Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Bono

Here's a quote from Dubliner Bono for St Patrick's Day:

Great music is written by people who are either running toward or away from God.

Here, from St Patrick's Breastplate, an example of the former:

Happy St Patrick's Day!

What could be more Irish than this Old Irish poem-turned-hymn?  This hymn has grown in popularity while many previously better-known hymns have disappeared under the flood of Contemporary Christian Music.  This seems partly because of the growing popularity of Irish culture.

But I, for one, have never heard this hymn in Gaelic.  The words I think of as 'Irish' are owed to a Victorian lady born and deceased in England whose love of Irish literature led her to translate this and countless other Old Irish works.  Next time you hear this song in a worship experience it is worth sparing a thought for a lady of not specially noted spirituality doing her 19th century translations in love of the Old Irish language unwittingly being used by God to create something for worship in the 21st century. 

You never know what God's up to . . .  

March 17th as seen during our morning service . . .