This is an original song composed by Michael McGlynn. It appears on Anúna’s 1997 album Behind The Closed Eye (remastered in 2003).

The text uses fragments of the traditional poem Anach Cuain. this was composed by the travelling Irish poet, Antoine Ó Raifteiri, as a lament of the twenty people from Annaghdown (Anach Cuan) who drowned at Menlo, Galway, on 4 September 1828 while on their way to a fair in Galway. Annaghdown is a parish in County Galway, Ireland. It takes its name from Eanach Dhúin, Irish for “the marsh of the fort”.

From Áine Cooke

About thirty villagers with ten sheep and other goods set off in an old boat from the shores of Lough Corrib to go the eight miles into Galway. In those days there was no direct road, and the lake was the nearest way. The boat was rotten, and within two miles of Galway it sprung a leak. One of the men tried to plug it with his coat, and pressing with his heel to drive it more firmly in, drove the whole plank out of the boat. In a few seconds all of these poor people were struggling in the water, and although they were close to land, nineteen of them drowned, eleven men and eight women.