This hymn was written by Father Ranald Rankin in about 1855 and is sung at Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve on Barra, South Uist and Eriskay in the Outer Hebrides. It was written in Scottish Gaelic and originally had 29 verses. There are now many other versions of it in Gaelic and English. Here it arranged for violin, flute, and cello for a simple, authentic, and ancient effect as if sung in the stone churches of the Celtic lands. It is written D major and modulate to the key of E.