Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: Beer
Date: 17 May 05 - 09:24 PM

I was around the 6th person to reply to this thread and I have been following it with sadness. I replied because I love music and thought I could contribute to something to the question being asked. But little has been said that rellates to the original thread question. In fact about 90% of all replies belong at the bottom where politics belong.

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: GUEST,David Ingerson
Date: 17 May 05 - 06:46 PM

I have seen two sources that give John credit for writing Remember Dubh Loch. One is the website indicated in a post above. The other is the audio tape "A Bar of a Song" in which John sings it himself.

What a powerful song.

David

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: GUEST,Allen
Date: 17 May 05 - 05:54 PM

Did I anywhere say you couldn't?

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 May 05 - 05:49 PM

Can Britain and the Commonwealth not take a little credit for the massive sacrifice our people made in those years Allen?

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: GUEST,Allen
Date: 17 May 05 - 03:42 PM

Look, I'm not trying to blame people or point fingers, but please do not try to take credit where none's to be taken.
Last I'll say on this, it's way too OT and pretty pointless.

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 May 05 - 02:40 PM

Allen,
We also welcomed nearly 50 000 Jewish refugees from Germany before war broke out,
We also stood alone against Hitler.

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: belfast
Date: 17 May 05 - 12:56 PM

Concerning the authorship of the song "Remember Dubh Loch". I am 90% certain that it was written by John Tunney. I'm fairly sure that I was told this by Manus O'Riordan when I asked him about the song.

I would not be the first time that I've been wrong.

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: GUEST,Allen
Date: 17 May 05 - 12:50 PM

I just really do not like it when people try to say look how great we are, we liberated concentration camps.

Anyway, I'm not denying they did exexcutions, but it's silly to say that transportation was not a way to get rid of criminals.

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 May 05 - 12:24 PM

Most criminals were not executed?
Before transportation that was the usual punishment for most crime other than debt.

Bombing the death camps was considered and rejected. They were too hard a target to hit. A part of the Belsen complex was hit accidently, and the Germans repaired it within days.

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: GUEST,Allen
Date: 17 May 05 - 11:17 AM

Umm, no, most criminals were not executed, they were transported, first to the Caribbs (yes I agree that was on grounds of labour) or the Americas, and later Australia.
Transportation was very much an out of sight out of mind thing.
I suggest reading "The Fatal Shore" and listening to the "Transports".

Sadly, nobody did much to stop the death camps in WW2, so please don't start arguments on my guys were better than your guys.

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 May 05 - 09:57 AM

Muttley , as a "scholar" of WW2 you will know that Belsen was liberated by UK forces. That on it's own would be rather more than 5% of the death camps.
Anyway, it was just chance which army liberated camps. If you are really saying that Britain did not play its part in the liberation, we will need to talk further.
I am also surprised that you think Britain was the first to bomb a city full of civillians. Heard of Guernica? British cities were probably the first to be so bombed, by Zeppelins in WW1

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 May 05 - 09:18 AM

Muttley,
Australia was not created to be rid of our criminals. The previous practice of execution did that.
They were sent there as a labour force.

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: GUEST,Martin Ryan
Date: 17 May 05 - 08:07 AM

Jeez! I'm in a grumpy, not to say vatic mood this morning. Ignore my last posting.

Regards

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: GUEST,Martin Ryan
Date: 17 May 05 - 06:55 AM

The problem with racism is that those who enjoy (I use the word advisedly) it, will never recognise it - except in others.

Regards
p.s.

Belfast. I didn't know John had written that song. Not doubting you at all but - are you sure?

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: GUEST
Date: 17 May 05 - 12:39 AM

Go ahead, oh wonderful patriotic Englishperson. Once again you show your arrogance. I stand by the contention. Your responses in this and other threads are grounded in your prejudices and your upbringing. This is why you make idiotic statements such as the comments about the Irish State. Perhaps you think that they should have rose up against the French a little over a hundred years earlier? The simple fact is that the Irish State, within the context of the times, had very little reason to help the merry old English. They had no reason to see the German State as the murderers we later found them to be. They only knew that they were fighting against the country that had oppressed them for centuries.

Mick

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: belfast
Date: 16 May 05 - 07:16 PM

"Remember Dubh Loch" is a superb song was written by John Tunney, son of the late Paddy Tunney. I first heard it sung by Manus O'Riordan. I can't remember where but I can remember the emotional intensity of the song. You can find it here:- Remember Dubh Loch

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: Mick O'Farrell
Date: 16 May 05 - 06:52 PM

I always loved Shane MacGowan's 'Down In The Ground Where The Dead Men Go',from the Pogues first album. I believe he also wrote a song called 'The Dunes' on the same topic, which was covered by Ronnie Drew of the Dubliners.

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: Grab
Date: 16 May 05 - 02:08 PM

To get away from the WWII angle...

There definitely was a famine in Ireland amongst the farming communities. There also was a similar famine in England amongst the farming communities, bcos the English working classes were supporting themselves the same way the Irish did. "Adequate food from outside" just wasn't coming to either. The rich cash crops fed the rich in both countries. So condemn the English aristocracy if you like, but please don't condemn *England* as a whole. And whilst many landowners in Ireland were English, there were plenty of Irish ones who took the English aristocratic line - ergo, the problem is the bastards at the top, of any nationality, not the *country*. Please don't confuse the two.

The English poor had cities that they could move to, either to work in industry (which was just starting at the time), to work in associated trades, or to resort to theft and criminal activity. The Irish had no such cities. However the Irish did have *English* cities to move to, and many of them did - Liverpool was a particular hotspot. So this really isn't a big difference. Had the Industrial Revolution not just been gathering pace, both England and Ireland would have lost many more people.

The main difference though: the English farmers tended to pass their whole farm onto the first-born, whereas Irish farmers partitioned the land between all their sons. By the time of the famine, Irish farms tended to be so small that survival in *good* times was a challenge. Any kind of crop failure would have caused a famine - the Irish simply got unlucky in terms of magnitude. Although even then note that it's nothing like the magnitude of famines before and since, particularly modern-day famines in Africa. The tragedy is that it does keep happening.

Also don't forget that English farms of the time had had improvements in productivity through the Agricultural Revolution. This involved the English aristocracy dispossessing many English farmers of their land (and common land), and roughly the same results (dead bodies on highways, and people moved into industrial cities) as the Potato Famine. And their eviction was 100% political rather than the result of bad luck and poverty.

To my mind, the best songs of the Famine are those that are universal - the pain of being forced to move on, or of those you love being forced to move on. My favourite is one I heard not long ago, called "The Sky Road". Can't remember who sung it. I have no time for the interminable reinventions of history that paint it black and white and say "The Irish starved while the bastard English stuffed themselves and laughed" - sod that.

Graham.

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: GUEST,Statesthetruthasheseesit
Date: 16 May 05 - 01:11 PM

Big Mick, you are a bigger idiot than Muttley, and that is saying something. I never said any of the things you credit me with. Go back, read my postings and if your limited intelligence can take it all in-THEN POST AND NOT BEFORE. Christalmighty, I have my work cut out here.

Oh Muttley, I shall reply soon. Thank you for allowing me the last word. I hope you have found the songs you were looking for and that I have cleared up any misconceptions you had.

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: Muttley
Date: 16 May 05 - 12:38 AM

Sorry SUZANNE: You are right. RE Auschwitz _ OOPS !! you're quite right. Slight case of brain-fade there. And I'm damned if I can remember the name(s) of the concentration camps that DID exist prior tpo the start of the war (from about 1935 onward if my memory serves me aright this time)
The Turnip winter is also recorded fact - the point i was trying to make (in as short a time and space as possible and as simply as "truthasheseesit's" tiny mind would allow) What I should have elaborated was the civil destruction which accompanied WW2 with bombings etc did not occur in WW1: certainly food shortages occurred as they did in other war-affected nations but the level of destruction / internal-refugee-creation / non-combatant peril was absent.

However to get back to "truthasheseesit's" pathetic points:
1. Lloyd George did NOTHING to ameliorate the French revenge-motive and is thus as guilty. The US President can be forgiven in that he voiced objection AT THE TABLE via representatives and was discounted because "America only helped to finish the war not fight it" - a George-cedited statement BTW.

2. Yes, Hitler DID want Britain to stay out of the war and had his eyes turned eastward; but his plans included England and he drew them up PRIOR to the invasion of Poland as he was fully aware that Britain and France would declare war on him if he persisted with the invasion to recover the Danzig corridor (and the rest of Poland). In fact several histories: including those by Ronald Heifferman and Dr. J. Fredriksen acknowledge that this was what Hitler desired - that Britain and France would be the ones DECLARING war; thus making THEM the aggressors and not him. Thgus Hitler could then invade both as a matter of securing his rear (Western) flank against invasion - simply put, he was then given tacit leave to invade them as a matter of "self-defence". A spurious reason, but in the strictest legality, a correct one !!!!
The end result was he did just that and took a totally new and unfamiliar battle-style with him and achieved in 6 weeks what four years of bloodshed had failed to do two-and-a-half decades earlier.
His biggest mistake then was to attempt to knock out the RAF before invading England, when he SHOULD have simply followed the Dunkirk 'refugees' back across the Channel.

3. "Truth" wrote: "Australia was made in Britain's image and is the sole reason that Australia is so successful today, with democratic rights and a good standard of living. You should be a bit more kinder to us. You owe us so much."

What a crock of bullsh*t! Australia was NOT made in Britain's image. It was created as a desperate bid to get rid of your criminal, social and political undesirables after you got your arses kicked out of America for bloody high-handedness. The British treated the convicts as animals and no better and never intended for Australia to anything more than an 'ocean-encircled, wall-less gaol'.

The reason Australia is so successful today is NOT because of Britain - it is because of Australians and their desire to BE Australian and not British. Certainly, our parliamentary and judicial system owes its form and stability to the British model but that is only because it is what we inherited and it seems to work well enough within its limitations.
As an Australian, I have NO desire to be kinder to you - you dumped our ancestors here to "sink or swim" - out of sight out of mind -, You have dragged us into one conflict after another requiring our lives and blood and then your leaders turn around and refuse to let our men return from Africa to defend Australia against possible invasion with the words to the Australian PM - "Australia is unimportant at this stage; the mother country is where our defences should lie. Australia will be returned to us after we have defeated the axis powers in Europe and then ther Pacific"!
Your government, after treating us as nothing more than a nation of servants for 150 years was then willing to sacrifice its entire population. So don't give me "You owe us" - we owe you bugger all.

As for my German and English heritage; I am neither ashamed or ignorant of them. They were not pertinent to the point I was making -another point that went straight past your small-minded parochial mind-set. BTW - my English heritage would scorn and abuse you for that comment about "owing you" - they would be disgusted. Fortunately (and I converse regularly and freely with agreat many English friends and family who would agree with me here) I am aware that your tiny-minded outlook is very much a minority opinion.

Now forgive me if I ignore you from this point on - I have broken my own prime rule "Never argue with an idiot - he will simply drag you down to his level and beat you with experience (and the people watching on may not know the difference)" - So from here on I am not ignoring or being rude to you - you are simply too insignificant to be bothered with.
M

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: Big Mick
Date: 15 May 05 - 09:02 PM

I find it completely understandable that one who consistently takes the English patriotic view would look at this from the perspective that statesthetruthassheseesit does. Of course you wouldn't recognize the suffering of the Irish people. Of course you wouldn't understand why some Irish would be hesitant to fight on the side of the English, regardless the foe. Of course you wouldn't understand the bitterness of those who did in the first war only to come home to broken promises. Your frame of reference doesn't allow you to understand these things.

Mick

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: GUEST
Date: 15 May 05 - 07:57 PM

Some say the devil is dead
The devil is dead
The devil is dead
Some say the devil is dead and buried in Killarney
More say he rose again
More say he rose again
More say he rose again
And joined the british army.

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: GUEST,Statesthetruthasheseesit
Date: 15 May 05 - 07:45 PM

Muttley the scholar, I do not have time to take on all your points. Life is short and you keep spinning off at unexpected angles -it is difficult to keep up. The way your argument keeps shifting from one subject to another makes me think you are deliberately trying to muddy the water. However, for the record, Bute and Parnell were elected to Parliament in London and I am sure the shithothistorian in you knows who they were.

I know that many Irishmen fought against the Nazis. I never they said they didn't. All brave men. I said that the Irish State did nothing. Ireland did not put its country on a total war footing in the way that Britain did, it did not send waves of its youth into battle nor put its cities in line for bombing. Britain did. I don't know if Britain actually went into the death camps and liberated them - I shall trust the historian and scholar in you that you are right - but we fought the war that did liberate them. Shall I remind you of the telegram DeValera sent to Germany commmiserating Hitler's death with not a hint of irony?

I agree with you about The Treaty of Versailles, but Lloyd George only went along with the French in a show of solidarity. He privately disagreed with it and the young Keynes thought it would be disasterous, which it proved to be. However, Lloyd George knew that the French were bitter because most of the war had taken place on their soil and he knew they would not shift on this.

I would like to take up your point about Germany realising that they had to cripple France and Britain before they had a chance. Since you are talking total twaddle, it is difficult to know where to start. I mean: What are you talking about? Hitler wanted Britain to stay out of the war. He wanted to go East. Britain, however, remained determined to defeat him, whatever the cost-which proved to be high.

However, to go back to my original argument, which you have taken by the scruff of the nect and dragged it all manners of unrelated places, I said that "all living Irishmen, and those of the 20th Century, have got off pretty lightly compaired to other people who have suffered greatly in that most violent of centuries." Nothing you have said makes me change my mind about that.   

You say that you are a "Scots-fathered, Irish convict-descended Australian." What happened to your English and German heritage that you mentioned earlier? As a historian, you must know that Australia was made in Britain's image and is the sole reason that Australia is so successful today, with democratic rights and a good standard of living. You should be a bit more kinder to us. You owe us so much. By the way, I was born in England of English/Scottish parents but with a Welsh surname - a true Brit in short, and damned proud of it.

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 15 May 05 - 06:10 PM

Muttley, may I suggest you, too, do a little more reading of history?
Just two points:

Auschwitz didn't exist before WW2. Concentration camps did exist, but not the extermination camps in Eastern Europe. They weren't built till 1942, after the Wannsee Conference where the 'final solution' was first put to a wider circle of Nazi leaders.

Germany did suffer in WW1. The winter of 1917 is still known as the 'turnip winter' because in urban areas many people had little else to eat and many were starving. My grandparents remembered that time quite well.

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: Muttley
Date: 15 May 05 - 01:57 AM

The Irish had the same democratic rights as everyone else in Britain. Irishman were bundled off to Australia for political activities,

The Irish did NOT have any democratic rights from the mid 1600's when Cromwell invaded until 1930-ish when they won their independence (at the cost of thousands of lives lost and tens of thousands Transported - the GHreat Hunger death toll excluded)

The song :"The Wearing of the Green" was written to tell the world of the law passed in Ireland (around the time of Culloden in Scotland) which forbade the wearing anything green as a display of "Irishism" - the perpetrators were immediately gaoled and transported for the offence unless they or their family was known to the British Authorities, in which case; man, woman OR child - they were summarily executed - - - - without benefit of a trial.

Add to this the "Liberation of the death camps" Britain knew of Auschwitz before the war began and did nothing about it. The death camps were, in fact, liberated (approximately 95% of them, anyway) by the US and Russian forces - NOT the Brits.

Germany did not suffer during WW1 - their soldiers did at the front - but at home things were quite 'normal' - as they were in Britain. Germany did not actually suffer until AFTER the war in the ridiculous economic and political sanctions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles by the French and the British - a position the US President (?Wilson) fought to water down due to consequences he could see - the sanctions were designed to destroy Germany and fragment it and cripple it to the point that it would NEVER be in a position to threaten France or Britain again (apparently the Frogs deigned not to acknowledge that THEY had done the same thing the previous century under Napoleon without sanction)- the direct result of those sanctions was WW2 - which happened as it did because the Germans realised they had to cripple France & Britain to have any chance.

Finally - to the bombing again - BRITAIN was the first nation to bomb a city full of civilians when a bomber stream went off course early in WW2 and bombed Berlin. The Blitz was, in fact a retaliation for that action. Previously the Germans had confined their raids to military installations, radar installations and airfields.

I suggest you actually READ history instead of rendering your own anglophilic version of it. Nobody was mentioning MODERN Ireland. No-one - not even the Irish are saying the 20th Century was a time of oppression - they recall it as the century of LIBeration.

We were talking the whole time about 19th Century Ireland and the disastrous famine.

Your turnabout is puzzling - in one post you attack with profanity and belittlement and in the next you agree but push an outdated "Empire" barrow no-one (least of all a Scots-fathered, Irish convict-descended Australian) wants to hear about.

Hope this puts it all to bed.

Frankly, I'm not interested in warped and misrepresented WW2 history - especially as I am a WW2 scholar (among other things)

You ARE English, are you not?

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: GUEST
Date: 14 May 05 - 08:52 AM

While all these events unfurled during the 20th Century, Ireland went into it's deep sleep and let the world pass it by. I can't say I blame them. However, after standing on the sidelines for a century, the Irish cannot then moan about how they have suffered. I can just picture Irish folksingers in the 40s bemoaning their lot while Jews were being slaughtered and Dresdon and Coventry were being flattened.

Perhaps you should find the time to research your version of the truth. Approx 210,000 Irish volunteers fought in the First World War and a further 100,000 in the Second World War. Those numbers are for men who took up the fight. And the many, many Irish women who served as nurses in field hospitals have also been aknowledged.

But your attitude shows us clearly why you are thankfully on your way home.

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: GUEST,Statesthetruthasheseesit
Date: 14 May 05 - 07:33 AM

Muttley. Thank you for backing up my argument. I am very grateful. Yes, you are right. The Germans suffered greatly in both wars in a way that the Irish have not. However, you are a little unfair towards the British. They suffered their cities to be bombed, their young to be slaughtered, and for their empire to be lost, in order that they could liberate the death camps and dismantle the Nazi state- surely the most brutal political system in history. The Irish State stayed on the sidelines and did nothing. I am not being critical, just stating the facts - and the loss of the empire may very well have been no bad thing: This I do not contend. [it does seem to me though that the British empire has been replaced by the American Empire- but that is for another posting.]

While all these events unfurled during the 20th Century, Ireland went into it's deep sleep and let the world pass it by. I can't say I blame them. However, after standing on the sidelines for a century, the Irish cannot then moan about how they have suffered. I can just picture Irish folksingers in the 40s bemoaning their lot while Jews were being slaughtered and Dresdon and Coventry were being flattened.

The point I am making Muttley is about living Irishman. I know how bad the English behaved in Ireland. This I do not question; but that was in the 19th Century. The 20th Century has been a piece of cake for the average Irishman. Even the troubles in Northern Ireland could be a lot worse than they have been, although, ofcourse, noone can be happy with the situation there.

In the past, The English did not behave well in Ireland. It was treated like a colony. Again, with this I do not argue. But a dictatorship? The Irish had the same democratic rights as everyone else in Britain. Irishman were bundled off to Australia for political activities, but so were the English -ever heard of the Tolpuddle Martyrs? This was pretty typical everywhere in the 19th Century.

I have nothing against the Irish singing about their past, but to let the past become confused with the present shows a curious mindset.

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: GUEST,DannyC
Date: 14 May 05 - 12:22 AM

Here's a link to an interactive database that queries transportation/penal records for an extended period in Ireland      (including the 1840s).   While many insert surnames for their search, you might also query the Db using common words like "oatmeal" or "bread". The myth elements lift as the screen scrolls the names and the places of the mothers and sons. Apparantly the ruling class kept excellent records:

http://www.nationalarchives.ie/topics/transportation/transp1.htm

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: Kaleea
Date: 13 May 05 - 11:59 PM

I recall my grandparents talking about when they were quite young living in Arkansas, & some relatives came over from Ireland. They sang several ballads, including "The Praties They Grow Small" which my Grandad taught me. That one & some of the other real sad ones were always done unaccompanied. I suppose that adds to the desolate feel of the song.

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: GUEST
Date: 13 May 05 - 10:17 PM

The Mother's Kiss

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: John O'L
Date: 13 May 05 - 09:21 PM

I shouldn't but I will -

Through each of the famine years Ireland was a net exporter of beef, mutton, dairy and grain.

I was going to mention "Kilkelly" too, but I couldn't remember the name.

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: Peace
Date: 13 May 05 - 09:07 PM

To add to Muttley's words, not only did one million Irish starve to death, but the famine caused another million to emigrate. The country lost 40% of its people in those five years. My background is Scottish, English and Irish--with probably a bit of German in there.

Bruce Murdoch

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: GUEST,Paranoid Android
Date: 13 May 05 - 08:52 PM

Did anyone mention "Kilkelly"?

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: Muttley
Date: 13 May 05 - 08:51 PM

Sounds like "Statesthetruthasheseesit" needs to get a little perspective herself.
For a start, I will not "shut the f*ck up" as you so eloquently put it and I have plenty of perspective. I am not denying the horror of the Spanish or Jugoslavian (correct spelling for that outdated, Nazi-created country) civil wars - however, why not mention the various English civil wars, the French Revolution (a civil war), the Russian Revolution (another civil war) or even the American Civil War and get completely off the track!!!

Sounds more to me that there is some residual guilt and/or discrimination towards the Irish in your soul.

As for the bombing of London / Coventry / Liverpool they were the result of a war - NOT political and oppressive regime control of a subservient nation. And if you are going to quote those bombings, why not quote the "Unappeasing of Munich" where greater than 60% of the city was leveled or worse still - Dresden which suffered the equivalent of over two thousand Coventry's - where the loss of life after one night of bombing and the resulting firestorm cost the lives of many thousands non-combatants. To quote one of my many World war 2 histories - specifically regards the bombing of British and German cities ("Secrets & Stories of the War" Vol. II) If the (quote) "combined damaged areas of London, Coventry and Bristol (as the major targets) - and then add in all the destruction from other blitzed cities were collected into one place and and then dumped in the ruins of Munich - they would barely be noticed."
According to 'weight of bombs dropped' and 'area of damage resultant' and using Coventry (which WAS the most destroyed British city during WW2) - then Berlin suffered the equivalent of 363 Coventry's, Cologne 269, Hamburg 200 and Bremen 137 Coventry's - so get a little of your own perspective.

Thus taking totally unassociated examples and throwing them at someone needlessly only makes you look stupid (and I rather suspect you probably don't need much of that anyway) - I quote your parting words:

"Ireland has never known Fascist or Communist dictatorship -or invasion."

WRONG: It has suffered English dictatorship - or what would you call the edict that forbade "The Wearing of the Green" for which anyone: man, woman or child could be hanged. Where the native tongue and traditional songs were banned on pain of death (as were the tartan, the pipes and Gaelic in Scotland - is that not a dictatorship? And as for invasion - what WOULD you call Cromwells armies pouring into Ireland and wresting the place from its rightful owners at the point of a sword, gun and bayonet? Sounds like invasion to me.

"Has never known enthnic cleansing. Has never had death camps or a gestapo police force."

True it did not have these 'as such' BUT it did have a 'covert police force' rounding up 'subversives' who wanted to return Irish rule to Ireland. Many of those taken into custody were executed or deported (Transported) offered migration as an option to living in Ireland (or stay and be hanged or remain in prison). True it was not Nazi in scope but IT DID HAPPEN.

As for my maudlin self pity and self-righteous claptrap: There was none of that. I simply stated my ancestry as a reason for wanting to access certain songs - if that is confronting to you then you have SERIOUS problems. Quite frankly you strike me as someone who's mouth volume capacity grossly exceeds their cerebral capacity and is not afraid to prove it. Better you heeded the old warning and "Kept your mouth closed and allowed people to THINK you were stupid than open it and remove all doubt!"

As for getting the history right - I suggest next time you open fire on a member (remember you ARE a guest) that you pick on one who does NOT hold a Masters Degree in History - specifically European and Ancient History!!!!!

Now as you have hit rock bottom on the intelligence scale - I suggest you stop digging: Or must I flush again to make you go away?

Have a wonderfully blissful day (I shouldn't need to explain that last comment - most will get it but it will probably go over you head!)

BTW - I am of Irish DESCENT - I'm not Irish (actually I am of mixed Irish, English German, but predominantly Scottish desecent) So I can be unbiased on ALL counts.

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: GEST
Date: 13 May 05 - 08:23 PM

From GEST Songs Of Newfoundland And Labrador:

The Leaving
Give Me Three Grains Of Corn
My Green Valleys
Fields Of Athenry

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: Peace
Date: 13 May 05 - 07:58 PM

Here is Nolan's excellent song:



http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:TLdim1ZS6vUJ:www.brendannolan.com/lyrics/farfrom.html+Far+From+Their+Home,+lyrics&hl=en

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: GUEST
Date: 13 May 05 - 07:52 PM

http://www.geocities.com/willboyne/nosurrender/Songs.html?200514

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 13 May 05 - 01:17 PM

Penni McLaren Walker wrote "The Cottiers" about Irish tenant farmers dispossessed during the potato famine, because she thought it iniquitous that the British Government gave so much money towards the Union cause in the American Civil War and so little to the needy in Ireland.

Kitty

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: Beer
Date: 13 May 05 - 01:03 PM

Mary,
Your ending to your thread I'm sure you will never forget.
Beer

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: mg
Date: 13 May 05 - 12:39 PM

There is Dan O'Hara who sells matches. David Maloney\, of Reilly and Maloney fame\, has a one man play or operetta or whatever about it and will be doing it again at Seattle Folklife in a few weeks.

All I know of my famine relatives is that my greatgrandmother came over at the age of 7 and was the only one who survived. She never heard from any family again. Well\, I don't know that none survived\, but it is unlikely. We always thought the Garvey faction were here before the famine for some reason..history is unclear because my father's father died when he was 7 of the Spanish flu..GGM was a servant to the Taft family (how she managed at the age of 7 no one knows..but one wanted to marry her and she married a railroad man instead)...but my brother discovered that four Garvey brothers came from Dingle during the famine...they did not want to talk and we did not frankly want to listen...it was all too horrifying...but when I went back to Ireland maybe 30 years ago now I met an old\, old woman in black on a country road and she said did your family leave during the famine and I said yes..and she said welcome home.. mg

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: MartinRyan
Date: 13 May 05 - 11:50 AM

GUEST

Calm down! Just because the Irish didn't have Robin Hood doesn't mean they can't have myths!

Not surprisingly, there are few contemporaneous songs about the famine. To expect songs written later to do other than reflect the folk memory is foolish. Uncritical condemnation of the "oppressor" is no different from the uncritical condemnation of the "bosses" in agitprop left-wing songs or of immigrants in the song discussed in the "BNP song" discussed in another thread.

If you want historical truth (or at least an attempt at it), study history. If you want emotional truth (warts and all) - listen to the songs.

Regards

Regards

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: GUEST,statesthetruthasheseesit
Date: 13 May 05 - 11:24 AM

Muttley. There are probably loads of songs newly written about the Famine that happened in the 1840s!!!! The Irish love wallowing in self pity about ancient wrongs.(Grandmother 4 or 5 times removed , indeed!) No-one is denying the Great Famine happened - chill out, hey- and no-one is denying who was responsible. I will only say that all living Irishmen, and those of the 20th Century, have got off pretty lightly compaired to other people who have suffered greatly in that most violent of centuries. Even the English have suffered more than the Irish. Think of the bombing of London, Coventry, and Liverpool during World War II, which Ireland escaped completly - and yet you do not hear English songwriters writing about those experiances, even though there are people alive who remember them. There have been plenty of famines in the 20th century, but not in Ireland, and yet the Irish talk about famine as if it is an exclusively Irish affair, when really there is no Irishman alive who has experienced it and therefore has no idea what it is like. Ireland had a war of independence followed by a civil war which left most of the people untouched. Compare that with the civil war in Spain or Yugoslavia, which resulted in the countries being torn apart and great suffering being inflicted on their people. Even the problems in Northern Ireland are nothing in comparison with Ruwanda ('scuse spelling) or Yugoslavia. Ireland has never known Fascist or Communist dictatorship -or invasion.Has never known enthnic cleansing. Has never had death camps or a gestapo police force.

Muttley - get some perspetive.In other words, Shut the f**k up. We are fed up with your maudlin self pity and self righteous clap trap.

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 13 May 05 - 10:20 AM

From what I have read, the emigrants didn't even talk about the famine.   

My own family doesn't know a thing about its Irish ancestors. The old country was never discussed.

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: MartinRyan
Date: 13 May 05 - 08:34 AM

Here's a Review of Freank Harte's CD called "The Hungry Voice.

Regards

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: Muttley
Date: 13 May 05 - 08:30 AM

I just checked out the link to the other "Famine" thread and Lord! I hope I haven't re-opened THAT can of worms!
What a load of political/etymological bullsh*t.

I am NOT resurrecting that thread here. Bottom line the famine occurred. There were MANY factors - the primary one being the failure over years of the potato crops due to blight which created fatal shortages in the staple food of the farming / rural / worker classes exascerbated by other political factors.

DON'T CARE about what you want to call that (it's NOT a famine because. . . . . frogsh*t!) - the reality is the population of Ireland HALVED in those years and reports of bodies lying by the side of the road in their dozens between villages where people walking from one place to another to find work / sustenance died "in their tracks" are too numerous and credible to be ignored or split hairs over here in the comfort of the 21st Century.

Let's just acknowledge that due to circumstance, oppression, carelessness (not on the part of those who suffered and died), and politics TOO MANY FOLK PERISHED.

On that note a big thankyou to those who responded - you have set my feet on a desired path.

Mutt

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: GUEST,Fullerton
Date: 13 May 05 - 08:27 AM

Christy Moore (I think) used to do a song which consisted of a ships manifest listing food that was being exported to England during the famine.

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: ejsant
Date: 13 May 05 - 08:08 AM

Greetings,

I second the opinion about Brendan Nolan, he is a fabulous singer songwriter, performer, and human being, and yes "Far From Their Home" is a brilliant song filled with strong emotion. I believe I have his entire discography and I am not in any way disappointed with any track.

I would think that any song from the middle period of the nineteenth century that spoke of the hardships endured by the Irish could in a round about way be connected to the Famine even if no direct reference to hunger or the blight is present in the song. It seems to me that it wasn't just the failure of the crops but also the way that the starving were treated that encompasses the whole Famine experience. After all if there was no social oppression of the Irish and adequate food was made available from outside Ireland it would not have been such an atrocity.

After a cursory review some songs that turn up in "Irish Emigrant – Ballads and Songs" are;

Amhran Na Braptai Dubha – The Song Of the Black Potatoes
The Blighted Potates
A New Song of the Rotten Potatoes

I am sure with greater effort there are others to be found, some of which have already been mentioned.

Peace,
Ed

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: Fiona
Date: 13 May 05 - 07:33 AM

I think Skibbereen, is one of the most poignant songs on this subject. It's in the DT.

Fiona

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: Beer
Date: 13 May 05 - 07:03 AM

There is one that comes to mind and I guess you could say by the results of the consequences at that time. A song called "Far From Their Home" by Brendan Nolan. Brendan was born near Dublin and moved to Canada in the late 70's. He now resides in the Tampa Bay area of Flordia. Brendan write most of his material and I have never heard such a tear jerker of a song. I'm sure if you just typed in his name a site would come up with something. Then if you can, buy his tapes/c/d's, you will not be sorry. A truly anazing artist.

Subject: RE: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
From: MartinRyan
Date: 13 May 05 - 07:01 AM

Frank Harte, one of Ireland's finest tradiitional singers, released a CD last year of songs connected (loosely or otherwise) with the Great Famine. Being Frank, you get, along with the words of the songs, lots of background material.

I'm sure Camsco has copies!

Regards