An Irish anti-fascist song

Subject: RE: An Irish anti-fascist song
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 04:26 PM

Gently, ard mhacha - he's referring to the other lot!

Subject: RE: An Irish anti-fascist song
From: ard mhacha
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 03:46 PM

Paul Burke if you care to read the following the brave Irish men who fought against Franco did not come home in disgrace, you seem to relish belittling anything Irish.
http://www.shapesoftime.net/pages/viewpage.asp?uniqid=12396

Subject: RE: An Irish anti-fascist song
From: Young Buchan
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 03:14 PM

Touché! :-)

Subject: RE: An Irish anti-fascist song
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 01:34 PM

"Fine Fail" is an interesting political term. It could be an excellent way of summing up the way Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have assimilated over the years.

Subject: RE: An Irish anti-fascist song
From: Young Buchan
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 01:05 PM

"I very much doubt if you could find any indication that any of them [Duffy's Blueshirts] wanted Partition"

'Wanted' partition might be a tad strong, but they certainly ACCEPTED it. Duffy/Cosgrave's Fine Gael were pro-Treaty followers of Collins, and at the throats of Fine Fail and the other anti-Partitionists.

Subject: RE: An Irish anti-fascist song
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 08:24 AM

Paul

Haven't heard that usage of "squib" for a long time. Nice one!

Subject: RE: An Irish anti-fascist song
From: Paul Burke
Date: 24 Oct 09 - 03:37 PM

Duffy's Blueshirts, trust the Irish to add comedy to a tragedy. They were sent home as useless by Franco; his subsequent attempts to send an Irish contingent to support Hitler in Rissia saved a few dozen Irish lives- by being treated with the contempt they deserved.

That song's a squib worth preserving.

Subject: RE: An Irish anti-fascist song
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Oct 09 - 03:33 PM

Well, they were actually. I very much doubt if you could find any indication that any of them wanted Partition, or an Ireland that wasn't a republic.

Subject: RE: An Irish anti-fascist song
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Oct 09 - 02:48 PM

Be careful with the use of the term "Irish Republicans" here! To you it may just mean "people from the Irish republic" (though that didn't exist at the time, as it happens). To Irish people and many others, it means those who support an all-Ireland republic. O'Duffy and his supporters were very definitely NOT republicans in that sense.

Subject: RE: An Irish anti-fascist song
From: Thompson
Date: 24 Oct 09 - 02:43 PM

O'Duffy and his Irish Republican comrades were fighting against the democratically elected left-wing government, and were fighting on the side of Franco's Falangists - right-wingers whose coup d'etat toppled that government with the backing of Germany and American arms.

Another, larger, group of Irish Republicans were fighting in the International Brigade for the Republic and against Franco.

Subject: RE: An Irish anti-fascist song
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Oct 09 - 01:20 PM

It's a piss-take - more the irony curtain than the iron curtain, I suppose. The last verse amounts to the true hero leaping out from the costume of the pantomime villain and hammering home the moral...

Subject: RE: An Irish anti-fascist song
From: michaelr
Date: 24 Oct 09 - 01:15 PM

A bit confused, I'd say -- is it fascists or bolsheviks he's fighting?

Subject: An Irish anti-fascist song (1930's)
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Oct 09 - 01:12 PM

Came across the following in an interesting book called "Ireland's Other Poetry: Anonymous to Zozimus", which I recommend:

Battle song of the Irish Christian Front: "Off to Salamanca"

My name is Owen O'Duffy,
And I'm rather vain and huffy
The side of every Bolshie I'm a thorn in
But before the break of day
I'll be marching right away
For I'm off to Salamanca in the morning!

Chorus
With the gold supplied by Vickers
I can buy Blue Shirt and knickers
Let the Barcelona Bolshies take a warning
For I lately took the notion
To cross the briny ocean
And I start for Salamanca in the morning

There's a boy called Paddy Belton,
With a heart that's soft and meltin'
Yet the first to face the foemen, danger scorning
Tho' his feet are full of bunions
Yet he knows his Spanish onions
And he's off to Salamanca in the morning.

Chorus

Now the "Irish Christian Front"
Is a Lombard-Murphy stunt
(Hark! the ghostly voice of Connolly gives warning)
And Professor Hogan's pals
Can don their fol-de-lals
And start for Salamanca in the morning

Chorus

When they get kicked out of Spain
And they travel home again
Let then hearken in good time to this our warning
If they try their Fascist game
They'll be sorry that they came
Back from Salamanca in the morning!

Chorus