Every year we commission a number of new works by Irish composers which are performed by renowned Irish and international performers for audiences across the country as part of our national touring programme.
We are pleased to present Ten Thousand Tiny Fingers, a Music Network commission by Bróna McVittie, which she wrote and performed during our February tour of 2024. Bróna wanted to create something in memoriam of all the innocent civilians killed in the Israel-Gaza conflict, particularly the children. The song is also born of her own experience of conflict growing up in a segregated society during the troubles in Northern Ireland.
The track was recorded at Station House Theatre, Clifden, Co. Galway on the 6 February 2024, performed by Niamh Dunne, Bróna McVittie, Cormac Breatnach & Seán Óg Graham and recorded by Donnacha Moynihan.
Ten Thousand Tiny Fingers
Composed by Bróna McVittie
Commissioned by Music Network
Cold stone ground,
Rubble all around,
Cloud lies low,
While through the fog they blow,
The bloody memories hang heavy.
Thinking back to yesteryear,
You were over there, I was here,
You were insecure, I felt fear,
In my heart I want to go,
But my mind it doesn’t know,
How to reach out and touch you.
This is overkill to say the least,
Said the minister to the priest,
Let us call for peace one last time,
In their hearts they want to go,
But their minds still don’t yet know,
How to reach out and love you.
Life goes on,
Although the war’s not done,
He who wins; a plethora of sins,
A plethora of sins his bounty.
Ten thousand tiny fingers, will never learn to play,
The flute, the harp, the fiddle,
The shebbabeh, the shebbabeh, the shebbabeh.
Ten thousand tiny fingers, will never learn to play,
Ten thousand tiny fingers, are severed in the fray.