If you've only been asked not to sing rebel songs once or twice - you've not done many gigs.

The whole Irish Independence question is not one that is as supremely simplistic as sloganeering songs pretend. All kinds and conditions of honourable men and women have occupied all sorts of opinions.

To have the part one's parents, grandparents or oneself has played dismissed (albeit in song) as acts of black hearted villainy can really upset people. And these songs have been known to cause fights - fights in which (as one landlady put it to me) somehow the people who are least capable of taking care of themselves, can get hurt.

Showing a decent respect for the sensitivities of others is not really in the same ball park as Hitler burning the books. Would you say...?