Ok Banjer, you talked me into it. Ill never say never again again.

A couple of additional points.

How old does history have to be before it becomes history ? The WT regularly sing songs glorifying people who were involved in an 'army' who were engaged in 'armed struggle' until very recently and certain elements of breakaway factions of which are still waging what they say is 'war' in the name of the Irish People - I get very annoyed at the fact that a lot of these things are done in the name of myself and my fellow countrymen and women. A particular example is a song I have to listen to at regular intervals (the next one will be Saturday, probably again on Paddy's day on Sunday) about the bravery of one of the members of this army, whose sister and brother-in-law are allegedly still involved with one of these groups - the one that claimed responsibility for the Omagh Bomb. It won't be the WTs singing it, but someone who learned it from them.

Secondly, to coin a phrase, these songs "haven't gone away you know" and as much as I might like it to happen they're unlikely to do so. The ones from the 1920s and much further back are still around. I suppose if I think about it honestly its not any of the individual songs themselves that get up my nose but the insistance of many peole of basing their entire (or the bulk of their) repertoire on this kind of stuff.

I'd like to think that the demise of the "Wolfe Tone's" as we know it is because it is no longer commercial for a group of this type to exist, because people are no longer willing to put up with this, but I have my doubts. The band are still very popular among a lot of people in my area, particularly younger people as I've said before.

That said I've no desire to see any professional musician out of work. If the lads can form a new band and keep going (hopefully with an updated repertiore) more luck to them.

Politically I would regard myself as a nationalist, but not a aupporter of purely nationalist parties, and if its not confusing to people in the US, I also regard myself as both a democrat and a republican, (but not as the term is defined by Gerry Adam's and Co. or GWB either!) I firmly believe that if 'armed struggle' was ever justified (and I'm not sure it was) the time has gone now. Maybe if we shouldn't forget completely about the songs that arose out of that struggle, it might be a good idea to put them on the back burner for a while at least until some wounds have healed a bit.

To get back to the music for a minute, which is what got us here in the first place there's a great song by Ron Kavanagh called reconciliation in which he writes :

"There's a time to fight and there's a time for healing, As the sun it melts the snows, on a cold bright April morning, Our fight has run its course, and now is the time for healing, So let us all embrace sweet reconciliation"

Now if I heard that the Wolfies, or what's left of them were recording that song, I'd know we were on the right (one) road and hopefully singing something other than soldiers songs.