Oddly enough, I recently had a very long conversation with my father about songs which refer to The Great Hunger (as it is known in my family). In that discussion, he confirmed a number of things I have always believed such as it is the height of rudeness to ask an Irish person (Irish-American I suppose since that's what I am) either to sing a song about The Great Hunger or any questions about the Great Hunger. He describes it as being similar to some stranger walking up to a Jew who lost family in the Holocaust and asking for either a song about Bergen-Belsen or a story about Dachau. Now I admit that's a very harsh thing to say, but that was what I was raised to believe. I'm sure there's a more genteel way to phrase that which would be less offensive.

Of course it is NOT rude to ask such a thing on a Music board or a folklore board! Not in the least! I'm glad to OP did ask because it gives me the opporunity to ask other Mudcatters how they were raised to deal with the subject of 'The Potato Famine." I'm curious to hear.

In my family, songs such as Skibbereen , which refers explicitly to The Great Hunger and the emmigration of millions, were never sung outside of family gatherings and certainly not in public or before non-Irish audiences. I know that has changed a great deal in the past 50 years and it is common to now hear some songs which we never would have dared sing outside of our own community. As Documentaries such as THE LONG JOURNEY HOME deal with the subject and the songs, such old prohibitions are bound to break down.

Mind you, my father's family emmigrated from Ireland in dribs and drabs between 1916 and 1920. It's not like they were over here for generations during which they would become less likely to find such subjects painful. I asked my father if his mother's family who had come over a generation earlier than that felt any differently about such songs. He replied they were a little less likely to be offended by the subject but they still considered it terribly impolite and not a proper topic for discussion outside the family.

Typically, these types of songs would get trotted out very late in the evening, after the kids had been put to bed and when the singers and musicians would begin singing in Irish. I never did hear most of them until I was old enough to stay up past 10PM. Then, they'd sing all 14 verses of Skibberren, often unaccompanied with different singers taking each few verses. After a few such terribly sad songs, people would often weep and then somebody would lighten things up or worse.. the IRA songs would get sung. Yikes.. that was the worst. Tipsy Uncles raising glasses to Mick Collins and then to less heroic figures... oh the horror!

Sinsull is from NYC as am I and I assume she's Irish. I would be interested to know if her family held similar prohibitions against singing songs about that subject outside of the family or in public. I was born in the early 1960s and my dad was born in 1939. Perhaps younger Irish-Americans have not been raised with these types of restrictive traditions.

In the 1980s I dated an Irish fellow in NYC whose parents were from Ireland and their family had the very same ideas about these songs. My family is from Western Ireland and his family was from the South, so I doubt it was a regional prejudice. He and I used to go up to East Durham in 'The Irish Alps' on weekends and the bands there would never play such songs until very late at night. Of course, he was 10 years older than I was so maybe he just got stuck with the same cultural baggage my Dad carries.

I bet Sinsull has been to East Durham! I wonder if that place is still like it was? When I was spending a lot of time up there, my Dad's mother used to tell me stories about the trouble she and her siblings used to get up to in East Durham back in the 1920s. I wonder how long that place has been a largely Irish Resort. Anyone know?