"The Clergy's Lamentation" is an Irish air. The tune is attributed to blind Irish harper Turlough O'Carolan (1670-1738), although Donal O'Sullivan, in his definitive 1957 work on the bard could find no incontrovertible evidence of its origin. He included it in his volume because he believed it had stylistic similarities to some of Carolan's slow tunes. It was first printed in John and William Neal's collection The Most Celebrated Irish Tunes proper for the Violin, German Flute or Hautboy (Dublin, c. 1724), without attribution. It was also printed in John & William Neal's A Collection of the Most Celebrated Irish Tunes (1724), O'Sullivan's Carolan: The Life, Times, and Music of an Irish Harper (1957) and Ossian's The Complete Works of O'Carolan. It was recorded by Ensemble Galilei on Music in the Great Hall (1992).