I live in a block of flats in the city, and I see all the kids outside playing. The big ones (ages 6-7-ish) beat the *&!~ out of the little ones constantly-- sometimes I can't believe how violent their play is. I don't see them playing wargames, though. They pretend to be football teams: Celtic and Rangers or Hibs and Hearts...One of the bigger boys, who wears a Rangers shirt constantly, goes around calling one of the littler ones a Fenian bastard (whether he knows what that means or just parrots his dad when a green shirt comes into view, I have no idea). Forget toy guns for the moment. I'm all for the banning of football colours...and on this, I am entirely serious (Not having been raised here, I'm aware that I am striking deep into the heart of the Scottish cultural psyche, if there is such a thing-- but hey--might as well stick my neck out). Or perhaps I am just disgruntled because where I live I only receive Radio Scotland on medium wave and get football matches in the place of Travelling Folk...

Back to the songs, though. Often the words of a song are secondary to the ways in which a song comes to be used. My husband (native Edinburgh boy, and the reason I am living here in the rain...) stopped singing much of his Irish repertoire after the Omagh bombing a few years back. They were all great songs, and none of them would have been particularly violent in themselves, but their associations certainly are. And although he would have reasons for singing them that were nothing to do with unthinking sectarianism, you can never know what motivates the people who listen to you.

EG