Cill Chais - arr. Marian Ingoldsby

La Caccina performs Marian Ingoldsby's arrangement of "Cill Chais" live in concert on May 17, 2024 at Mrs. Murphy and Sons Irish Bistro in Chicago, IL.
Video by Atlas Arts Media.

La Caccina champions and performs diverse, innovative repertoire for women's voices to engage audiences and inspire the next generation of collaborative musicians.

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Translation:
Now what will we do for timber,
with the last of the woods laid low?
There’s no talk of Cill Chais or its household
and its bell will be struck no more.
That dwelling where lived the good lady
most honored and joyous of women
— earls made their way over wave there
and the sweet Mass once was said.

Ducks’ voices nor geese do I hear there,
nor the eagle’s cry over the bay,
nor even the bees at their labor
bringing honey and wax to us all.
No birdsong there, sweet and delightful,
as we watch the sun go down,
nor cuckoo on top of the branches
settling the world to rest.

A mist on the boughs is descending
neither daylight nor sun can clear.
A stain from the sky is descending
and the waters receding away.
No hazel nor holly nor berry
but boulders and bare stone heaps,
not a branch in our neighborly haggard,
and the game all scattered and gone.

Then a climax to all our misery:
the prince of the Gael is abroad
oversea with that maiden of mildness
who found honor in France and Spain.
Her company now must lament her,
who would give yellow money and white
— she who’d never take land from the people
but was friend to the truly poor.

I call upon Mary and Jesus
to send her safe home again:
dances we’ll have in long circles
and bone-fires and violin music;
that Cill Chais, the townland of our fathers,
will rise handsomely on high once more
and till doom — or the Deluge returns —
we’ll see it no more laid low.