If you have ever visited Ireland, the odds are slim you escaped the island without hearing this song at least once (if not ten times). Written in 1979 by Pete St. John, it entered deep into the Irish consciousness of the late 70s, alongside J.R. and the Southfork crowd. Most Irish know the chorus by heart, but may not be familiar with the verses. The song tells the tragic story of Michael and Mary, a fictional couple with young children, trying to survive the great Irish famine of the mid-19th century. Weaving in history, St. John tells the story of Lord Trevelyan’s commission to feed the Irish with imported corn, rationed corn, that could not overcome the wave of hunger. Many times the corn stores were raided by people trying to survive. In the opening verse of the song, we already know that Michael has been caught trying to steal corn. The penalty if caught in this case, is banishment to the great southern penal colony of Australia.

By a lonely prison wall, I heard a young girl calling, “Michael, they are taking you away. For you stole Trevelyan’s corn, so the young would see the morn. Now a prison ship lies waiting in the bay.”

The Great Famine would see one million starve and one million leave the island. I’m convinced that people who carry Irish blood, carry with it the memory of that trauma, and their way of grieving it is to find beauty in such horror through songs like this. Hibernians (what the Roman’s called us) will joke about just anything, but there is one thing I have noticed that seems off limits; An Gora Mor.

Through taking classes at the Old Town School of folk in Chicago in 1993, I learned finger picking techniques. The school is famous for teaching different arrangements of them. I took that training and applied it to this song. My mother had bought me a song book, and this was the first one I picked from it. I sang it to the kids when they were young. Now, my daughter Finn, a woman (who currently works at my local pub, the Cottage) will join me on stage to sing it; two surviving seeds from the Connaught soil hardest hit. It’s tempting for me to just plow through the song out of boredom, because it’s my most played song. This year marks 30 years of playing it, but the advantage of playing it in south Texas every week is that someone is walking into the pub and coming across the gem for the first time.

Enjoy