Irish musicians lured by neo-Nazis

Subject: Irish musicians lured by neo-Nazis
From: GUEST,Philippa
Date: 25 Apr 05 - 08:04 AM

I read an article in the Irish edition of a Sunday newspaper yesterday abour an Irish band who got a contract to play a gig in America and when they got to the venue they found they were participating in a neo-Nazi event. they had been told they would be playing at a Eurofest celebration of Europena cultures. Nazis feel an affinity to the "Celtic race" and therefore may have an interest in Irish music. The band members warned musicians and managers to be careful in scrutinizing gig offers.

The article also told of neo-Naxi's promoring and selling books of Celtic mythology, etc for children, as these books usually don't include illustrations of people of colour.

I searched the web for an article about neo-Nazi's courting/exp;oitation of Irish bands; I foundthe following item:

NIFC Speak Out Against Fascist Targeting of Irish Americans
by NIFC Tuesday, Apr. 19, 2005 at 10:27 PM
nifcmem (nospam) optonline.net P.O. Box 771084 Woodside, NY 11377

Cumann Na Saoirse Naisiunta ( National Irish Freedom Committee) is voicing its concern regarding the recent targeting of the Irish
American community by the neo-nazi group styling itself the "National Alliance".

This has been noted by the Southern Poverty Law Center http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=54) and reported in the Irish Voice newspaper ( 13 April 2005).

This group has held events under various guises across the country, including the "European Cultural Association", Some Irish music
groups, pipe bands and dance companies have been duped into thinking these were to be legitimate cultural events.

The Irish community in America itself, in times not long past, were met with racial prejudice and sectarian hatred themselves from the
Klu Klux Klan, the Know-Nothing party, and other hate groups.

As Irish Republicans we believe in the concepts of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity and that such ideals belong to all people. Irish
Republicans took part in the fight against fascism during the Spanish Civil War and fought the Blueshirts off the streets of Dublin in the 1930s.

The NIFC, through it's cultural program, engage in cultural related activities for the purpose of providing and promoting a medium to
raise the cultural and historical level of consciousness amongst those of Irish heritage. The National Irish Freedom Committee views

the attempt to link our heritage with their hatred as despicable.
We call on all Americans of Irish descent to speak out against such hate groups and intolerance.

NIFC
P.O. Box 771084 Woodside, NY 11377
http://www.irishfreedom.net

www.irishfreedom.net

Subject: RE: Irish musicians lured by neo-Nazis
From: PoppaGator
Date: 25 Apr 05 - 12:58 PM

I haven't seen this type of thing lately, but several years ago, when I was taking a night-school course and researching on the internet for a paper on the Irish Nationalist cultural reawakening of the 1880s, I encountered huge numbers of white-supremacist postings on message boards and other sites dedicated to Irish and Celtic matters.

I suppose these hate groups figure they might be able to find some recruits this way. Americans of Irish ancestry are overwhelmingly white, of course, and not many are old enough to remember when the Irish (along with other immigrant and/or Catholic ethnic groups) were subject to discrimination and prejudice on the part of the same idiots who still blame all their problems on Black people and Jews.

Kudos to the NIFC for speaking out on this matter, and sympathy to any innocent musicians who may have travelled all the way from Ireland to the US only to find they were being exploited by these psycopaths.

Subject: RE: Irish musicians lured by neo-Nazis
From: Dave'sWife
Date: 25 Apr 05 - 11:28 PM

Poppagator.. I wish somebody would tell my husband's family, who are not related to Davetnova BTW, that I'm 'white'! In their view, The Irish are only one half step above 'Mud People.'

I find the whole targeting of the Irish by the supremacists to be poisionous. A few times in researching lyrics for this board, I have seen songs posted on National Alliance type sites. Considering the fact that these groups despise Catholics, I often wonder how they get around that. Perhaps they assume that the Pre-Christian beliefs of the Irish were run over by "Roman-Papist" Evangelizers and if the Irish would just wake up and overcome that, they could be good Aryans too. I dunno.

By and large though, the bigots I knew growing up counted us amongst "those people". That may have had as much to do with being Catholic as it did with being Irish.

Subject: RE: Irish musicians lured by neo-Nazis
From: open mike
Date: 26 Apr 05 - 01:50 AM

http://www.newsreview.com/issues/sacto/2003-03-13/news.asp
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=54&printable=1
http://www.shunpiking.com/ol0110/racism.htm
yes an event of this type happened in sacramento california in 2003

Subject: RE: Irish musicians lured by neo-Nazis
From: GUEST,Philippa
Date: 26 Apr 05 - 04:25 AM

unfortunately, some Irish nationalists in the 1930s,40s did have facist leanings (and some others who weren't particularly facist would still have seen the Germans as allies with a common British enemy), so that may also be part of the background which inspires neo-Nazis to target Irish-Americans. There were also incidents of Nazi German spies using Celtic and folklore studies as a cloak for espionage activities, but this should not sully the reputation of genuine scholars who were anti-Nazi such as Werner Kissling and Julius Pokorny.

and with the benefit of hindsight, I shouldn't think Irish nationalists today would have any truck with neo-Nazis...

Subject: RE: Irish musicians lured by neo-Nazis
From: sapper82
Date: 26 Apr 05 - 06:13 AM

So what is new? The IRA have been supported by Irish Musicians for years.