After taking a visual family history journey from Hawaii to Ireland, those watching the RootsTech Family Discovery Day keynote of Elder Gerrit W. Gong of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and his wife, Sister Susan Gong, were treated to a stunning music video.
In the video, Irish singer Alex Sharpe of the group Celtic Woman sings the hymn “Faith of Our Fathers” in both Irish Gaelic and English while walking through castle ruins set in the green Ireland landscape.
The four-minute video flashed to scenes of Hawaii, places where Elder and Sister Gong visited, with FamilySearch’s creative director Jonathan Wing playing a piano and Emily Olsen Rust playing violin on a beach.
Sharpe said she was excited and delighted to be involved in the music video, which was filmed on a windy day last October.
“I felt a real sense of gratitude for those who have gone on before, and also those here in Ireland who may be not members of the Church but who all have a beautiful faith in Christ,” she said in an interview with the Church News.
The lyrics were translated into Irish Gaelic by local Latter-day Saint Coleman Curran and his daughter, who attend a local branch and study the language. Sharpe had learned some Gaelic in school but said she isn’t fluent. She did her best to honor the language.
“It was special; particularly I liked that it was in the first verse because I think it is really kind of grounded in that deep history,” Sharpe said. “It honored the Irish people. ... It felt like a lovely tribute to those who fought for the freedom of country as well and for their faith and to preserve the language.”
Sharpe hopes the video will inspire people to want to know more about their family heritage.
“I hope that it awakens a desire in people to connect with family present and past,” she said. “I think we all have a longing to connect with where we came from. It fills in missing pieces sometimes and helps us make sense of ‘Oh, that’s why I might do this or that’s where I got that.’ I think we can gain strength and a stronger connection to all of our story, not just here and now but with the story that has been before.”