Anthem “God Save the King” may have been based on ancient Irish tune

An Irish language and culture festival has heard that Britain's national anthem "God Save the King" may have been based on an old Irish tune dating back 300 years.

Peadar Ó Riada, the son of Mise Éire composer Seán Ó Riada, told a sympo‐ sium organized as part of the Oireachtas na Gaeilge festival that his father be‐ lieved that the famous anthem was based on an ancient Irish tune. Speaking at the Mills Inn Museum in the

Múscraí Gaeltacht in West Cork, in 2021, Peadar Ó Riada said that his fa‐ ther believed that all traditional Irish airs owed from 12 diff erent tunes with few exceptions.

"Every air we have in the country is re‐ lated to one of those [12 traditional tunes]," Ó Riada told the symposium. "Take, for example, the English national anthem, it’s part of an old Irish tune from 300 years ago."

The Royal website states that the cur‐ rent form of the British national anthem dates back to the 18th century. The an‐ them was rst performed lyrically in London in 1745, while the writer of its words and tune is anonymous. The web‐ site acknowledges that the anthem may have been written during the 17th cen‐ tury.

"God Save the King" became the unoffi ‐ cial anthem of Great Britain in Septem‐ ber 1745 after Prince Charles Edward Stuart - the Bonnie Prince Charlie - de‐ feated the army of King George II at Prestonpans in Scotland.

Having learned of the defeat at Preston‐ pans, the conductor at the Theatre Royal in London arranged for "God Save the King" to be performed after a play to in‐ spire hope and patriotism.

The performance was popular and re‐ peated nightly thereafter, while the an‐ them was subsequently performed whenever a British monarch entered a public place of entertainment. *Originally published inNov2021,up‐ datedinApril2024.