Erin Go Bragh

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A common stylisation of Erin Go Bragh, in a pseudo-Celtic font.

For the horse named Erin Go Bragh, see Hideaway's Erin Go Bragh.

Erin Go Bragh (also sometimes: Erin Go Braugh) is the Anglicization of a Gaelic phrase used to express allegiance to Ireland. It is most often translated as "Ireland Forever",^[1] and pronounced /ˈɛrɪn gə brɔː/.

1 Origin
2 Emigrant nationalism
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Origin

Speakers of the Irish language assume that the phrase is a corruption of the Irish "Éire go brách", or "Éireann go Brách", which would be pronounced /ˈeːrʲə gə brɑːx/. The term "brách" is equivalent to "eternity" or "end of time", meaning the phrase may be translated literally as: "Ireland until eternity" or "Ireland until the end (of time)".

It should be noted that the Scottish Gaelic phrase "Èirinn gu bràth," which literally means "Ireland until the Day of Judgement," is pronounced almost identically to the Anglicized phrase. It may seem surprising that a phrase which has come to so strongly represent Ireland could have come not from Irish (Gaeilge) but instead from Scottish (Gàidhlig). However, a Scottish song from the 19th century entitled "Erin-go-Bragh" may have had something to do with this unusual progression. It tells the story of a Highland Scot who is mistaken for an Irishman. Dick Gaughan recorded a cover of this song on his Handful of Earth album. The first two verses^[2] are:

   "My name's Duncan Campbell from the shire of Argyll
   I've travelled this country for many's the mile
   I've travelled through Ireland, Scotland and a'
   And the name I go under's bold Erin-go-bragh

   One night in Auld Reekie as I walked down the street
   A saucy big polis I chanced for to meet
   He glowered in my face and he gi'ed me some jaw
   Sayin' "When cam' ye over, bold Erin-go-bragh?"

Today, the standardized spelling is "Éire go Brách"; however, "Éirinn" (which survives as the dative form in the modern standard) is the form historically used by native speakers and is the source of the Anglicized "Erin." This linguistic shift (dative forms replacing nominative) was common among Irish nouns of the fifth declension.^[3]

Other recent derivative spellings include "Érin go brea". This is sometimes translated as "Ireland the beautiful" - based on a loose translation of "go brea" as "is beautiful". However, this derivation and translation are not supported in the phrase's use as a war cry, nor in the language (in Irish, the "go" preposition, meaning "until" when following a dative OR nominative noun, does not readily lend itself to this translation)..

[edit] Emigrant nationalism

Flag of Los San Patricios

However the phrase became Anglicized, it was already in use as "Erin Go Bragh" by 1847. In that year, a group of Irishmen serving in the United States Army during the U.S.–Mexican War deserted and joined the Mexican side. These soldiers, known as Los San Patricios, or Saint Patrick's Battalion, flew as their standard a green flag with a harp on it, with the motto "Erin Go Bragh" underneath^[4]. Variations on this flag design have been used at different times to express Irish nationalism.

By 1862 there was an emigrant ship operated by the Black Ball Line called the Erin go Bragh^[5], which had the dubious honour of making the longest trip from Britain to Moreton Bay, Australia. She suffered many dead on the voyage, according to an unpublished contemporary account and, ironically, arrived in the same week that Black Ball's Young Australia completed the fastest crossing.

In the late 19th century, the Edinburgh Football club, Hibernian F.C. also had 'Erin Go Bragh' adorning their shirts. Founded in 1875 by Edinburgh Irishmen and the local Catholic Church, St Patricks, the club's shirts included a gold harp set on a green background.