From the Usenet archives, a post from John Moulden on Conrad Bladey:

Subject: Re: Moulden-Gaughan-Censors: John Moulden's final words From: jmoul81075@aol.com Date: 27 Mar 1997 20:24:37 GMT

I posted a message which appears quite a long way below, intending it to appear in all the newsgroups in the headers but, mysteriously, it got only to soc.culture.irish. I have now retreived it from Deja News and am posting separately to rec.music. celtic, uk.music.folk and rec.music.folk. I apologise if it reappears anywhere it has been seen previously. I also apologise to those who are wearied by this. I had decided to let the matter go on the principle (as Murphy's Law says) not to argue with fools lest people fail to see the difference. Not that Mr Bladey is a fool only that I do not wish to be associated with him - which is what I said and why this started.

I have two more things to say - and this will be my final posting on the subject. When I called my publishing and distribution "company" Ulstersongs, I knew it was a risk. A risk that I would be confused with the immoderate voices of Ulster, but I thought and still think it important to attempt to correct the stereotype. The music making and singing community of Ireland as a whole is "mixed" in all sorts of ways and has mainly resisted any attempts to have it take sides.

I know protestant flute band members who join monthly or more often in Irish music session with friends who at other times play in bands which lead Hiberian parades. None of us submerges our own pride in our own variety of culture but we celebrate what we have in common and respect one another's differences. I have known Orangemen sing rebel songs and Nationalists sing Orange ones.

I fear that Conrad Bladey and others have misunderstood what I said. Ulstersongs does actually stock some items which contain political songs of all colours and persuasions. There are (for example) historically republican songs among the Bogside Ballads: there are loyalist songs in Sam Hanna Bell's "Erin's Orange Lily". I do not _exclude_ these things but I do _not_ promote them. What I am doing is more representative than what Mr Bladey's protegee Ian Bradley's company is doing. It stocks - or it appears from the advertisement to stock - only protestant/loyalist/orange/unionist material. I wish to promote the good-neighbourly, even-handed approach of the majority of people in Northern Ireland; Mr Bladey and his confreres appear to promote only one point of view. That is no way to win a hearing for your arguments as I told Mr Bladey when I first read his postings to irtrad last June or July.

That's my first point - the second is another partial repost from an article I sent to rec.music.celtic last summer. It concerns what I think is a total confusion about the nature of censorship - of which I (and DICK GAUGHAN for Heaven's sake!) stand accused (and, except for George Hawes and Larry Mallette, largely undefended.)

This is what I said (I was attempting to indicate why it was appropriate for there to be discussion of political songs:

Self quote: It has been said that this discussion is out of place in a music list or discussion group but there are legitimate points to be made about sectarian songs and their place in tradition - personally I abhor most of them - but I remember a time when groups of catholics and protestants together sang "Derry's walls" to the tune of "A nation once again" and "A nation once again" to the tune of "Derry' Walls". They also sang "The green grassy slopes of the Boyne" and "Kelly the boy from Killanne", "The ould orange flute" and "Whack fol the diddle". They did not sing "The rifles of the IRA", "The broad black brimmer", "The protestant maid" or "Dolly's brae" because they would have given offence. Such songs are intended to reinforce the antagonistic feelings of one group of people towards another; they can only - unless the intention is to insult - be sung in a group which is one-sided. It thus appears that their purpose is to divide and to maintain division.

I would suggest then that the active promotion of either republican or loyalist songs is a sectarian act. I further suggest that a confusion exists between the responsibility of a folklorist and the rights of a singer/musician. The folklorist has a responsibility to research in an absolutely even handed way; he also has a right to promote any kind of song or music that he likes - but he should not object if others hold that his actions show his personal interest. In other words - research what you like - present it objectively - but once you begin to *promote* any part of the tradition, by singing republican songs or by publishing loyalist ones, you have betrayed your bias - these things, if they are to mean anything rather than being examples pinned like butterflies to a card - have to be sung or promoted with conviction. It is impossible to sing republican or loyalist songs sincerely without being sectarian and showing sectarianism - similarly any promotion of such songs is a sectarian act - it is not a corrective, it is blatantly one-sided. The matter of censorship does not enter, everyone has free choices but we need not object if we are judged on the basis of the choices we make.

Let's be in no doubt - the legitimacy in tradition of any song is not an earnest of its worthiness. In a lecture at the second Keele folk festival Bert Lloyd, the intellectual shaper of the English folk revival of the 1950s and 60s likened some folklorists to a biologist who loved animals until, that is, he saw a warthog "That can't be an animal," he said "it's too bloody ugly". I'm afraid that too many loyalist and republican songs are warthogs.

At the same time there are tendencies in loyalist songs as distinct from republican ones which need to be noticed and which may go some way towards explaining the unbiased observer's greater distaste for the one rather than the other. Firstly, many republican songs describe a struggle for the independence of a small "nation" against a more powerful. They also have a heroic cast: "Brave Father Murphy of the County Wexford", Henry Joy, General Monroe tell stories in noble terms. Even more recent songs, their angry edges unsmoothed by long being passed from person to person take the stance that the struggle is not against the people of England but the "forces of the crown". (Whether these stances are true or not is not at issue - I am speaking of the attitude inherent in the songs.)

Loyalist songs however seem to be directed at a group - not the IRA nor the INLA - but a cultural or religious group: "Taigs" or "Fenians". Their tone is a lot more abusive so people without bias are not swayed by them. There is a group of republican songs which reflect recent events and which are similarly unpleasant but the impression remains that a larger proportion of loyalist songs have a racist slant.

End of quote.

Below is the repost of which I spoke earlier ******************repost********************************

Subject: Re: Moulden-Gaughan-Censors of the Folk Tradition? From: jmoul81075@aol.com Date: 1997/03/26 Message-Id: <19970326020200.VAA27012@ladder01.news.aol.com> Newsgroups: soc.culture.irish

In article <3337E55C.1787@mail.bcpl.lib.md.us>, Conrad Bladey writes:

>The point is that Mr.Moulden went further than to >say he was not including the tradition. He clearly >stated that he was not including the tradition because >it did not need his help or consideration and because it >was a tradition which had no right to exist.

This is a lie - I have never said anything about any tradition having no right to exist. Nor about its not needing my consideration. I have explained my position in other posts.

>Sorry Mr.Moulden has stated that he believed that due to >his hatred for things Orange this tradition was not >worthy of a place in his collections of what he calls >the music of Ulster. He has termed it hateful and >divisive and objectionable-this is not allowing the >ancient tradition to have its proper and equal place as >a valid ulster tradition. John Moulden's collections >become the songs of John Moulden and not the "Songs of >the People" or of the "Folk" or of "ulster" writ large.

I have no hatred for things Orange only of bigotry and violence. My reference to songs and music which promote division did not mention Loyalist or any other kind of music - I intended it to apply equally to bigoted and inflamatory Republican songs. Following on the Rebel songs and YOU!!!! thread I'm sure Mr Bladey will welcome that.

>All sides occupying the island have their traditions and >all cultures are just as valid and all are just as >human. Are you proclaiming a master race free from sin?- >at the expensive of the Brave men of Ulster who defended >themselves against ruthless Catholic attack at places >like Dolly's Brae and Portadown- I suppose throwing >people alive into a frozen river is ok just so they are >not "your" people!

Jonathan Bardon's "A History of Ulster" page 304 gives the following facts about what Mr Bladey calls the "ruthless Catholic attack at ... Dolly's Brae". It was matter of a march by Orangemen which the Catholic "Ribbonmen" opposed. As the Orangemen marched back from Lord Roden's park at Tolleymore the Catholics occupied a hill above the route. There is some confusion as to which side fired the first shot though both sides fired thereafter. The police, some magistrates, a troop of dragoons and a company of foot soldiers were there to keep the peace and when they ran up the hill firing, the Ribbonmen ran off. Despite earlier appeals and their renewal by a mounted magistrate not to fire the Orangemen continued.

When the skirmish was over, Bardon says "At the top of the hill the police found eighteen pitchforks, seven pikes and ten muskets and half a dozen bodies. Not a single Orangeman was wounded."

There were also attacks on nearby Catholic houses - they were burned. A police Inspector appealed for the Orangemen to help a wounded man and was refused "He's not one of our party".

(I suppose it's ok to deny compassion to someone as long as they're not one of your people.)

I'm puzzled by Mr Bladey's description.

The Portadown incident occurred in 1641 when 80 protestant men women and children were driven off a bridge into the River Bann and those who did not drown immediately did so after being bludgeoned. This was an attack by Catholics upon protestants. (Bardon Page 138)

The same year in Fermanagh Sir William Cole killed about two hundred captured Irish. There were many such incidents on both sides. On balance more protestants died.

The next year Major General Robert Monroe landed [and marched south, where] ... at Newry ... after shooting and hanging sixty men, he did stop his men throwing women in the river and using them as targets though only after several had been killed. He then went north again and (says Bardon) "slaughtered any Irish men, women and children that he found."

There is much to be said about ruthlessness on all sides and it _was_ 1641/2, when all sorts of horrors were occuring in the Europe of the thirty years war.

>When we deal with folklore we can not take sides. We >must take the time and energy we have to preserve that >which has come down to us as treasures of creativity and >records of the history of all of the oppressed.

I'm glad you said that - we must not take sides - which is what I said and which you are attacking - another odd thing. I also agree that we should preserve _but_ you haven't mentioned that you take this a step further - you promote it - and in doing so you take sides.

Reductio ad absurdum?! Absurdity is not enough, is it? Rather we have the exposure of Mr Bladey as an unprincipled ruffian.

I am honoured to be linked with Dick Gaughan in this matter.

John Moulden Singer, Percussionist, Writer, Lecturer, Researcher, Publisher, Song Hunter Ulstersongs Mail Order (Books and Cassettes) http://members.aol.com/jmoul81075/ulstsong.htm