OMNIS (1995 & 1996)

ANÚNA

Artistic Director Michael McGlynn

Miriam Blennerhassett
Richard Boyle
Paul Byrne
Paula Byrne
Lucy Champion
Ian Curran
Ciarán Brady
Sara Clancy
David Clarke
Paddy Connolly
Tony Davoren
Roisín Dempsey
Monica Donlon
Peter Harney
Caron Hannigan
Stephen Kenny
Stuart Kinsella
Emer Lang
Máire Lang
Jacqui Mahon
Clionadh McDonough
John McGlynn
Katie McMahon
Mairéad Ní Fhaoláin
Méav Ní Mhaolchatha
Tara O'Beirne
Derek O'Gorman
Garrath Patterson
Eimear Quinn
Rachel Talbot

Jeffery Ledwidge

Eunan McDonald

Dearbhla Walsh

Andrew Redmond

Guitar John McGlynn. Percussion Noel Eccles.
Irish Harps Anne Marie O'Farrell & Máiréad Ní Fhaoláin
Violins Aingeala de Burca & Caron Hannigan
Organ Andrew Synnott

Sheet music available from www.michaelmcglynn.com
Recorded in Dublin between July 1992 and June 1996.
Produced by Michael McGlynn and Brian Masterson
Engineered by Brian Masterson.
Artwork by XCommunications (1995 edition), Brendan Donlon (1996 edition)
This album is dedicated to Lucy. From one world to another.
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If ever an album could be called a transition in the career of an artist, it is this one, Omnis, recorded initially on a couple of warm summer days in 1995 in Blackrock College, Co. Dublin. The album was created in the most turbulent and difficult times I have experienced. Anúna were at this time firmly ensconced with the Riverdance - The Show troupe, at that time located in Hammersmith in London, for an extended run. Packed audiences, celebrities looking for autographs, wild nights and international exposure on an unprecedented level for any choral group, before or since. Looking back now, it is understandably hard for people to grasp how unique a position we were in. There was no template, no mentors or advice. No one who had been to this place before. My business experience was nil and my music industry experience even less than that. Unlike other facets of Riverdance, Anúna was already fully formed, with two albums behind it, a defined ethos, a defined philosophy and a unique perspective on an art form more commonly associated with church choirs or professional classical singing. The impact we had cannot be underestimated. To this day, people still say this was a seminal album in their lives the one that played endlessly in parents CD players or on fragile cassette tapes in Song Walkmans Walkmans - until every note, every flaw, every rapturous swell was known.

The singers involved in Riverdance were strongly focused on that world, and while I was focused on looking after them and protecting the group’s ethos and image I was not on tour with them. I continued on in my little office at home making plans and creating lists of pieces I’d like to record. This time was not easy. The singers knew that it was ANÚNA had put them there and loved being part of it, but Riverdance was a troupe, and they really couldn’t be part of both. We all knew that I think so it was only a matter of time before this period of the group would draw to an end.

One unexpected consequence at this time was that Anúna became detached from choral music in Ireland. Classical reviewers stopped discussing the group in terms of innovation, and instead the word “Celtic”, nebulous and sometimes dismissive, appeared. Anúna is not a Celtic ensemble. It is a personal and cultural expression combining original music with responses to landscape, text, and history. A unique artefact maybe? I sometimes wonder what might have happened without Riverdance. Whether we might have become a cherished cultural presence in Ireland. Yet Riverdance opened extraordinary doors for me as a creative artist. I owe it so much.

At that time I was still young, and the singers were roughly my own age. They were friends first and colleagues second. Community and friendship mattered deeply to me. I also had to face how much they were changing under the influence of the vast machine that Riverdance had become. We moved from Eurovision to the Royal Variety Performance to Top of the Pops. Press, gossip, cast dramas and departures surrounded us. Riverdance was no longer about individuals. It was becoming an institution. Even as this record was being made, I had already decided to leave.

Omnis marked the end of the second phase of Anúna and the beginning of another. Very little new music appears on this record. “Raise Up Your Hunting Spear”, later retitled “Salve Rex Gloria” internationally, had roots in recordings from 1990 and 1991. Listening now, I hear in it an essence of my own inspiration - high energy, driving rhythm, vast momentum. The singing itself is imperfect, but full of life. My brother John nails the simple vocal line and by the time it ends we know we are in uncharted waters.

There were two editions recorded of the album within a single year, Danú 005 and Danú 008. By the time the first release appeared in late 1995 many of the singers had already disconnected from both me and the group. So, stubbornly, before the album was licensed to Celtic Heartbeat in mid 1996 I decided to record the album again from scratch. The second sessions took place alongside the recording of a new album, Deep Dead Blue. Some pieces were removed, others added. Confusing perhaps, but together the two versions form a single, complete statement - listen HERE.

Early works such as the “Tenebrae” settings appear on this disc for the first time, dating back to the 1980s. Rather than lean into an easy Irish identity, I included music that resisted categorisation. I have to thank Celtic Heartbeat for never interfering with the music on the international releases of the three records they licensed.

The album has a few folk song settings, a number of spiritual pieces and some truly strange and wonderful things. Máire Lang’s evocative solo singing opens into the cloud- like textures of “O Viridissima”, while “Tenebrae II” (aka “Tenebrae III”) shimmers onto another astral plane.

Sometimes something just materialises out of nowhere. Just before I was due to go into the session in the summer of 1995, I realised we simply did not have enough material, and most of it was quite slow. I sat at my battered old piano, bought when I was a very small child by my parents, and threw down a couple of phrases based on Irish children’s songs and dug up the Irish traditional poem “Dúlamán”. Initially I wanted a lilting opening that echoed the singing of children followed by something faster and stronger. Thus was born “Geantraí” and “Dúlamán”, originally a single work.

I wanted to create something like a recitative, so, ignoring bar lines and rhythmic structures, I set the text of purely using the Irish language text. The piece was was largely ignored on release. But in 1997, just after the international release, Frank Albinder, then artistic director of the American vocal group Chanticleer, heard the album and contacted me. I sent on the sheet music of “Dúlamán”, complete with a few notational errors. They recorded it, toured it, and since then the piece has come to define Irish language choral music internationally having been performed continuously ever since.

Here arose a problem that has followed me throughout my career. “Dúlamán” is not a traditional song but a composed work using a traditional text. Because the music of Ireland is so strongly associated with traditional music and has historically imported its classical musical forms, it became easy to describe the work I was doing as “traditional”, as though that might explain away the aspects of that maybe sat uncomfortably for some people in the Classical music world of Ireland. Traditional music comes from the people. This was composed music, written in multiple parts. We do not, and this must be stated clearly, possess a tradition or history of vernacular choral singing. While Scotland differs in this regard, in Ireland, the single line, the voice and the sean-nós singer are the focus of community memory and storytelling.

My Irish language compositions usually gathered elements, magpie-like, from medieval and contemporary sources, combined them with the ethos of sean-nós and created this form of choral writing essentially from nothing. It does the music no service to imply that it belongs to an inherited tradition. Over the decades it has, in fact, moved further from that tradition than I could ever have imagined, to the point where Anúna itself no longer rehearses or performs in the Republic of Ireland. The silence that met that decision in 2022 was not a judgement on the work, but a reflection of irrelevance within existing structures. When one stands outside arts infrastructure, outside administrative approval and outside systems that prioritise imported choral practices, this is the inevitable outcome.

“Dúlamán” found its audience relatively soon after release but it took until 2025 for “Mariam Matrem Virginem” to emerge into wider awareness through a remarkable performance by the French vocal ensemble Les Itinérants. These early albums are strange things. They are acquired tastes. They were and are neither popular nor commercial music, classical or folk. They reveal themselves slowly through long listening, particularly Invocation and Deep Dead Blue. Though marked by technical, musical, and perhaps even compositional flaws, they remain, above all else, a testament to obsession.

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Raise Up Your Hunting Spear/Salve Rex Gloriae

Duisgeadh agoinn dámh donn a doire donn níamhdha nua
Danú dé. Salve rex gloriae
We awoke a great brown stag from the new grass
Danú, Goddess. Hail glorious king.

Three brave heroes woke with the sun. On a misty morning three were as one.
The ancient forest rang with the sound of a crystal-tongued blackbird and the cry of a hound.
We are Oisín, Caoilte and Fionn - three brave hunters, and we follow the Sun
To the mountains of Mish, through the heather and briar to the green slope of Cua with our hearts full of fire.

Solo Voices : John McGlynn, Katie McMahon (1995) Eimear Quinn (1996)

Ardaigh Cuan

'Á mbeinn féin in Ardaigh Cuain 'n aice'n tsléibh'úd 'tá 'bhfad uaim
Ba annamh liom gan dul ar cuairt go gleann na gcuach Dé Domhnaigh
Agus och och Éire 'lig is ó, ar mo lon dubh is ó 'sé mo chroí tá trom agus brónach
Nach tuirseach mise anseo liom féin, nach n-airím guth coiligh, lon dubh nó traon
Gealbhan, smólach, naoscach féin 's chan aithním féin an Domhnach

If I was in Ardaigh Cuan beside the distant mountain
It was often that I would go to visit the valley of the Cuckoo on Sunday.
My heart is heavy with sorrow.
I am full of sorrow here alone unable to hear the cockerel, blackbird, snipe,
thrush or sparrow. Sunday has no meaning for me without these things.

Solo Voice : Katie McMahon (1995), Méav Ní Mhaolchatha (1996)

Beati Quorum Via

Written by the Irish composer Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (1852 – 1924)

Beati Quorum Via integra est
Qui ambulant in lege Domine
Blessed are those whose path is virtuous,
who walk in the law of the Lord.

The Flower of Maherally

One pleasant summer’s morning when all the flowers were springing,
Nature was adorning, and the wee birds sweetly singing.
I met my love near Banbridge Town, my charming blue-eyed Sally.
She’s the queen of the County Down, the flower of Maherally.

With admiration I did gaze upon this blue-eyed maiden.
Adam wasn’t half so pleased when he met his Eve in Eden.
Her skin was like the lily white that grows in yonder valley
She’s my queen and my heart’s delight, the flower of Maherally.

I hope the day will surely come when we’ll join hands together.
‘Tis then I’ll take my darling home, in spite of wind and weather,
And let them all say what they will, and let them reel and rally,
For I shall wed the girl I love, the flower of Maherally.

Solo Voice : Michael McGlynn

Geantraí

Caithfimid suas go heasc í
Caithfimid suas is suas i seachain a chroí na pléasc í
Déanfaidh sí damhs' is damhs'
Déanfaidh sí damhs' le pléisiúr
Déanfaidh sí damhs' is damhs' mé féin 'sí féin le chéile

We will throw her up easily
We will throw her up and up, hopefully she will not explode
She will dance and dance. She will dance with pleasure
She will dance and dance myself and herself together

Mariam Matrem Virginem

Maria Matrem virginem natura mirante. Tu quae genuisti.
Ave peccatorum miserere.
Maria, Virgin Mother: Hail, You who gave birth to Him, who all nature adores. Look with pity on we sinners.

Solo Voice : Monica Donlon

Codail a Linbh

Adhraim mo leanbh beag tagthar an saol, Codail a linbh go sámh
Adhraim a laigh, a liome nocht fhaon, Codail a linbh go sámh
Inis a grá liom i d'luí sa mhainséar
Inis cén fath dhuit bheith sínte sa bhféar, is tú coimhde na ngrásta 'gus Íosa mac Dé
Codail a linbh go sámh.

Mhuire a mháthair 'sa dhuine mhín tséimh, Codail a linbh go sámh
'Smé coimhde na ngrásta 'gus Íosa Mac Dé, Codail a linbh go sámh
Bheobhacht a thánag le mían an saol chun deoraithe fánach a shaoradh ón éag,
Is nuair 'crochfar in airde mé claonfaidh chugham féin.
Codail a linbh go sámh.

I worship my little child come on earth, sleep peacefully my child.
I worship him weak, naked and helpless, sleep peacefully my child.
Tell me, my love, as you lie in the manger
Tell me why you lay stretched in the straw
You are a treasury of grace, Jesus Son of God

Mary, my mother and gentle nurse, sleep peacefully my child
I am a treasury of grace and Jesus, Son of God, sleep peacefully my child
Desperately poor, I came with desire into this world
To save wandering exiles from death
And when I am suspended on high they will lean towards me
Sleep peacefully my child

Solo Voice : Méav Ní Mhaolchatha

Gaudete

this version of “Gaudete” comes from the "Piae Cantiones", a 16th century collection of music used at the School of Abo in Finland, but the origins of the song come from central Europe.

Gaudete, Christus est natus ex Maria Virgine, Gaudete
Tempus adest gratiae hoc quod optabamus
Carmina laetitiae devotae reddamus
Deus homo factus est natura mirante
Mundus renovatus est a Christo regnante
Ezechelis porta clausa pertransitur
Unde lux est orta salus invenitur
Ergo nostro cantio psalatiam in lustro
Benedicat domino salus regi nostro

Rejoice, Christ is born from the Virgin Mary, rejoice
The time is present, that time for which we have prayed
Let us render songs of pious joy
God has been made man while nature is amazed (to the wonder of nature)
Christ the king has renewed the world
The closed door of Ezekiel is traversed
Salvation/deliverance is found from where the light has arisen.
Therefore now in our time a song resounds
Praise the Lord: salvation to our king

Solo Voice : Eimear Quinn

Agnus Dei

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi miserere nobis
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi dona nobis pacem
Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world have mercy on us
Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world grant us peace.

Solo Voice : Miriam Blennerhassett

Dedicated to Eve

O Viridissima

Abbess Hildegard von Bingen (1098 to 1179) was an author and poet. She wrote some of the most beautiful vocal music of the Middle Ages. Ave Generosa is a short extract from one of these chants. O Viridissima is an original setting of her texts by Michael McGlynn

Ave generosa gloriosa et intacta puella
Tu pupilla castitatis, Tu materia sanctitatis placuit.
Hail, girl of nobility unstained and shining
You, pupil in the eye of chastity. You, embodiment of holiness pleasing unto God.

Ave, O Viridissima Virga
Hail greenest branch come forth into the gentle breezes.
The time has come when your fruit shall flourish in the warmth of the Sun.
The sky will place the gentle dew upon the fields,
The rose, that wondrous flower, shall fill the air with sweet perfume.

Solo Voices : Máire Lang, Eimear Quinn

Dúlamán

Traditional Irish text with original music by Michael McGlynn.

“A ‘níon mhín ó! Sin anall na fir shuirí”
“A mháthair mhín ó! Cuir na roithleán go dtí mé!”.
Dúlamán na binne buí, dúlamán Gaelach,
Dúlamán na farraige, dúlamán Gaelach.
Rachaidh me chun ‘lúir leis a’ dúlamán Gaelach
“Ceannódh bróga daor’”, arsa’ dúlamán Gaelach.
Bróga breátha dubha ar a’ dúlamán Gaelach.
Bairéad agus triús ar a’ dúlamán Gaelach
“A ‘níon mhín ó! Sin anall na fir shuirí”
“A mhathair mhín ó! Cuir na roithleán go dtí mé!”
Tá ceann buí óir ar a’ dúlamán Gaelach.
Tá dhá chluais mhaol’ ar a’ dúlamán Maorach.

"O gentle daughter, here come the wooing men".
"O gentle mother, put the wheels in motion for me".
Seaweed of the yellow peaks, gaelic seaweed.
Seaweed of the ocean, gaelic seaweed
I would go to the tailor with the gaelic seaweed
"I would buy expensive shoes,” said the Gaelic seaweed.
The Gaelic seaweed has beautiful black shoes
The Gaelic seaweed has a beret and trousers.
"O gentle daughter, here come the wooing men".
"O gentle mother, put the wheels in motion for me".
There is a yellow gold head on the Gaelic seaweed.
There are two blunt ears on the stately seaweed.

Solo Voice : Michael McGlynn (1995), Garrath Patterson (1996)

A Stór mo Chroí

This melody is based on the song “Bruach na Carraige Báine” from the sean nós tradition.

A Stór Mo Chroí, when you're far away
Far from the home you will soon be leaving
There’s many a time by night and by day
Your heart will be sorely grieving.
The stranger's land may be bright and fair,
And rich in its treasures golden.
You’ll pine, I know, for the long, long ago
And the love that is never olden.

A Stór Mo Chroí, in this stranger's land
There is plenty of wealth and wailing.
Whilst gems adorn the great and grand
There are faces with hunger paling.
Though the road is tiresome, and hard to tread
And the lights of their cities blind you.
O turn, a stór, back to Erin's shore
And the one you leave behind you.

A Stór Mo Chroí, when the evening mist
Over mountain and sea is falling,
O turn around and when you list’
Then maybe you'll hear me calling.
For the sound of my voice you might hear
Which calls for your speedy returning,
For somebody's quick returning.
A rún, a rún, won't you come back soon
To the one who will always love you.

Solo Voice : Miriam Blennerhassett

The Mermaid

An Mhaighdean Mhara is a haunting Irish traditional song from Donegal that names its central figure, the mother, as a mermaid, not through transformation but as a simple, powerful fact. Unlike many European mermaid tales that focus on change or seduction, this song presents the mother as inherently otherworldly, a sea-maiden whose presence embodies loss longing and the mystery of the unknown. The song’s sparse evocative verses offer a poetic meditation on separation and grief rather than a linear narrative, inviting listeners into an emotional landscape shaped by Irish folklore and the deep connection to place

Is cosúil gur mheath tú nó gur threig tú an greann;
Tá an sneachta go frasach fá bhéal na n-áitheann,
Do chúl buí daite 's do bhéilín sámh,
Siúd chugaibh Máirí Chinidh
's í 'ndiaidh 'n Éirne 'shnámh.

A Máithrín mhilis dúirt Máire Bhán.
Fá bhruach a' chladaigh 's fá bhéal na trá,
'S maighdean mhara mo mháithrín ard
Siúd chugaibh Máirí Chinidh
's í 'ndiaidh 'n Éirne 'shnámh.

Tá mise tuirseach agus beidh go lá
Mo Mháire bhruinngheal 's mo Phádraig bán,
Ar bharr na dtonna 's fá bhéal na trá,
Siúd chugaibh Máirí Chinidh
's í in dhiaidh an Éirne a shnámh

It seems that you have changed and left behind your happiness.
The snow is frosty on the heather.
Your fair hair and your sweet mouth.
Here comes Mary Kenny after swimming the length of the Erne.
“Sweet Mother” said Máire Bhán
At the edge of the quay and at the mouth of the beach.
“My esteemed mother is a mermaid”.
Here comes Mary Kenny after swimming the length of the Erne.
I’m tired and I will be for some time.
My Máire of the white breast and my pale Pádraig.
On the top of the waves and at the edge of the sea
Here comes Mary Kenny after swimming the length of the Erne.

Solo Voices : Eimear Quinn, Méav Ní Mhaolchatha, Monica Donlon

ST NICHOLAS

“St. Nicholas” was written by the English mystic St Godric (c.1070 to 1170).

St Nicholas, Godes druth timbray us faire scone hus
At thee burthe at thee bare St Nicholas, bring us well thare

St. Nicholas, God’s beloved, build us a wondrous place to dwell.
At the time of birth, and at the time of death, St. Nicholas bring us safely there.

Tenebrae Responsories

The Tenebrae Responsories were written at the earliest developmental stage in the Christian Church. They probably date from as early as the fourth century. These texts are a personal reaction to the passion and death of Christ, and consequently have immediacy that is still potent today. These settings owe much to the great polyphonic writers of the 16th and 17th centuries, particularly the works of Prince Carlo Gesualdo and Thomas Luis de Victoria.

On the Omnis album compilation the version of “Tenebrae II” was recorded for the album Cynara in 1999 and “Tenebrae II” as appears on Omnis was renumbered to “Tenebrae III”.

Tenebrae I

Ecce quomodo moritur justus et nemo percipit corde.
Viri justi tolluntur et nemo considerat.
A facie iniquitatis sublatus est justus
Et erit in pace memoria eius.

Et in Sion habitatio eius

Behold how the righteous man dies and no one mourns him.
The just passes away and no one cares.
They are taken from darkness and remembered in peace.
There they shall dwell and live in Zion.

Solo Voices : Miriam Blennerhassett, Monica Donlon

Tenebrae II (aka Tenebrae III)

O vos omnes, o vos omnes qui transitis per viam attendite, et videte:
Si est dolor sicut dolor meus

All of you who pass by on the path, listen and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow.

Solo Voice : Máire Lang

Commissioned for the BBC Singers