Grace

I fell in love with the High King’s cover of the song “Grace” purely because of the pathos of it. (The calligraphy above is the last verse of the song) It’s the story of how Joseph Plunkett, one of the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland, married his fiance, Grace Gifford, in Kilmainham Gaol hours before he was to be executed for his part in the uprising. Maybe it’s the Irish in me, but the simple tragic beauty was enough for me to love it and it wasn’t til months later that I looked into the story a little more.

I learned (among many other things) that Grace was Protestant and Joseph Catholic, and they became closer friends over Grace’s desire to learn more about the Catholic Church. She was baptized on April 7th of 1916 and they planned to marry later that month, on Easter Sunday, but other events got in the way. I also learned that Joseph was a prolific poet, which will always endear me to someone. I also learned more about the Rising itself, and how the heroic deaths of the leaders was one of the main causes of the shift in popular opinion toward Irish Independence.

But even though I always found the last line “I loved so much that I could see His blood upon the rose” a little odd, I never thought to look into it. And then my friend found the poem by Joseph that it is referencing in the back of the Breviary. The poem runs thus:

I see his blood upon the rose And in the stars the glory of his eyes, His body gleams amid eternal snows, His tears fall from the skies.

I see his face in every flower; The thunder and the singing of the birds Are but his voice-and carven by his power Rocks are his written words.

All pathways by his feet are worn, His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea, His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn, His cross is every tree.

The unquenchable fire of the Irish will never cease to move me. The most oppressed and downtrodden nation, whose music and culture is heavy with a deep sense of sadness, also somehow will never give up their fierce hope and joy. I love so much what this lyric implies – that Joseph’s courage and strength came from a deep love and that that love was rooted in Christ. It’s really the only explanation of the kind of passionate and rebellious goodness that I can’t help seeing written through so much of their culture. It is a deeply and inextricably Christian thing to see and to suffer an enormous weight of darkness and to persevere stubbornly in hope: to follow the Crucified King on His way to Calvary. It’s not an exclusively Irish thing, it’s a Christian thing, but the Irish brand of it is very unique and, to me at least, uniquely moving.

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