Fontaines D.C recently released a brand new track in which carries a very symbolic meaning.
The track titled In ár gCroíthe go deo, was inspired by a woman living in Coventry, England.
The woman had recently won a legal case to erect a gravestone with the inscription In ár gCroíthe go deo in honour of her late mother. The words translate to “In our hearts forever”.
Margaret Keane’s daughter Bernadette and her family had successfully earned the legal right to to have the Celtic cross along the gravestone, reading the sentimental phrase. Mrs Keane was buried at St Giles Church in Exhall.
The Church of England Consistory Court had firstly rejected the request, saying that it could be viewed as a “political statement”. However, the ruling was changed on grounds of racial discrimination.
Irish had always been the indigenous language in Ireland. However, following years of British rule, English became the primary language in the country. The use of the Irish language had always been part of the debate over Britain’s relationship with Ireland.
However, Mrs Keane had always insisted that putting the Irish phrase on her late mother’s gravestone was not a political statement.
“Totally honoured”
Since then, Fontaines D.C have a released a new single which was inspired by this story.
Mrs Martin also said that she was “totally honoured” by the band’s gesture. The track is the opening song to Fontaines D.C’s upcoming album Skinty Fia.
She also described as an “incredibly moving” moment.
“It was just the last thing we could have ever expected”, she said. “When we heard it, the first thing we did, me and my sisters, was to stand at my mum’s grave and play it to her and listen to it for the first time at that special place”.
Fontaines D.C frontman Grian Chatten said that winning the family’s approval over the track was “better than any Grammy nomination”.
“That means a lot more to me than any Grammy nomination”, he insisted. “Just the fact that we were able to say something about something like that, that didn’t disrespect or offend or in any way or commandeer what was essentially a family story”.
Check out the song for yourselves below.
It has since emerged that while the verdict was being overruled, Fontaines D.C were finishing off their vocal harmonies for the track in a studio in Oxfordshire.
The band’s bassist Conor Deegan III also told Chatten that he was relieved that he had not heard the outcome beforehand. He felt that the band would not have been able to chant the refrain with the “same sense of lament”.
Mrs Keane and her husband Bernie were born in the Republic of Ireland, before moving to the UK. This is a journey that Grian Chatten and several of his Fontaines D.C bandmates have had to make themselves.
Chatten now lives in England with his fiancé and was shocked to read about Mrs Keane’s story, following her death in 2018. He decided to bring these feelings into a song.
“That story came out really soon before I’d made the proper definitive move to London”, he said. “So it made me feel nervous about the move to be honest, it really brought to the fore the idea of the [remnants] of this kind of lack of acceptance”.
“The idea that a language in of itself is inherently political is quite deeply judgmental and wrong and backwards. Because that language is the same language is used to say, ‘Enjoy your first day at school son”.
“There’s more to un-inspire people than conflict”.
Fontaines DC frontman Chatten also reacted to the band’s NME Awards success last month. Check out what he said here.
Check Out Fontaines D.C Live Cover Of The Cure’s ‘Just Like Heaven’
