oh great. now i'm suffering from terrible internal conflict.
somebody above mentioned "nelson's farewell." i googled/read it, and, well, thank you, it was very insightful. i'm actually descended from Lord Admiral Horatio Viscount Nelson (as is his full and proper title), making me British, AND i'm Irish AND scottish. the half of me that's German has taken to the sidelines and frankly seems not to give a rat's ass about expressing a single gene in my body. really i only resemble the Irish blood in my family.
thank you much for bringing this to my attention, my ma will get a great laugh from it. as proud of my Irish blood as i am, i really have no idea about Irish history, nor their internal struggle as well as conflicts with britain and scotland, and this is a bit of an eye-opener. britain actually forced them to have a statue of Nelson in Dublin, and some of the local boys decided to blast it? oh ho ho i'm proud of my brethren, i knew there was a reason i'm such a hard-headed radical. now i know it's 'cos i'm Irish.
a pint to all of them! and to all of you, for helping explain this song...which...come to think of it, was the whole reason i was on this site.