View source for Mise Éire

{{Short description|Poem by Patrick Pearse (1912)}}
{{other uses}}
{{Use Hiberno-English|date=September 2025}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

'''''Mise Éire''''' ({{IPA|ga|ˈmʲɪʃə ˈeːɾʲə|pron}}, [[Irish language|Irish]] for "I [am] Ireland") is a 1912 [[Irish language|Irish-language]] poem by the [[Irish people|Irish]] poet and [[Irish republicanism|Republican]] revolutionary leader [[Patrick Pearse]].

== Political relevance ==
In the poem, Pearse personifies Ireland as an old woman whose glory is past and who has been sold by her children.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=loeoi9tnWm0C&dq=pearse+%22mise+eire%22&pg=PA284 |pages=283–84 |title=The Oxford Illustrated History of Ireland |first=Robert Fitzroy |last=Foster |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2001 |isbn=0-19-289323-8}}</ref>

=== Later use ===

Described as both a literary and historical text, it was regularly used by Republican prisoners in [[Long Kesh]] prison as a means of learning and teaching [[Irish language|Irish]].<ref name="Chriost2012">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=in2vBwAAQBAJ|title=Jailtacht: The Irish Language, Symbolic Power and Political Violence in Northern Ireland, 1972-2008|author=Diarmait Mac Giolla Chriost|date=5 January 2012|publisher=University of Wales Press|isbn=978-0-7083-2497-4}}</ref>{{refn|Officially, the only literature allowed in the prisoners' cells was the Bible, which was also translated in and out of Irish.<ref name="Chriost2012" />|group=note}} ''Is Mise'' continues to be relevant in post-[[Partition of Ireland|partition]] Ireland, suggest scholars, as illustrating of the difficulties in identifying "Irishness" in [[Northern Ireland]].<ref name="ByrneKirwan2009">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Qi9h-xmdO3oC&pg=PR15|title=Affecting Irishness: Negotiating Cultural Identity Within and Beyond the Nation|author1=James P. Byrne|author2=Padraig Kirwan|author3=Michael O'Sullivan|publisher=Peter Lang|year=2009|isbn=978-3-03911-830-4|pages=15–}}</ref>

=== {{Anchor|Film}} Film ===
The title of the poem was used as a title for a 1959 documentary film by [[George Morrison (documentary maker)|George Morrison]], which dealt with key figures and events in Irish Nationalism between the 1890s and the 1910s, including Pearse himself.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.irishmusicreview.com/miseeire.htm|title=Mise Éire|publisher=The Irish Music Review|accessdate=30 March 2014}}</ref> [[Seán Ó Riada]] wrote a [[soundtrack]] for the film, also titled 'Mise Éire'.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Clear |first1=Caitriona |title=Women's Voices in Ireland Women's Magazines in the 1950s and 60s |date=2015 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing}}</ref>

=== Counter view ===
A poem of the same name by [[Eavan Boland]] was written as a counter to Pearse's poem, and its treatment of Ireland and her children.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qZ6W1LiIyYYC&dq=pearse+%22mise+eire%22&pg=PA1295|title=The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing: Irish Women's Writing and Traditions|last=Bourke|first=Angela|publisher=New York University Press|year=2002|isbn=0-8147-9908-6|page=1295}}</ref> Pearse had already written optimistically on the fate of Ireland's strong sons' martyrdom in his poem "The Mother"; ''Is Mise'' takes the opposite, more pessimistic view of the sacrifice.<ref name="FosterFoster2001">{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/oxfordhistoryofi00rffo|url-access=registration|title=The Oxford History of Ireland|author1=R. F. Foster|author2=Robert Fitzroy Foster|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2001|isbn=978-0-19-280202-6}}</ref> In the words of Boss, Nordin and Orlinder, Boland "opposes and corrects Pearse's view on Ireland...No longer, as in the earlier poem, is the personification of the country 'older than the Old Woman of Beare' but 'a sloven's mix'. The glory of having born 'Cuchulain 
the valiant' is turned into the picture of the woman 'holding her half-dead baby to her'.<ref name="BossNordin2006">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aslZDwAAQBAJ|title=Re-Mapping Exile: Realities and Metaphors in Irish Literature and History|author1=Michael Boss|author2=Irene Gilsenan Nordin|author3=Britta Olinder|date=1 May 2006|publisher=Aarhus University Press|isbn=978-87-7934-922-3}}</ref>

== Cultural usage ==

In 2016, the poem was set to music composed by [[Patrick Cassidy (composer)|Patrick Cassidy]] and performed by the [[RTÉ Concert Orchestra]] for the score of the [[PBS]] documentary series ''1916: An Irish Rebellion'', curated by the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies at the University of Notre Dame.<ref name="young vocalist">{{Cite web |url=http://www.rte.ie/ten/news/2016/0326/777027-young-gaeltacht-vocalist/ |title=Young Gaeltacht vocalist brings Pearse poem to life |accessdate=26 March 2016 |publisher=[[Raidió Teilifís Éireann]] }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://1916.nd.edu/making-1916-the-irish-rebellion/creative-team |title=Making 1916 An Irish Rebellion - Creative Team|accessdate=26 March 2016 |publisher=Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies at the University of Notre Dame }}</ref> It was also performed by [[Sibéal Ní Chasaide]] at the [[Centenary (concert)|Centenary concert]] commemorating the [[1916 Rising]].<ref name="young vocalist"/>

== The text ==
'''Irish (direct translation)'''
{{Verse translation|lang=ga|
Mise Éire:
Sine mé ná an Chailleach Bhéarra

Mór mo ghlóir:
Mé a rug Cú Chulainn cróga.

Mór mo náir:
Mo chlann féin a dhíol a máthair.

Mór mo phian:
Bithnaimhde do mo shíorchiapadh.

Mór mo bhrón:
D'éag an dream inar chuireas dóchas.

Mise Éire:
Uaigní mé ná an Chailleach Bhéarra.
|
I am Ireland:
I am older than the [[The Hag of Beara|Hag]] of [[Beara Peninsula|Beara]].

Great my glory:
I who bore brave [[Cú Chulainn]].

Great my shame:
My own children that sold their mother.

Great my pain:
My irreconcilable enemies who harass me continually.

Great my sorrow:
That crowd, in whom I placed my trust, decayed.

I am Ireland:
I am lonelier than the Hag of Beara.}}

==See also==
* [[Kathleen Ni Houlihan]]
* [[Róisín Dubh (song)]]
* [[The Sean-Bhean bhocht]]
* [[Hibernia (personification)]]
* [[Four Green Fields]]

== Notes ==
{{reflist|group=note}}

== References ==
{{reflist|2}}

==External links==
*{{IMDb title|qid=Q20881248}}

{{wikisourcelang||Mise Éire}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mise Eire}}
[[Category:Irish poetry]]
[[Category:Irish language]]
[[Category:Personifications of Ireland]]
[[Category:1950s in Irish music]]