"Siúil a Rún" is a traditional Irish song, sung from the point of view of a woman lamenting a lover who has embarked on a military career, and indicating her willingness to support him. The song has English language verses and an Irish language chorus, a style known as macaronic. The title () translates to "go, my love" (or variants): siúil is an imperative, literally translating to "walk!", a rún is a term of endearment. History The history of the song is unclear. It has been suggested that the song refers to the "Wild Geese" of the Glorious Revolution. If it does, however, the original version has probably been lost. It is not uncommon that Irish songs were translated into English, with their chorus surviving in Irish, or being transformed into nonsense words (see Caleno custure me), but in most of these cases, some of the Irish version still survives. It is possible that the song was composed in the 1800s with the conscious intention of styling it after older songs. As is common in folk music, many lyrical variants of the song exist. Robert Louis Stevenson refers to the song twice in his novel The Master of Ballantrae (1889). Referred to as "the pathetic air of 'Shule Aroon'", it is whistled by the Irish Jacobite exile Francis Burke and later sung by the Master of Ballantrae himself to impress his younger brother's wife. The Master describes it as "very moving" and describes it being sung by Jacobite exiles in France: "it is a pathetic sight when a score of rough Irish ... get to this song; and you may see, by their falling tears, how it strikes home to them". In Ulysses, James Joyce had Stephen Dedalus sing the song to Leopold Bloom in Bloom's kitchen (as part of the Ithaca episode). The song can be seen to signal or echo many of the grand themes of the book, referencing loss of language, usurpation, betrayal, loss of leadership and women selling themselves. Bloom responds by singing a song in Hebrew. "Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier"/"Buttermilk Hill" is a well-known American variant dating to the Revolutionary War, sharing a common melody and similar lyrics. Modern performance Legendary folklorist and ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax recorded Elizabeth Cronin singing Siúil a Rún ("Shule Agra", literally "Walk, O Love") in the early 1950s, and both the lyrics and the tune of her version