"If you really can't see a distinction, then I have done."
Sorry Mike, I can't, I think they are both as set a convention as the days they used to sing 'God Save the Queen' (also seen by a dwindling number as a part of British life) at the cinema, and an expression of "emotional solidarity" at certain times. I don't think I ever heard anything sung with as much (disturbingly vicious) 'emotional solidarity' as I did LOHAG at the time of the sinking of the General Belgrano.
Guest:
If there are songs still being made, taken up and sung on the terraces then they have claim to the tradition; I don't know how many there are and how widespread the reaction is to them, but they are well worth attention. The terraces seem as likely a place to continue to support a tradition as were the schoolyards; I don't know too much about what goes on there nowadays either, but I have been told by teachers that the songs, chants and games that used to happen have been replaced by mobile phones and texting.
It really isn't important that the songs in 'Blood on the Banner' have been gathered and published; many/most of our traditional sporting songs have appeared in print at one time or another. What does make a difference is that some of them started life in print, appeared with the makers name on them and a little (c) so they will always belong to Jimmy Smyth or Peader Kearney or Bryan McMahon, or Joe Hasset or whoever.
BTW - Celtic is a word best avoided in my experience - it tends not to mean too much.
There have been mass movements that have produced songs that might be described as traditional; CND, the 'Troubles' in Ireland and the miners strike spring to mind, but again, modern modern technology has tended to freeze them in the form they were written and placed the owners mark on them. Even by law they are not traditional, they belong to the writer and are not not in public domain. I wonder what would be the reaction of the Rodgers and Hammerstein estate if somebody claimed You'll Never Walk Alone to be in the public domain!
I was interested in your 'You'll never get a job' comment - is it a song, or is it a one line chant? They are different beasts, and are equally worth looking at.
Jim Carroll