Seán Ó Muimhneacháin's finest work songs come alive

If you read verse aloud it displays more of the art of the thing because the sounds, the internal assonance,

Ahead of Oireachtas na Samhna, Múscraí stalwart Seán Ó Muimhneacháin has launched a book of collected works, writes Pet O’Connell.

Scottish women working tweed by hand once relieved their tedium with ‘waulking’ songs; Volga boatmen toiled to their ‘yo heave-ho’; while African slaves paced arduous labours with call-and-response field hollers.