Subject: Lyr Add: THE TWELFTH OF JULY
From:
Philippa
Date: 30 Jul 99 - 11:22 AM
"Cry of a Dreamer is on Hannibal/Rykodisc
Seán Tyrrell also wrote of the song: "I've protected this song more than any other in my store because I didn't want it to fall into the wrong hands. In the wrong context songs can be twisted into lethal weapons or expressions of hate. This is a love song. Just now it is the most important love song I know...."
The other song I've come across with the same title is no love song and could well be inflamatory, so I don't think I'll be singing it. Yet it is of interesting to look at as it gives an idea of the circumstances which led Frazier to write his call for reconciliation over 150 years ago and the tensions that still surround sectarian parades. As Emily says, Frazier's poem is still topical.
The Twelfth of July recorded by Tom Brandon on "Folksongs of Ontario" (collected by Edith Fowke) Folkways Records, 1958
from the notes: "The Gazette for July 13, 1877, carried an extensive report of the episode under headlines reading 'TWELFTH OF JULY RIOT - An Exciting Day in Montreal
Victoria Square the Scene of a Fusillade --Revolvers Freely Used
One Man Shot and Killed---Several Others Wounded'
The newspaper account indicates that the ballad isn't quite accurate, for there was no formal Orangeman's parade that day: plans for one had been dropped because of the hostility of the United Irishmen. However, brawling broke out between a number of Catholics and Protestants in Victoria Squatre, and in the meleé a man called Francis Hackett was shot.
The Loyal Orange Institutions is an Irish Protestant society ...founded in 1795. Its name comes from William of Orange, a Netherlands prince who married Mary, the Protestant daughter of James II of England and became king of England when James was deposed in 1688. James fled to Ireland, and William defeated him there at the Battle of the Boyne...1690. This victory is annually celebrated on the twefth of July by parades of Orangemen....
...in Montreal the Orangemen have always been a small minority in a predominantly Catholic city. the religious friction which created the 1877 riot was not typical of the relations between the Catholic and Protestant Irishmen in Montreal...the two groups had worked together in such organisations as the St. Patrick's Society, and ...an Irish historian speaking on the CBC recently remarked that 'the history of the Montreal Irish is a lesson in toleration'. In Toronto, on the other hand, where the Protestants outnumbered the Catholics, there used to be ructions during the St. Patrick's Day parades.
Today of course the hostility between Protestant and Catholic Irishmen in Canada is largely a thing of the past[*], but in the nineteenth century feelings ran high. Religious rivalry was embittered by centuries when the large Catholic pupulation of Ireland had been harshly oppressed by the largely Protestant landowners and ruling classes. ..."
[*I wonder has there been any reawakening of this animosity in recent decades, due to the violence in Northern Ireland and the continuing emigration to Canada from N Ireland? It should be noted that in the northern counties there were large numbers of Protestant settlers of humble backgrounds and modest means, and today's Protestant population in the north is largely working class and middle class, not aristocracy.]
THE TWELFTH OF JULY
Come all you gallant Irishmen who love your church and creed,
I hope you'll pay attention to the few lines that you read,
Concerning your church and countrymen, your brothers one and all
It's how we licked the yellowbacks in the city of Montreal.
It was on the twelfth of last July the Orangemen did draw nigh,
And to insult the Catholics they waved their colors high;
To insult the Catholics, it was their one design
And they played the tunes King Billy played on the day he crossed the Boyne.
They marched from Vyve and Circle down to Victoria Square.
It's there that they halted for the Union boys were there.
The Fawcett drew a revolver and he let go with a ball,
And swore he'd kill every Papist dog in the city of Montreal.
So Hackett followed after him and fired once again
And he received a fatal ball which entered in his brain.
He cast his eyes around him as downward he did fall,
And he bid adieu to that Orange crew in the city of Montreal.
So come all you true-bred Catholics who love your church and creed
I hope you'll pay attention to what King Billy and Cromwell did,
They tore down Catholic churches from Lewis to Donegal,
But they can't come across with no games like that
In the city of Montreal.
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sj
