, the old
The maiden and the wife
Their guardians brave in death were called
Who dared for them the strife
They prayed for mercy, God on high,
Before Thy cross they prayed
But ruthless Cromwell bade them die
To glut the Saxon blade
Three hundred fell, the stifled prayer
Was quenched in women's blood
Nor youth nor age could move to spare
From slaughter's crimson flood
But nations keep a stern account
Of deeds that tyrants do
And guiltless blood to Heaven will mount
And Heaven avenge it too.
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