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An Gréasaí Bróg (“The shoemaker“), also known as Beidh Aonach Amárach (“There’s a fair tomorrow“), is a popular children’s song from West Clare. “An Gréasaí Bróg/Beidh aonach amárach” is a composition in very simple and repetitive verses with a well-marked rhythm, structured as a call and response between mother and daughter: the daughter begs the mother to let her go to the fair, the mother replies that she could go when she will turn 13, and now she has nine, and it is still early to make choices in life. The daughter objects that many girls have married young and that she is in love with the shoemaker. The Cartoon Saloon animation (for Anam an Amhráin) develops the text further and begins by showing a little girl with her teddy bear running after her father, because she wants to go to the fair too. Her mother manages to bring her home, but she runs away in the night and in crossing the woods she loses a shoe. The story of the images becomes more and more fairytale, suddenly a round full moon breaks through the clouds and the little girl follows her full of hope. Then she dreams of reaching the little man in the moon who is none other than the handsome shoemaker. Meanwhile, the mother following the footsteps of the child (and the moonbeam) finds her asleep inside the hollow trunk of a tree.
