Sorry, Pete, but I got to go against you on this. It demonstrates a bias of yours that you and I disagree on. But folks, Pete and I are good friends, so it is a friendly disagreement. The bias is wrong, IMHO, because it denies the basis of the rebel song. The Irish have been trying to throw off the yoke of an oppressor who was better armed, had one of the finest standing militaries in the world, and who had imperial/colonial ambition and felt it was their right to subjugate other cultures. Without getting into a discussion of the rightness of that (thus hijacking the thread), you simply cannot have a thread about these rebel songs without those issues. It was because of those very things that the Irish rebelled over and over again. It has been said that we love our martyrs. All freedom fighters do. The songs exist precisely because of this. And that is what makes them great. In spite of the disadvantages, in spite of the certainty of death, the struggles went on. To eliminate them is to almost apologize for this aspect of the Irish character. And we just aren't going to do that.

Tim......The Ballad of James Connolly done with the appropriate reverence.....anything but average. But the house has to be right.

All the best,

Mick