Based on a poem written by Ulster poet Peadar Ó Doirnín (1704–1796), most famous as a song, and especially set to an air composed by Seán Ó Riada (1931–1971). As a modern song, Mná na hÉireann is usually placed in the category of Irish rebel music; as an eighteenth-century poem it belongs to the genre (related to the aisling) which imagines Ireland as a generous, beautiful woman suffering the depredations of an English master on her land, her cattle, or her self, and which demands Irishmen to defend her, or ponders why they fail to.