Keening

"Keen" as a noun or verb comes from the Irish and Scottish Gaelic term caoineadh ("to cry, to weep"),[2] and references to it from the 7th, 8th, and 12th centuries are extensive.

[6] In the 12th century, Giraldus Cambrensis (Gerald of Wales) described vocal laments taking place in which the mourners were divided in two, each alternately singing their part and sometimes joining in full chorus.

[11] The mourners accompanied the keening woman (bean chaointe), with physical movements involving rocking and kneeling.

He provided the following information: Samuel Carter Hall described Irish funeral traditions and keening songs in his 1841 book Ireland: Its Scenery, Character and History.

[5] One of the attendees at the 1905 Requiem Mass of Father Allan MacDonald, an iconic figure in Scottish Gaelic literature, at St Michael's Roman Catholic Church on Eriskay, later recalled that it was the last funeral in which the tradition of Keening, or Coronach, was used in the Hebrides.

In the early 1950s, Cití Ní Ghallchóir (Kitty Gallagher) of Gaoth Dobhair in County Donegal, Ireland sang a keening song she had learnt from an old woman to Alan Lomax, which can be heard online.

[23] Below is Gallagher's version with a translation.S'airiú, (Word for lamenting – no literal translation) Agus a leanbh (My child) Cad a Dhéanfaidh mé?

Agus och, och, airiú, gan thú, gan thú (Alas, alas, without you, without you)[24]Seosamh Ó hÉanaí (Joe Heaney) of Carna, Connemara sang a traditional keening song which he learnt from his grandmother Béib (Bairbre) Uí Mhaoilchiaráin, who had lived during the nineteenth century.

[5] Heaney was also recorded discussing his childhood memories of keening women in Connemara and the ways funeral traditions have changed since.

[5] Both of the recordings, which were made by Sidney Robertson Cowell, are reminiscent of the cronán, described by Eugene O’Curry as a ‘purring,’ beginning ‘in the 'chest or throat on a low key and rising gradually to the highest treble’.

A woman keening at a wake in County Kerry in the early nineteenth century, depicted from the memories of Samuel Carter Hall . She had "black, uncombed locks" and a blue cloak, and held her hands above the body then dramatically waved them in the air "as if by sudden inspiration". [ 1 ]
"The Aran Fisherman's Drowned Child" (1851) by the Irish painter Frederic William Burton , which appears to show paid keening women in the doorway. [ 15 ]
Bunworth Banshee , Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland by Thomas Crofton Croker , 1825