What is "coronach"

Coranach \Cor"a*nach\, n. [Gael. coranach, or corranach, a crying, the Irish funeral cry (the keen), a dirge; comh with + ranaich a roaring, ran to roar, shriek.] A lamentation for the dead; a dirge. [Written also coranich, corrinoch, coronach, cronach, etc.] [Scot.]

n. (context historical Scotland Ireland English) dirge, lamentation

n. a song or hymn of mourning composed or performed as a memorial to a dead person [syn: dirge, lament, requiem, threnody]

A coronach (also written coranich, corrinoch, coranach, cronach, etc.) is the Scottish Gaelic equivalent of the Goll, being the third part of a round of keening, the traditional improvised singing at a death, wake or funeral in the Highlands of Scotland and in Ireland. Though observers have reported hearing such songs in Ireland or in the Scottish Highlands, and melodies have been noted down and printed since the 18th century, audio recordings are rare; not only was the practice dying out or being suppressed through the 19th century, but it was also considered by its practitioners to have been a very personal and spiritual practice, not suitable for performance or recording.

The Scottish border ballad The Bonny Earl of Murray is supposedly composed in the tradition of the coronach.

Schubert's Opus 52 No 4 (D 836) set words from Sir Walter Scott's Lady of the Lake under the title Coronach, for female choir with piano accompaniment.

Coronach can refer to:

• Coronach, a Highland dirge
• Coronach, Saskatchewan
• Coronach (horse), a thoroughbred racehorse

Coronach was a British Thoroughbred racehorse and sire. He was a champion two-year-old who went on to become only the third horse to complete the Epsom Derby, Eclipse Stakes and St Leger treble (Tulyar, in 1952, become the most recent and fourth horse to equal the feat) as a three-year-old in 1926, a year in which he also won the St. James's Palace Stakes. He won the Coronation Cup at four, but was beaten in his two remaining starts by his long-standing rival Colorado