About this hymn

Slane is near the ancient hill of Tara, in Ireland, and is where St. Patrick lit the fires of Easter, challenging King Laoghaire. The tune was included in Old Irish Folk Music and Sons in 1901. The tune has several variations, and the two versions here differ slightly. The descant audio file here is based on the slightly more detailed variant of the tune for 'Lord of all hopefulness.'

The text 'Lord of all hopefulness, Lord of all joy' was written by Jan Struther, a pseudonym for Joyce Anstruther, later Joyce Maxtone Graham and finally Joyce Placzek (June 6 1901 – July 20 1953), an English writer who created the character Mrs. Miniver. The hymn first appeared in Songs of Praise (Oxford, 1931).

The text 'Be thou my vision' is putatively from a 6th century Irish text, Rop tú mo Baile, usually attributed to Dallan Forgaill. It was in the Irish monastic tradition for centuries before it became associated with the hymn tune Slane. The 1905 English translation by Mary E. Byrne, M.A., in Ériu (the journal of the School of Irish Learning), and the most commonly used metrical version was introduced in 1912 by Eleanor H. Hull.

(R10.0204)