Be thou my vision, "Rop tú mo Baile"

The original words of this hymn are in early middle Irish, probably of the 10th or 12th century.  The earliest written versions, however, are in two manuscripts, one of the 16th century (Royal Irish Academy ms. 23 N 10) and one perhaps somewhat earlier (National Library of Ireland ms. 3).  Although the hymn has been traditionally attributed to Dallán Forgaill (aka Eochaid mac Colla (c. 560 – 640), an Irish Christian poet, contemporary of St Columba, there is no evidence for his authorship, and the language is of a later time.

 

Mary E. Byrne, a philologist and lexicographer, and a member of Conradh na Gaeilge (the Gaelic League), translated the words into English prose as “A Prayer,” in Eriú, Jour­nal of the School of Ir­ish Learn­ing, 1905. Indeed, it is a prayer known in the Irish monastic tradition as a lorica, a prayer for protection.  Later Eleanor H. Hull, a folklorist and co-founder of the Irish Text Society, published a verse version of Byrne’s translation in Poem Book of the Gael 1912. It is Hull’s versification that forms the basis for the English hymn.

The tune “Slane” is a traditional Irish folk tune said to have been commonly used for “With My Love on the Road.” There seem to be no words to this title; it probably isn’t a ballad, but only an air.    It is printed in Patrick Joyce’s Old Irish Folk Music and Songs (1909), as is a variant of the tune called "By the Banks of the Bann." This is a song of seduction and abandonment probably originating in County Down.  The Hill of Slane, which provides the name of the tune, is in County Meath, north of Dublin.  According to an Irish legend, it’s the spot where St Patrick defied a command of the ferocious High King Laoghaire mac Neill.  Laoghaire, a Druid, ordered that when he lit a fire on the Hill of Tara to honour the sun, no other fires were to be lit anywhere.  But it was the time of the Great Vigil of Easter, and Patrick lit the Paschal fire on the Hill of Slane, 10 miles away.  Unexpectedly, Laoghaire didn’t execute Patrick on the spot, but was so impressed by Patrick’s devoted faith that he permitted him to carry out his missionary work.

The poem and the tune were first linked in 1919 in the Irish Church Hymnal in a harmonization by Leopold L. Dix (1861-1935).