Muhammed Ali in Ireland

Subject: Muhammed Ali in Ireland
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Sep 09 - 06:23 PM

O'Leary, O'Hara, O'Hare and O'Reilly,
There's no one as Irish as Muhammed Ali...

Subject: RE: Muhammed Ali in Ireland
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 02 Sep 09 - 04:12 AM

Respect. I didn't know Ali was still alive, let alone as Irish as I am myself.

Subject: RE: Muhammed Ali in Ireland
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Sep 09 - 07:05 AM

I always thought he had an Irish look to him.

Subject: RE: Muhammed Ali in Ireland
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 02 Sep 09 - 07:43 AM

I didn't know Ali was still alive

Believe me, unless you shun ALL forms of modern communication, you will know when Ali dies. Quite why people find him so important is a different question.

Not really a music thread, is it?

Ed

Subject: RE: Muhammed Ali in Ireland
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Sep 09 - 10:14 AM

"Not really a music thread, is it?"
If there isn't a song about it I'd be absolutely astonished.

Subject: RE: Muhammed Ali in Ireland
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Sep 09 - 11:04 AM

And here it is, on YouTube, sung by the Ennis man who wrote it, Dermot Kelly. Very singable - and I like the way it pay tribute to his refusal to go to fight the Vietnamese, as well as his boxing.

Subject: RE: Muhammed Ali in Ireland
From: bobad
Date: 02 Sep 09 - 11:11 AM

Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay) sings Stand By Me

Subject: RE: Muhammed Ali in Ireland
From: Declan
Date: 03 Sep 09 - 03:24 AM

Sharon Shannon was playing for him in Ennis the other day. A meeting of two great 'boxers' from County Clare.

Subject: RE: Muhammed Ali in Ireland
From: Gulliver
Date: 03 Sep 09 - 08:26 PM

Nice one, Declan! Wish I were there...

Subject: RE: Muhammed Ali in Ireland
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 03 Sep 09 - 11:09 PM

There was a very nice commentary by Frank Deford on National Public Radio this week about his visit. Sweetness and Light is the essay that ran on Wednesday, September 2, 2009.

SRS

Subject: RE: Muhammed Ali in Ireland
From: Azizi
Date: 04 Sep 09 - 12:10 PM

I met Muhammad Ali in 1970s when he was the keynote speaker at Indiana University in Indiana.

During the question & answer period of his speech, a White man in the majority Black audience asked him what his opinion was of Malcolm X. This was a potentially explosive question since Muhammad Ali was a member of the Nation of Islam and had been brought into that religion by Malcolm X. But the Nation of Islam had not only severed its connection to Malcolm X (for reasons too complicated to go into here), but was said to be at least partly responsible for Malcolm's assasination.

I was anxious to hear how Muhammad Ali would answer that man's question. I knew that if he spoke against Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali would definitely lose the good will of the overwhelming majority of his Black audience. And I'm certain he knew this for he very adroitly declined to answer the man's question. I recall him saying something like "I know what you're trying to do, and I won't be drawn into it. I'm hear to talk about Black culture, and that's what I'm going to talk about". The audience loved his answer and I breathed a sigh of relief.

That experience left me with a much higher regard for Muhammad Ali's intelligence than I had before.



Azizi Powell

Subject: RE: Muhammed Ali in Ireland
From: Azizi
Date: 04 Sep 09 - 12:14 PM

See these two reposts from athis archived Mudcat thread:

thread.cfm?threadid=98442#2023662


Subject: RE: BS: The term Afro American?
From: Mickey191 - PM
Date: 26 Apr 07 - 07:59 PM

The Black Irish I referred to were Caucasions who had dark skin & Black hair. My Father's cousin was called "Black Dick" & my Dad, who had reddish hair & fair complexion was known as "Red Dick" - both having the same last name- this appelation to distinguish one from the other....


**

Subject: RE: BS: The term Afro American?
From: McGrath of Harlow - PM
Date: 26 Apr 07 - 08:20 PM

"Black Irish" in that sense generally tend to have very fair skin.   Whilst there are also a good number of Irish and Irish descended people who also have African ancestors, both in Ireland and in the Irish Diaspora.

-snip-

So Muhammad Ali (and Barack Obama) and quite a number of other Black Americans are members of both the African Diaspora and the Irish Diaspora.

Subject: RE: Muhammed Ali in Ireland
From: Azizi
Date: 04 Sep 09 - 12:19 PM

I'm sorry. The link I gave above leads to one of my post in that thread and not to the general thread.

Here is the correct hyperlink for that thread:

thread.cfm?threadid=98442

Subject: RE: Muhammed Ali in Ireland
From: Rapparee
Date: 04 Sep 09 - 12:29 PM

When I was living in South Bend, Indiana, he would sometimes come down and visit from his home in Michigan. Muhammed Ali would meet with the kids in the really poor areas, the crime-ridden areas, just chat with them on the street. He respected them and they him. He has my respect as well, for he embodies what a human and a celebrity SHOULD be.

Subject: RE: Muhammed Ali in Ireland
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Sep 09 - 05:50 PM

It seems to have been a very pleasing visit to Ennis, and it's good to know that Ali's "white" ancestry doesn't come from slave-owner rape, as he once speculated, but at least for the most part from his Irish great-grandfather who married a former slave, with a family back in Ireland that so obviously welcomed their newly returned cousin.

And I think that's a charming song I linked to, "The Ballad of Muhammed Ali" - with a slide show to match. Including a photo of Barack Obama giving the thumbs up, to go with the line "You shone like a beacon to guide the ship home."

Subject: RE: Muhammed Ali in Ireland
From: Azizi
Date: 05 Sep 09 - 02:25 PM

Here's an excerpt from a post that documents Muhammad Ali's "float like a butterfly/sting like a bee" being used in a girls' footstomping cheer.


Subject: RE: Songs for children/The People Could Fly
From: Azizi - PM
Date: 08 Sep 04 - 12:49 PM

...There is also an African American foot stomping cheer performed by girls in the 1980s called Fly Girl. However a "fly girl" is a hip, street wise, self-confident young female who dressed well, among other things. While the cheer doesn't really relate to your request, here is one version from Pittsburgh, PA:

Group:
Fly Girl 1
Fly Girl 2
Pump it up, Keisha *
Just like you do.
Soloist #1
My name is Keisha
Group: What?
Soloist #1
And I'm a fly girl.
Group: What?
Soloist #1:
It takes a lot of men
to rock my world.
Cause I can fly like a butterfly
Sting like a bee.
That's why they call me
SEXY.

---
Continue from the beginning with the next soloist and repeat until every member of the group has had one turn as soloist.

* Substitute the soloist's name or nickname. The "What" is said sarcastically. The entire cheer is performed while the girls {usually 7-12 years} are performing a foot stomping routine that also includes handclapping {their own hands} and, sometimes, body pattin {pattin Juba}. On the word "Sexy" the soloist usually does a hip shaking movement.   

"Fly like a butterfly etc". is Heavyweight boxer Muhammad Ali's "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee" saying, used to describe how he would fight George Forman in the 1970 Rumble in the Jungle fight in Kinshasa, Zaire. Muhammad Ali won and George Forman went on to promoting grills and other things.

Enjoy!

thread.cfm?threadid=71682#1266878

[I corrected the formatting in this post]

Subject: RE: Muhammed Ali in Ireland
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Sep 09 - 02:56 PM

The line is also used in the chorus of this song about Muhammed Ali.

It's be interesting to know if it was an expression already in use, for example in playground songs, before Ali applied it to himself. I'd suspect ot was - but now it's irrevocably attached to him.