These are songs which have lyrics which stress sorrow and pain. They are usually sung at funerals or other occasions of sorrow. Caoineadh singers were originally paid to lament for the departed at funerals. The Caoine or Caoineadh (keen) is the traditional mourning song practised in Gaelic speaking Ireland and Scotland. The Caoineadh is distinct from the more poetic and personalized mourning song, the Lament. A Caoineadh is a ritualized wailing, generally starting high and descending in pitch, with words usually a repeated phrase such as Och Ochone (Woe, Woe) more spoken than sung. The Caoineadh was traditionally sung by family members at the time of the loved ones death but later, as the body left the house for the last time, professional wailing women took up the Caoineadh. Many Caoineadh have been lost as they were not recorded due to an unwillingness of the singers to sing them outside a mourning situation.
