Well, today's another bad day in Ireland's history, I suppose. Though you can never tell, there might be some devious plot on, designed to get the process a bit further on by subtrfuge. "Choreography" is how they put it on the TV.

(I can't see why the IRA can't let off a bomb in a field somewhere - then the Brits can say "they've decommissioned some Semtex", and the IRA can say "We've demonstrated our military readiness", and everyone can get back to work. But maybe they've got to get Trimble past this big meeting he's got before they do anything simple like that.)

But that's not why I opened this thread up from the old one (rather than starting up a new one.) And please, lets not get into too much of a fight over it all. Though tghis thread was a pretty good one, I felt. There's some kind of a peace process on the Mudcat at the moment which has to be treated cautiously.

No - it's about the song "12th July" that Big Mick and others are singing with Sean Tyrrell's tune. There was a query about making sense of the last verse, and later Big Mick admitted that it was hard making sense of it. Well I think I've solved the problem.

The troublesome lines as posted above by Big Mick, and previously by someone else. and as sung currently, are:

And even though it be in our country's cause Our party feelings blended

I couldn't make sense of it either, and I've been singing instead "But when united in our country's cause" -which carries the sense which I feel is meant, and is also easier to sing with the tune Sean Tyrrell put to it.

But the other day in a charity shop I came across an anthology of Irish writing called "Rich and Rare", by SEan McMahon, publisheed in 1984 by Poolbeg Press in Swords, Co Dublin.

It has lots of great stuff in it. Did you know the original version of "Croppies lie down" starts with the line "We soldiers of Erin, so proud of the name"? And the full version of "The Protestant Boys" has the lines "While Papists shall prove our brotherly love - we hate them as masters, we love them as men."

But the point here is that the book has a version of "The 12th July" - or rather "Song for July 12th 1843", as written by John Frazier (pen name Jean de Jean Frasier) in the Nation, which was edited then by Thomas Davis.

And in place of the confusing lines, the final verse runs:

E'vn thus be, in our country's cause
Our party feelings blended;
Till lasting peace, from equal laws,
On both shall have descended.
Till then the Orange lily be
Thy badge, my patriot brother -
The everlasting green for me;
And - we for one another.

Which makes a lot more sense as a song. And even more sense as a sentiment. Especially today. (Mind, I think my variant version is easier to sing and to make sense of when you're listening.)