This is a traditional Irish song written by 18th-century poet Seán Clárach Mac Domhnaill, to honor Prince Charles Stewart (“Bonnie Prince Charlie”). Mo Ghile Mear is his most famous poem. It is a lament or caoineadh that was written after the defeat of the Bonnie Prince Charles at the Battle of Culloden, Scotland, in 1746. The Irish poets had pinned their hopes on this revolutionary prince and his flight was a crushing blow to the long-suffering Gaeil of both Éire and Scotland. Their exasperation and despair is vividly portrayed in this poem. Like all other Gaelic poems of the time, Mo Ghile Mear would have been sung rather than recited; indeed, the melody is well-known today.

Seán was born in the year 1691 in Churchtown, County Cork, Ireland. However, he lived out his life in Kiltoohig (Cill Tuathaigh), Charleville, so this is the town with which he is most associated. Very little is known about his youth or his family. He did, however, receive a comprehensive education, in spite of the Penal Laws of the time. Either in the home or in a hedge school, he learned Latin, Ancient Greek and English as well as Irish, his native tongue. This fact is borne out by the epitaph on his gravestone.

Many of Seán Clárach’s poems are characterised by a longing for the coming of a just, preferably Catholic, King to the throne of England. Ireland had been conquered by the English in the 17th century much to the despair of the poets, who lost the patronage of their defeated or exiled Gaelic lords. Seán Clárach and others were forced to work as spailpíní, or migratory labourers. Eyes therefore turned to Stuart Kings of England, in the hope that help would come from them.