While this video demonstrates a symbolic act of significance to the people in it, this is not keening. Unfortunately true keening died out as a result of pressure from the Church which correctly saw it as a continuation of practices originating among our pagan ancestors. For anyone interested a description of real keening and a professional keener can be found in an article titled The Irish Funeral Cry published in The Dublin Penny Journal from 1833. Researchers into paganism will probably notice that there are some incorrect conclusions in the article, such as that a deterioration in the verse has occurred as a result of keening becoming the sole vocation of women (typical 19th century sexism here!); and that the professional keener kept her eyes closed in order to recall the arrangement or to prevent distraction. In reality women always served as professional keeners (this is the origin of the banshee legend). The closing of eyes among the bards and poets was commonly practiced in order to compose verse that was completely improvised, which keening was. It is this improvised metre that the author imagines is slip-shod, when actually it matched the emotional state of the mourners for which it was greatly appreciated.
This is perhaps the article you mentioned Shane and is quite interesting, thanks. I believe there is a living memory of the sound through oral tradition, passed down through the songs, even though it was stamped out. Also, in one of Bunting's Collection there is a funeral lament through which one can almost hear the keening if you sing, and even in the slow airs. This video of Parliament Square is perhaps an update revival. www.libraryireland.com/articles/IrishFuneralCryDPJ1-31/
Shane Gooding Hi, I have found a CD with a recording of Aran women keening, quite different to this video. You can buy it via Smithsonian Folkways Archival, the two last tracks of "Songs of Aran".
Hi Tony, you can purchase the Aran CD at this link. The Aran Islands maintained a more traditional lifestyle for longer than a lot of the mainland because of their geographical distance from Dublin and being islands as you may know. So I imagine this 'keening' may be close to a traditional style of keening from their islands, even if not practised in a true ritual form today. Not what I expected. There is some beautiful singing on the album, very natural. www.folkways.si.edu/songs-of-aran/celtic-world/music/album/smithsonian
Yes that is *exactly* what keening is. It has becoming a singing form as well, for funerary rites, but in its rawest form, it is merely wailing in grief. That is *exactly* the root of what would become the singing form. So people saying this isn’t keening, are wrong.
Such a show of arrogant misogynistic hate in the comments below. The origin of this hate is in the origin of the monotheistic patriarchy and its design against the ancient, matrifocal crafts. Blessings to those who attempt to understand and appreciate keening and the other rituals of inclusive belief systems. You are welcomed at our table.
This isn't a "matrifocal" craft ...i.e. keening generally isn't a gender specific art, nor does it really constitute a practice specifically associated with feminine mysticism or matriarchal ritual. This "keening" is also done with some degree of irony and affect (whether intended or not) ...which is rather odd and, if one were inclined to take traditional laments for the dead seriously, rather callous. Much of New Age practice seems to often come across this way whether in the context of a matriarchal or patriarchal inspirations. Cheers
Sorry random mansplainer but keening was performed by women. Women wore their hair loose and bare feet and torn clothing while they keened. Keens were sometimes written by men but always performed by women. Further it was always a theatrical art so not sure why you feel the need to call out these women’s dramatic “affect”. Honestly women having their own history that they are attempting to reclaim has nothing to with you or your opinions.
Apologies random lazy know-nothing. Don't take my word on it. Read and learn: "The relations and Keeners ranged themselves in two divisions, one at the head and the other at the feet of the corpse. The Chief bard of the head chorus began by singing the first stanza in a low doleful tone, which was softly accompanied by the harp, ...This kind of artificial metre was much cultivated by the Irish bards, but, on the decline of [the Bardic order], the Caoinan [Keening] fell into the hands of women and became an extemporaneous performance." ~Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy (1786-1813), page 43. (available on JSTOR) Sung poetry of this sort was a predominately male practice insofar as it was in the pre-literate lineage of Bardic cultural practice in Ireland. A fairly modern romantic example might be "The Lament of Morian Shehone for Miss Mary Bourke" written sometime in the early 19th century, note, the narrator is male. There's no dispute as regards the role of women in this, but it was, in fact, not particularly gender specific ...historically men and women keened, i.e. each had their roles in the classical wake. As for affect ...keening was no medium for political protest, or a leisurely stroll past Westminster with a bit of half-hearted murmuring. The sentiment to capture was that of a deeply felt act of ritualized mourning and grief. Even in its extemporaneous form it was a *wail* ... That said, have you ever felt the immeasurable shattering pain of a loved ones death? Been reduced to ruinous sobbing? If so, ask yourself ...was this effective at articulating some ritualized form of such depth of feeling? The reduction of keening to political protest theatrics is damned sacrilege. This is the inauthentic quality of so much new-age gimmickry: the misappropriation of "lost" sacred symbolism and ritual for mundane purposes. Also, my avatar is that of Robert Graves, author of The White Goddess, a Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth. There's no finer work on the central role of the feminine animus as axle of the world and prime spiritual sovereign as recorded in the history poetry and myth. You'd do well to read it (if you haven't) before feigning your cheap indignation, the history of men and women is irrevocably intertwined, there's no exclusive claim to be made by either, least of all in the spiritual or ritualistic realm. /cheers and best of luck
@@g.lowenklee2268 Nothing you said disputes what she said though? Even your own quote says keening "fell into the hands of women". Soooo...it was then largely dominated by women. Just like the OP comment said. Perhaps you just enjoy splitting hairs. Even if you Google keening you'll get source after source - many straight out of the mouth of an Irish person observing bean chaointe themselves - that women did the keening. So why lie, if you're supposedly so educated on the topic? Why not just admit that women took over older traditions and did the majority if not all of the keening from then on? Does it bother you so much that women mourned the dead that you felt the need to erase their role in the equation? And who are you to decide how and when a tradition that is now mostly dead due to suppression should be performed? Were you appointed to some position that gives you that authority? Who set you as gatekeeper? Seems like you're not just a smug "mansplainer" like OP wrote, but you're also the "random lazy know nothing" who thinks having Robert Graves as their pfp makes them all knowing.
Shame on all of you who dare to judge what you have no comprehension of. Ever hear "Judge not lest ye be judged"? Many of you sound like such sad, small minded, closed hearted people. Keening is a SACRED rite. SPIRITUAL. Abolished by the "church" to keep the priests and the "church" in power, and ultimately, to meet their desire to eliminate the spiritual presence and the social power of the women who Keen in the community and the "others" seen as Pagans. I can only shake my head in wonder.
dernbuy that’s not how that works kiddo. He’s right and I’m not even a feminist. Just because someone mention women and right that doesn’t mean their a trigger feminist, it simply means they have more common sense
Get off your high horse, just because the title says it's "keening" doesn't make it so. You obviously have no clue what keening is yet seem so anxious and offended to defend this old tradition. You're ignorant and you come across as a rambling baffoon. Look into what keening actually sounds like, dismiss this vid and defend keening for what it actually is and not this annoying wailing sound which has nothing to do with actual keening.
I wouldn't exactly call this keening compared to the examples I've heard. This is just wailing, not keening. THIS is keening: czcams.com/video/JubYgYAxujw/video.html (granted, it's done in a professional manner but you get the idea).
Keening is wailing. That's the definition. Keening is still keening, even if you're not a "professional". Let's not gate keep an already dead tradition, keeping more people from discovering it and learning more about ALL its forms.
Lol I know I shouldn't laugh. But that kinda made me snort. Not full blown laugh but a lil snort and snicker. I don't think I could do this though. My voice too messed up to be trying this. I'd just screw it up more.
That's not keening, just a load of background noise. Trust the women of Greenham to get it wrong. Have a listen to this : czcams.com/video/gFtc7I5PvCk/video.html
@@archiebobo Granted there are a few extra instruments in there, but I think it would be hard to find anything but a recording nowadays as it died out years ago in Ireland along with the shawlies who used to weep over the corpse. My Irish auntie who died a few years ago in her 80s told me that she only heard it once as a young girl.
While this video demonstrates a symbolic act of significance to the people in it, this is not keening. Unfortunately true keening died out as a result of pressure from the Church which correctly saw it as a continuation of practices originating among our pagan ancestors. For anyone interested a description of real keening and a professional keener can be found in an article titled The Irish Funeral Cry published in The Dublin Penny Journal from 1833. Researchers into paganism will probably notice that there are some incorrect conclusions in the article, such as that a deterioration in the verse has occurred as a result of keening becoming the sole vocation of women (typical 19th century sexism here!); and that the professional keener kept her eyes closed in order to recall the arrangement or to prevent distraction. In reality women always served as professional keeners (this is the origin of the banshee legend). The closing of eyes among the bards and poets was commonly practiced in order to compose verse that was completely improvised, which keening was. It is this improvised metre that the author imagines is slip-shod, when actually it matched the emotional state of the mourners for which it was greatly appreciated.
This is perhaps the article you mentioned Shane and is quite interesting, thanks. I believe there is a living memory of the sound through oral tradition, passed down through the songs, even though it was stamped out. Also, in one of Bunting's Collection there is a funeral lament through which one can almost hear the keening if you sing, and even in the slow airs. This video of Parliament Square is perhaps an update revival. www.libraryireland.com/articles/IrishFuneralCryDPJ1-31/
Jacqui Rutten That is the article I meant. Thank you.
Shane Gooding
Hi, I have found a CD with a recording of Aran women keening, quite different to this video. You can buy it via Smithsonian Folkways Archival, the two last tracks of "Songs of Aran".
Where can I find the closest recording of genuine keening?
Hi Tony, you can purchase the Aran CD at this link. The Aran Islands maintained a more traditional lifestyle for longer than a lot of the mainland because of their geographical distance from Dublin and being islands as you may know. So I imagine this 'keening' may be close to a traditional style of keening from their islands, even if not practised in a true ritual form today. Not what I expected. There is some beautiful singing on the album, very natural. www.folkways.si.edu/songs-of-aran/celtic-world/music/album/smithsonian
Wow how freaky. It sounds like the noises that are added to scary movies during a ghost scene.
You said it right
So it's basically just the sound you make when someone dies and you wail in distress for them?
Yes but it's more than that. Search Keening on CZcams.
@@PatrickHutton tried and can't find a good Irish sesh of keening
@@louisasmiles Try this : czcams.com/video/gFtc7I5PvCk/video.html
Yes that is *exactly* what keening is. It has becoming a singing form as well, for funerary rites, but in its rawest form, it is merely wailing in grief. That is *exactly* the root of what would become the singing form. So people saying this isn’t keening, are wrong.
@@louisasmilesczcams.com/video/vgts7_b1JWY/video.htmlsi=EW9yUkeAFV1z4q_D
Keening goes back thousands of years....
Yes, Exactly! And, it is certainly not just an "Irish" tradition ......... RjB
It has that quality.
these sounds remind me of midsommar
Such a show of arrogant misogynistic hate in the comments below. The origin of this hate is in the origin of the monotheistic patriarchy and its design against the ancient, matrifocal crafts. Blessings to those who attempt to understand and appreciate keening and the other rituals of inclusive belief systems. You are welcomed at our table.
This isn't a "matrifocal" craft ...i.e. keening generally isn't a gender specific art, nor does it really constitute a practice specifically associated with feminine mysticism or matriarchal ritual.
This "keening" is also done with some degree of irony and affect (whether intended or not) ...which is rather odd and, if one were inclined to take traditional laments for the dead seriously, rather callous. Much of New Age practice seems to often come across this way whether in the context of a matriarchal or patriarchal inspirations. Cheers
Sorry random mansplainer but keening was performed by women. Women wore their hair loose and bare feet and torn clothing while they keened. Keens were sometimes written by men but always performed by women. Further it was always a theatrical art so not sure why you feel the need to call out these women’s dramatic “affect”. Honestly women having their own history that they are attempting to reclaim has nothing to with you or your opinions.
Apologies random lazy know-nothing. Don't take my word on it. Read and learn:
"The relations and Keeners ranged themselves in two divisions, one at the head and the other at the feet of the corpse. The Chief bard of the head chorus began by singing the first stanza in a low doleful tone, which was softly accompanied by the harp,
...This kind of artificial metre was much cultivated by the Irish bards, but, on the decline of [the Bardic order], the Caoinan [Keening] fell into the hands of women and became an extemporaneous performance."
~Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy (1786-1813), page 43. (available on JSTOR)
Sung poetry of this sort was a predominately male practice insofar as it was in the pre-literate lineage of Bardic cultural practice in Ireland.
A fairly modern romantic example might be "The Lament of Morian Shehone for Miss Mary Bourke" written sometime in the early 19th century, note, the narrator is male.
There's no dispute as regards the role of women in this,
but it was, in fact, not particularly gender specific ...historically men and women keened, i.e. each had their roles in the classical wake.
As for affect ...keening was no medium for political protest, or a leisurely stroll past Westminster with a bit of half-hearted murmuring. The sentiment to capture was that of a deeply felt act of ritualized mourning and grief. Even in its extemporaneous form it was a *wail* ...
That said, have you ever felt the immeasurable shattering pain of a loved ones death? Been reduced to ruinous sobbing? If so, ask yourself ...was this effective at articulating some ritualized form of such depth of feeling?
The reduction of keening to political protest theatrics is damned sacrilege. This is the inauthentic quality of so much new-age gimmickry: the misappropriation of "lost" sacred symbolism and ritual for mundane purposes.
Also, my avatar is that of Robert Graves, author of The White Goddess, a Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth.
There's no finer work on the central role of the feminine animus as axle of the world and prime spiritual sovereign as recorded in the history poetry and myth.
You'd do well to read it (if you haven't) before feigning your cheap indignation, the history of men and women is irrevocably intertwined, there's no exclusive claim to be made by either, least of all in the spiritual or ritualistic realm.
/cheers and best of luck
@@emmamushroom257 wow, G. Lownklee absolutely dismantled you with cited facts. I don't think I've ever seen anyone taken apart like that before! ROFL
@@g.lowenklee2268 Nothing you said disputes what she said though? Even your own quote says keening "fell into the hands of women". Soooo...it was then largely dominated by women. Just like the OP comment said. Perhaps you just enjoy splitting hairs.
Even if you Google keening you'll get source after source - many straight out of the mouth of an Irish person observing bean chaointe themselves - that women did the keening. So why lie, if you're supposedly so educated on the topic? Why not just admit that women took over older traditions and did the majority if not all of the keening from then on? Does it bother you so much that women mourned the dead that you felt the need to erase their role in the equation?
And who are you to decide how and when a tradition that is now mostly dead due to suppression should be performed? Were you appointed to some position that gives you that authority? Who set you as gatekeeper?
Seems like you're not just a smug "mansplainer" like OP wrote, but you're also the "random lazy know nothing" who thinks having Robert Graves as their pfp makes them all knowing.
I can imagine their parents: “YOU WANT TO KEEN?! I’LL GIVE YOU SOMETHING TO KEEN ABOUT!!”
Terrifying, haunting
Wow, that was like an extended version of Roman Polanki's movie tenant. I am trying to write about Greenham in my anti-nukes website, so thanks!
Shame on all of you who dare to judge what you have no comprehension of. Ever hear "Judge not lest ye be judged"?
Many of you sound like such sad, small minded, closed hearted people.
Keening is a SACRED rite. SPIRITUAL.
Abolished by the "church" to keep the priests and the "church" in power, and ultimately, to meet their desire to eliminate the spiritual presence and the social power of the women who Keen in the community and the "others" seen as Pagans.
I can only shake my head in wonder.
Dawn Miramontes feminist lesbian alert!
dernbuy that’s not how that works kiddo. He’s right and I’m not even a feminist. Just because someone mention women and right that doesn’t mean their a trigger feminist, it simply means they have more common sense
Amazing that a comment can be that hypocritical.
Get off your high horse, just because the title says it's "keening" doesn't make it so. You obviously have no clue what keening is yet seem so anxious and offended to defend this old tradition. You're ignorant and you come across as a rambling baffoon. Look into what keening actually sounds like, dismiss this vid and defend keening for what it actually is and not this annoying wailing sound which has nothing to do with actual keening.
@Brisdad53 thank you for your kind & loving words. Blessed be.
This isn't keening.
Arabs have a similar ritual called Zagareeth.
Zagharit is not keening, it's ululation. The Arabic equivalent for keening is nadb or nudbah.
Does anyone know the context of this video?
i didnt know so many people could get this mad over screaming
The word sounds better than what it actually is.
I wouldn't exactly call this keening compared to the examples I've heard. This is just wailing, not keening. THIS is keening: czcams.com/video/JubYgYAxujw/video.html (granted, it's done in a professional manner but you get the idea).
this is a studio recording of a song...
Keening is wailing. That's the definition. Keening is still keening, even if you're not a "professional". Let's not gate keep an already dead tradition, keeping more people from discovering it and learning more about ALL its forms.
This is not keening
My dog keens.
Sounds a lot like the "rebel yell," and like native American vocalizations.
Carol Burnett brought me here.
Me too
This happens in mitsommar.
Sounds like death
Real creepy
Thats just women looking their hole
Lol I know I shouldn't laugh. But that kinda made me snort. Not full blown laugh but a lil snort and snicker. I don't think I could do this though. My voice too messed up to be trying this. I'd just screw it up more.
It's when women turn into stray cats and all meet up.
So it's basically women wailing. Got it.
Nope, this isn't keening.
That's not keening, just a load of background noise. Trust the women of Greenham to get it wrong. Have a listen to this : czcams.com/video/gFtc7I5PvCk/video.html
No need to be that rude.
@@eile9212 Had about as much effect as sticking their teddy bears on the wire fences at Greenham did.
that's a studio recording of a song...
@@archiebobo Granted there are a few extra instruments in there, but I think it would be hard to find anything but a recording nowadays as it died out years ago in Ireland along with the shawlies who used to weep over the corpse. My Irish auntie who died a few years ago in her 80s told me that she only heard it once as a young girl.
@@joehart7260 I was under the impression that keening is a thousands-year old vocal mourning of the dead, not one song in particular.
So it's just whining then?
This is lesbian yelling.
nonplayerzealot4 just like your mom when she was birthing you lol
Damn lesbians
worse than the womens march
Thank you for your kind & loving words. Blessed be.