''Faith of Our Fathers'' (subtitled ''Classic Religious Anthems of Ireland'') is a compilation album of traditional

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

/ Christian English,

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

, and

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

hymns recorded by

artists in 1996. The album topped the

Irish Albums Chart The Irish Albums Chart is the Irish music industry standard albums popularity chart issued weekly by the Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA). The charts were previously compiled on behalf of IRMA by Chart-Track, and have been compiled by the ...

for two months, broke release records, and was certified fifteen times-

platinum Platinum is a chemical element with the symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly unreactive, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name originates from Spanish , a diminutive of "silver". Pla ...

. The nineteenth-century hymn "Faith of Our Fathers" is the title track.

Origins

The album was the idea of a broker, John Kearns, working for Hibernian Insurance. Funding included contributions from his coworkers. Several labels turned Kearns down before Lunar records agreed to produce the album.

Artists

The album was produced by Bill Somerville-Large and overseen by musical director John Tate. Tenor

Frank Patterson Frank Patterson (5 October 1938 – 10 June 2000) was an internationally renowned Irish tenor following in the tradition of singers such as Count John McCormack and Josef Locke. He was known as "Ireland's Golden Tenor". Early life Patterson wa ...

, soprano Regina Nathan, the Monks of Glenstal Abbey, youth choir RTÉ Cór na nÓg, and the

RTÉ Philharmonic Choir The RTÉ Philharmonic Choir is an Irish choir, part of Irish public broadcaster RTÉ. Organisation The choir is part of RTÉ Performing Groups, and the chorus master is Mark Hindley. The choir members, all of whom commit their services entirely ...

made contributions to the album. It was recorded over five sessions in venues that included the Aula Maxima at Maynooth College in County Kildare and Glenstal Abbey in

County Limerick "Remember Limerick" , image_map = Island_of_Ireland_location_map_Limerick.svg , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Republic of Ireland, Ireland , subdivision_type1 = Provinces of Ireland, Province , subd ...

Track listing

*''

Holy God, We Praise Thy Name "Holy God, We Praise Thy Name" (original German: "Großer Gott, wir loben dich") is a Christian hymn, a paraphrase of the Te Deum. The German Catholic priest Ignaz Franz wrote the original German lyrics in 1771 as a paraphrase of the Te Deum, a C ...

'' *''Sweet Heart of Jesus'' *''Hail Redeemer, King Divine'' *''

Salve Regina The "Salve Regina" (, ; meaning 'Hail Queen'), also known as the "Hail Holy Queen", is a Marian hymn and one of four Marian antiphons sung at different seasons within the Christian liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church. The Salve Regina ...

'' *'' Faith of Our Fathers'' *''The Bells of Angelus'' *''To Jesus, Heart All Burning'' *''

Tantum Ergo "Tantum ergo" is the incipit of the last two verses of Pange lingua, a Medieval Latin hymn generally attributed to St Thomas Aquinas c. 1264, but based by Aquinas upon various earlier fragments. The "Genitori genitoque" and "Procedenti ab utroque" ...

'' *''Soul of My Savior'' *''Céad Míle Fáilte Romhat, A Íosa'' *''

Queen of the May In the British Isles and parts of the Commonwealth, the May Queen or Queen of May is a personification of the May Day holiday, and of springtime and also summer. The May Queen is a girl who rides or walks at the front of a parade for May Day cel ...

'' *''O Sacrament Most Holy'' *''

Lord of All Hopefulness "Lord of all Hopefulness" is a Christian hymn written by English writer Jan Struther, which was published in the enlarged edition of '' Songs of Praise'' (Oxford University Press) in 1931. The hymn is used in liturgy, at weddings and at the ...

'' *'' Ave Verum'' *''Hail Glorious Saint Patrick'' *''I'll Sing a Hymn to Mary'' *''

Hail Queen of Heaven, the Ocean Star "Hail, Queen of Heaven, the Ocean Star" is a Marian hymn written by Father John Lingard (1771–1851), a Catholic priest and historian who, through the works of William Cobbett, helped to smooth the passage of the Catholic Emancipation Act in Engl ...

'' *''Jesus My Lord, My God, My All'' *''We Stand for God''

Legacy

With sales of over 150,000 copies, the album was the biggest-selling release in Ireland in 1996, and it became Ireland's biggest-selling album of all-time by 1998. It launched the recording career of Monks of Glenstal Abbey. Peter Lennon compared its popularity to that of

Riverdance ''Riverdance'' is a theatrical show that consists mainly of traditional Irish music and dance. With a score composed by Bill Whelan, it originated as an interval act during the Eurovision Song Contest 1994, featuring Irish dancing champions Je ...

. The success of the record led the album's promoters to arrange concert performances in the

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

Point Depot The Point Theatre (sometimes referred to as the Point Depot or simply as the Point) was a concert and events venue in Dublin, Ireland, that operated from 1988 to 2007, visited by in excess of 2 million people. It was located on the North Wall Qu ...

and

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

's Carnegie Hall. A ''Faith of Our Fathers II'' album was released in 1997, which inspired the name of

Dustin the Turkey Dustin the Turkey, a character performed by John Morrison is a former star of RTÉ television's '' The Den'' between 1989 and 2010 and from 2020. He has been described as "the most subversive comedy force on Irish television". A turkey-vulture ...

's Christmas album '' Faith of Our Feathers''.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Faith Of Our Fathers 1996 compilation albums Compilation albums by Irish artists Catholic music