Songs illegal to sing in Ireland

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: Kent Davis
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 10:36 PM

Soapbox Alert - Rant Ahead
It is such a blessing to be free. Why do we want to imagine that we lack, or once lacked, freedoms which we actually possess and have long possessed? There are NO songs which are illegal to sing in Ireland. If there are, why has no one cited the relevant statute? It looks as if there have been no songs which were illegal to sing in Ireland in living memory. I don't see much evidence that there have EVER been songs which were illegal to sing in Ireland.   
There is a difference between a government outlawing a song and a media outlet choosing not to promote a song. If we can't grasp this distinction, I fear for our rights.
(I am not Irish. I say "we" and "our" because the same sort of confusion exists in the U.S. Many American libraries have an annual "Read a Banned Book" promotion. The "banned" books are not illegal. They are books that private citizens thought were inappropriate for placement in libraries, usually school libraries. I guess "Read a Banned Book" makes a jazzier slogan than "Read a Book that Some People Would Rather the School Didn't Buy for the Sixth Graders".)
If those of us who support liberty can't grasp political distinctions, we can't win political debates. If we can't win political debates, our liberty will be lost. Then we will really have books banned in the U.S. and songs made illegal in Ireland.
Kent

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 03:00 PM

I wish my songs were well known enough to be banned, by anybody, of any race, anywhere.

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: GUEST,Hmm
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 02:54 PM

I expect the Holy See didn't ban Hitler's books because of their tolerant and free-thinking attitude.

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: MartinRyan
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 02:44 PM

Jim

I remember a similar incident, in Feakle, involving Paddy Tunney and a man who was reciting one of Brendan Kennelly's poems! Some delicious ironies there, alright. We're a funny lot.

Regards

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: GUEST,Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 02:19 PM

Some years ago we were at a singing session in Feakle, East Clare, when one of the company began to recite part of Merriman's poem, 'The Midnight Court'.
A Comhaltas adjudicator took great offence and stopped him from performing 'that gross pornography' in public.
The irony was that the event took place on the 200th year of Merriman's death and a few hundred yards from where he is reputed to be buried - hence the recitation.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: GUEST,Fritz Dinglebopper
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 01:32 PM

Someone has the Horst Wessel Lied included as sung by the Clancy Brothers?.

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: The Sandman
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 01:12 PM

ard mhacha,Because he is a ....
PMB,To send condolenceson Hitlers death was disgraceful,if they had won the war,he would have annihalated the Irish.He also turned down an offer from England[during the second world war] for independence,[how genuine the offer was, we will never know].

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: ard mhacha
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 12:58 PM

Malcolm if you care to look through this Thread you will see a few Thread drifts, why comment on mine?, I thought my input was of interest.

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: Brendy
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 09:35 AM

Apropos, 'The Soldier' Someone else has claimed he wrote it.
It is plagiarism, of course...., but I just thought I should mention it...

B.

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: Brendy
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 09:18 AM

Was it?

I do 'Margarita' from time to time.

B.

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 09:12 AM

The Soldier
by Harvey Andrew was banned by BBC, not sure about the rebel songs though.

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: Brendy
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 08:38 AM

ALISON!!!!
Long time, indeed. Hope the form is good.

Of course, I forgot about Frankie...

Was 'Only Our Rivers Run Free' banned in England, anyone know?

B.

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: Brendy
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 08:18 AM

He he, Martin... Kevin Barry was one of the 'lighter' songs sung at the barricades in Portadown.... :-)

B.

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 08:14 AM

You've got that in a bit of a twist, Dick. He visited the German Legation in Dublin after Hitler's death- and he was the only head of state in the world to officially send condolences. It would not have been possible to vuisit Germany, which by then was almost entirely controlled by the Allies- and Berlin by the Russians.

De Valera almost certainly had no sympathy whatsoever with Nazi or German war aims, but was determined to tread the path of total neutrality he saw as necessary. I think he was mistaken, as did the thousands of Irish people who joined the British army or worked in our war industries. His cynical use of Catholic nationalism to further his own ends is a matter of record. See disgraceful shenanigins over the Mother and Child Act.

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: The Sandman
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 08:04 AM

guestPMB,Check out what DeVelera did when Germany conceded defeat at the end of the Second World War.,and his immediate trip to germany [at tax payers expense]
Micheal Collins had been dead for twenty five years.
DEvelera set Micheal Collins,up over the signing of the treaty.thus Micheal Collins famous quote,on signing it [Iam signing my death warrant].
DEvelera may not have been corrupt[like some of our other taoiseach,s]and he may have held Ireland together,But he prevented progress,and hand in glove with the catholic church,employed strict censorship of films, books[tailor and anstey],plays,etc
and is the most likely person to have censored songs.,therefore if anyone is seriously interested in pursuing this thread,that [develeras time in power]is the most likely time if at all that songs have been censored,other than Cromwell.

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: MartinRyan
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 06:10 AM

I would have thought that the point of the God Save the Queen example (and, of course, the likely reaction to singing, say, "Kevin Barry" in Portadown) is that the Irish don't need the law to decide which songs can be sung in public - they're only too capable of brutally deciding it for themselves!

Regards

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 06:08 AM

I don't think Hitler had a funeral... and I'm pretty sure Michael Collins didn't set it up... there'd have been a song about it.

In a burning Berlin bunker, where a dying Fuehrer lay,
Michael Collins stood beside him, ere his soul should pass away,
And he faintly murmured Michael, as he grasped him by the hand,
Tell me Michael while I'm dying, shall my soul pass through Ireland?

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: The Sandman
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 05:59 AM

Shame Greg,if you had let me know ,I could have arranged it for you,my 12 bore is in need of a bit of use.
going back to the subject ,the most likely era for something to have been banned[would have been when the bloody Long Fellow was in power,1950s]the idiot that altered the constitution to appease the Catholic church,removing womens rights,.
and the same fellow that attended Hitlers Funeral,the same one that set Micheal Collins up,and who in collusion with the catholic church,was responsible for the censorship of books and films,who presided over mass emigration,who let himself get involved in a trade war with england[without thinking it through],a nationalist reactionary.DickMiles

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: greg stephens
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 05:16 AM

Re Jim Carroll's various reminiscences here. Last year, during the World Cup, I was driving with the Boat Band through West Cork to play at a Cork couple's wedding. We flew the St George's Cross all the way through West Cork(or a small bit of it), and I am glad to report that nobody whatever shot at us from any hedgerows, Tom Barry and the Big Fella must have been elsewhere.We presented the flag to the bridegroom, but whether he proudly displays it in his house I am not sure.

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: greg stephens
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 05:08 AM

ard mhacha: Lonnie Donegan's "Nobody Loves Like an Irishman" was certainly banned by the BBC, but that was because of its humorous reference to the Koran, not because it it was a rebel song. It isn't.
    The only rebel song I recall him singing was "Kevin Barry", and I don't recall the BBC banned it.Did it really?

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 05:00 AM

And are the subject, along with songs temporarily not played by various other radio stations in various other countries, of various previous discussions.

Can anybody think of a single example of a song which is, or has been, illegal (proscribed by law, not merely censored by the broadcast media) in Ireland? That is what Gudrun asked.

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: ard mhacha
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 04:47 AM

Has anyone Googled song, banned by the BBC, one in particular had me laughing ,Richie Kavanagh`s, An focal eile, was banned because focal sounded like the F word.
How about Deep in the heart of Texas, banned on the Radio in the USA during WW2 because of the clapping part in the song, it interrupted the production line when the workers clapped along,and the BBC banned, Give Ireland back to the Irish,the Paul McCartney song.
Lonnie Donegan was banned from the BBC for singing an Irish rebel song as well as a couple with sexual content.

The banned songs on the BBC are numerous.

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: Jon Bartlett
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 03:45 AM

Cap['n, I did a study of Parker a few years back - if you'd be interested, PM me and I'll send a copy.

Jon Bartlett

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: GUEST,Jim carroll
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 03:18 AM

"God Save the Queen'
'Cap'n'
Agree entirely with your sentiments, but as I don't believe in one, and object to financially supporting the other, I understand where the lads who threw the glasses were coming from.
May have already told this story, but when we were recording singers in Clare in the seventies we were in the home of two elderly brothers with a magnificent repertoire of songs between them.
We were given a great welcome by them, fed and watered (whiskeyed) and had used up three reels of tape when one sang us a political song 'The Manchester Martyrs'.
He then went into a diatribe about the English, how you waved to them on the road and they ignored you, how they never went to church, and concluded with "They'd eat a horse - on a Friday". Those were the days when it was forbidden to eat meat on that day.
He then immediately reverted back into his 'hospitality' mode.
We had a similar experience in Baltimore (the West Cork one); this would be the first time Pat and I went to Ireland together.
We were in a bar there celebrating a point-to-point victory with a newly-met acquaintance, when a local went into a whole soliloquy of rebel songs; there were dead Black-and-Tans in every corner.
After a while the singer joined us at the bar and asked us where we were from.
Pat (rather nervously) replied that her family were Scots, but we lived in London.
He threw his arms about both of us, told us of his brother who was a postman in Camden Town, and bought us drinks for the rest of the night
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: pavane
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 02:28 AM

That should say 1674, not 1764! Finger trouble

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: pavane
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 02:27 AM

Rapaire
Thanks for the link to the Index Librorum Prohibitorum
You might (or might not) be interested to know that there is an ancestor of mine listed there. Samuel Chap(p)uzeau's book L'Europe Vivante, of which I have a copy, was banned in 1764.

Samuel Chappuzeau was my (10 x great)-grandfather. We don't actually know why the book was banned, but Samuel was a Calvinist.

The only musical link here is that as well as several plays, he wrote a Libretto in 1689. You can find him (and a link to a scan of the Libretto) in Wikipedia. Unfortunately, we only have the words, not the music.

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: alison
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 12:29 AM

Hi Brendy - long time no see!!

Relax - by Frankie goes to Hollywood was banned in the 80's (because of a "rude pic" on the cover....

"Too much too young" - by the specials or fun boy three (also 80's) was also censored as opposed to banned because of the line
"haven't you heard of the starving millions? haven't you heard of contraception?"

god forbid that we should have heard the word "contraception"

mind you I do agree that "Agadoo" should have been banned - and can I add a suggestion that so should the "Mr Blobby song"

slainte

alison

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: GUEST,Philippa
Date: 19 Nov 07 - 11:23 AM

regarding Jim Carroll's last posting, a few (5??) years ago I was in a pub in County Mayo near Croagh Patrick and was very surprised to hear some visitors singing "Rule Brittania". The context was also a tv broadcast of a UK team playing football. I didn't observe any outspoken adverse reaction from anyone in the pub.

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: Brendy
Date: 19 Nov 07 - 10:26 AM

During a festival in Germany last year, as part of our set, the guy I was playing with asked me to intro the verse of 'As Down By The Glenside - The Bold Fenian Men'. We were half way through it when the first pint glass landed limply in front of me...
I couldn't see through the lights but when we finished the song the perpetrator shouted up: "Do you know any good UVF songs?"

I just calmly said that to date there weren't any good UVF songs worth singing, but if he wrote one, I would surely considerate it.

Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich was well known for his rendition of 'The Old Orange Flute'.

B.

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: Brendy
Date: 19 Nov 07 - 10:07 AM

I have a feeling that Serge Gainsborough's 'Je t'aime' was banned in Ireland at the time.
I can't think of anything that was banned in Ireland since the BBC banned 'God Save The Queen' by the Sex Pistols.
That was 1977

B.

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: Leadfingers
Date: 19 Nov 07 - 07:38 AM

And it was a 100th post ! LOL

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: Leadfingers
Date: 19 Nov 07 - 07:37 AM

Puff the Magic Dragon was banned in Singapore , as was The RoofTop Singers recording of Walk Right In because of their supposed (By the Singapore Government) to be about drug taking !
And I KNOW this is thread drift !

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 19 Nov 07 - 07:19 AM

But they don't sing GSTQ at the END of football matches- they sing it at the beginning...

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: GUEST,Young Buchan
Date: 19 Nov 07 - 06:23 AM

I will try, but it could be a long wait. I have just moved house and all my books are in boxes!

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 19 Nov 07 - 06:01 AM

See my post slightly earlier in this thread on that subject. If you have any evidence that singing it on board ship was at any time treated as a disciplinary offence, then I'd be glad to have chapter and verse; it's one of the songs in the next Hammond-Gardiner collection (The Wanton Seed) that I'm revising for re-publication, and that sort of background is always useful.

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 Nov 07 - 06:00 AM

ioo,sorry leadfingers.

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 Nov 07 - 06:00 AM

Jim, I find your story funny,but also sad.In the sense,that it still has to matter,It will be agood day when we have a unified Ireland,and God Save The Queen,will no longer arouse such a reaction.
Dick Miles

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 Nov 07 - 05:51 AM

But there was a song praising Richard Parker the executed leader of the Royal Navy mutiny at the Nore in 1797, and I believe there is some evidence to suggest that ratings were subsequently charged with sedition for singing it on board ship. The only bit I can remember off the top of my head is:
Farewell Parker, you bright angel.
Once you were old England's pride.
Although that you were hanged for mutiny
The worse than you are left behind.
this song is available on my cd Nautical and can be purchasedhttp://www.dickmiles.com

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: ard mhacha
Date: 18 Nov 07 - 05:57 AM

Shelia something like, `a dig up the gub`.

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: GUEST,Sheila
Date: 17 Nov 07 - 06:39 PM

What's "rapping your bake"? Translate, please for the U.S. reader.
Thanks. Sheila

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: Stringsinger
Date: 17 Nov 07 - 06:22 PM

Having songs be illegal and having them banned may be two different things.

"Waist Deep in the Big Muddy" was banned from American TV in the Sixties and "Old Man Atom" was banned by the FCC in the Forties. No one was arrested for singing these
songs off the media.

Some might resort to violence on the singing of some songs however.

Frank

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: ard mhacha
Date: 17 Nov 07 - 04:59 PM

Tommy Sands song `Whatever you say say nothing`, has nothing to do with politics, this is an old saying long in use in the north of Ireland, it simply a means of preventing someone `rapping your bake`.

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 04:31 PM

'you can go to jail for singing that!'.....

Though only if you're nicking the lead off the church roof while you're singing it.

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: GUEST,Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 03:37 PM

As far as I know there are no songs which are actually illegal in Ireland nowadays, but there is the story told to me by a friend who was in Crotty's Bar in Kilrush in County Clare during a football match between England and Yugoslavia.
The crowd watching the game were cheering enthusiastically for England and their victory was greeted with loud applause, but when 'God save The Queen' was played at the end, two pint glasses sailed through the air from different parts of the room and landed through the screen of the TV.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: GUEST,machree01
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 10:10 AM

South of The Border {down Mexico way} written by Jimmy Kennedy and Michael Carr. i heard was banned at one time.

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 01 Oct 07 - 05:28 PM

'The Death of Parker' was widely published on broadsides, and was certainly never illegal anywhere. It's possible that singing it in the Navy may have been a disciplinary offence at some point, but as I tried to explain earlier, that's a completely different matter and would have depended on the local context.

Nobody so far has come up with an example of a song proscribed by law anywhere (except for the particular case of Nazi songs in Germany), far less in Ireland; where, I suspect, our original questioner was probably thinking vaguely of songs 'made illegal' by the Wicked English before the establishment of the Republic.

Does anybody know of any identified examples (titles, please) and what the statutes concerned (if they existed) were?

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: GUEST,Young Buchan
Date: 01 Oct 07 - 05:09 PM

I accept there is no evidence that singing MacCaffery was ever illegal, although until very recently the idea lived on among traditional singers that it was. Jim Eldon once told me a story about recording from an old gypsy singer three verses of MacCaffery which were so mangled as to make them wholly unrecognisable and incomprehensible, and yet then confidentially announcing that 'you can go to jail for singing that!'

But there was a song praising Richard Parker the executed leader of the Royal Navy mutiny at the Nore in 1797, and I believe there is some evidence to suggest that ratings were subsequently charged with sedition for singing it on board ship. The only bit I can remember off the top of my head is:
Farewell Parker, you bright angel.
Once you were old England's pride.
Although that you were hanged for mutiny
The worse than you are left behind.

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: Mike Miller
Date: 01 Oct 07 - 04:34 PM

I am reminded that there was a song (They're Coming To Take Me Away) that was pulled from air play back in the mid 1960's. It was composed, performed and produced by a friend of mine named Jerry Samuels, recording under the name, Napolean XIII. Jerry tells me that, in the few months it was heard on radio, it sold over a million copies. The radio stations pulled it when they received angry calls from mental health orginizations. Had they known Jerry as I do, they would have been much more tolerant.

                      Mike

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: GUEST,Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Oct 07 - 03:59 PM

Digressing slightly,
During the BBCs mopping up campaign in the 50s two Irish songs, 'Lord Leitrim' and 'Just As St Peter's Day Was Dawning' were recorded.
When they were archived they were designated an 'S' number indicating that permission had to be obtained before they could be broadcast.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Songs illegal to sing in Ireland
From: Declan
Date: 01 Oct 07 - 02:04 PM

Shaneo,

They were banned from RTE which was essentially the only broadcasting outlet at the time, so they were banned in that sense. But it wasn't illegal to sing them and no one was arrested for writing or singing them, at least in the Republic.

Internment in the North was a very blunt instrument and its hard to say exactly why anyone was imprisoned, given that they didn't have to be charged with anything.