‘We are blessed to have it in our lives’, say Mullingar brothers who wrote famous song

A video of Kellie Harrington serenading her fans with an impressive rendition of the iconic ballad ‘Grace’ shortly after she was presented with her Olympic gold medal went viral last week.

The song is one of the popular boxer’s party pieces, and she received widespread praise when she sang it on the Late Late Show a few years ago.

‘Grace’ occupies a lofty position in Ireland’s musical canon. Written by Mullingar brothers Sean and Frank O’Meara in 1985, the song quickly became a favourite with music fans when Jim McCann released it a year later. Thanks to Rod Stewart recording the song a few years ago, however, and the Spotify generation’s grá for Irish folk classics, ‘Grace’ has never been more popular.

Go into any Irish bar, at home or abroad, and if there is live music being played, it’s highly likely that you will hear ‘Grace’ being performed before the end of the night, much to the delight of the crowd. In fact, if there was a poll to find Ireland’s most popular song, ‘Grace’, which tells the true story of Grace Gifford and Joseph Mary Plunkett, the young couple who were married in Kilmainham Gaol hours before he was executed by firing squad for his role in the Easter Rising in 1916, would probably reach number one.

The evocative lyrics were penned by Sean O’Meara, while his talented sibling Frank composed the music.

Speaking to the Westmeath Examiner, Sean revealed how the song was conceived.

“Back in the 1980s, we were writing songs and we had a lot of songs recorded by the likes of Jim McCann, Susan McCann, the Morrisseys, the Furey Brothers, and a lot of others. But to be honest, there was no ‘big’ song in it.

“So we set ourselves a challenge of writing what we might call a big song. And out of the blue, we wrote ‘Grace’.”

When he was looking for inspiration for their “big song”, he remembered the tragic story of Joseph Mary Plunkett and Grace Gifford’s short-lived union, a story that had stuck with him from his school days at St Mary’s CBS.

“It dawned on me one day that it was a story that would be worth investigating and finding out about.

“So I went to Kilmainham Gaol, and I got literature on the actual event in order to be as accurate as I could be.

“Parallel to that, Frank was composing the melody. And as I’ve said many times before, when Frank composed the melody of ‘Grace’, it was right the first time. So he gave me his own home demo of it on piano, I think it was.

“I played that in the car over and over again, in order to get familiar with the melody. Out of the blue came a line, ‘As we gather in the chapel here in old Kilmainham Gaol.’ And to be honest, once I had that, I had the story. And it was fairly easy to write after that.”

‘Grace’ has been labelled by some as a rebel song, but Sean is adamant that this was not his and Frank’s intention.

“We always saw it and see it very much as a love song. We’re not at all pleased if it’s not referred to as a love song.

“Sometimes people refer to it as a rebel song. And to be honest, it would have been better had it never been written rather than be a rebel song. It is a love song first and last.” Sean says the enduring popularity of ‘Grace’ is something its creators derive great pride from.

“We are blessed to have it in our lives. It’s wonderful to be walking down Grafton Street, and a busker is singing it, and then Henry Street, and another busker is singing it.

“The song has achieved a success and an awareness and a fondness far beyond anything we could have ever wished for it.”