Folkies supporting IRA

Subject: Folkies supporting IRA
From: mindblaster
Date: 09 Jul 06 - 08:49 AM

Why is it assumed that because an event is "folk" we must put up with evil minded hypocritical IRA suppoters singing crap IRA ballads with fake tears in their murderous eyes.

I'm sick of the "Sing Kevin Barry, or you're not a true Irishman" attitude.
Why should I show any respect to people who worship the bastards that pulled a mother of 10 from her home then tortured and murdered her?

All I want to do is play my guitar and drink beer and enjoy good company.

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: Zany Mouse
Date: 09 Jul 06 - 08:56 AM

Does this still happen? I must admit I haven't come across this for a long time.

Rhiannon

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 09 Jul 06 - 09:03 AM

Mmmm good job that we American and Brit troops dont do that sort of thing aint it?

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 09 Jul 06 - 09:07 AM

When exactly did Kevin Barry murder a mother of 10?

I don't have any respect for the British Army scum currently murdering their way through Iraq but that doesn't stop me playing pipe tunes from WW1 and WW2. (Or "Support Company 1st Battalion Scots Guards Farewell to Divis Flats", for that matter).

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: mindblaster
Date: 09 Jul 06 - 09:19 AM

You thicko CAMPIN I did not say Kevin Barry Murdered anyone - I am talking about the IRA supporters. Kevin Barry just happens to be one of the crap "tear" jerking songs that they sing.

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: Leadfingers
Date: 09 Jul 06 - 10:12 AM

Before the IRA Hi Jacked the Civil Rights movement and re vitalised The Troubles in 1969 , there were a lot of Cracking Good Pro -Republican Chorus songs on the UK Folk Scene - NO percentage in doing
them after '69 , when a lot of your audience could have family and friends with the services in NI ,
   I work in a couple of 'Irish' bands have have never had any demands
from republican sympathisers to sing Rebel songs , and wouldnt sing them if they WERE requested .






Especially Kevin Barry , IMHO not even a good song !

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: Brían
Date: 09 Jul 06 - 11:05 AM

I would hate to think that the only reason I play music is to get drunk and have a good time. I play music because it makes my life richer and hopefully enrichens others lives. If I was spending my free time hanging aroung a group of angry hypocrites with murder in their eyes, I would probably find another place to play. I don't think KEVIN BARRY is a particularlly bad song. The melody is a good one and the story is quite accurate. Kevin Barry certainly didn't start the atrocities and his death, if anything only exacerbated them.   It does matter who the singer is and the audience. I have a friend who sings a very nice version of it that sounds powerful in a quiet moment with a proper listening audience at the end of a party.

Brían

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: stallion
Date: 09 Jul 06 - 02:04 PM

Wanton violence, state sanctioned or not, is reprehensible, there is no honour in murder whosever perportrates it. The IRA were no better than the Crown forces, the true division should have been across socio economic lines, vis-vis The working class catholics had more in common with the working class protestants so the IRA and the Crown needed their conflict to disenfranchise the working classes and subjugate them. The conflict was always about which set of elites would run the country not to change the status quo and improve the lot of ALL working classes. Neat trick to use culture to inspire, like music, don't buy any of the shit. Killing is wrong full stop.

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: Big Mick
Date: 09 Jul 06 - 02:22 PM

I note with interest the increased number of these types of comments from folks that hope that they can now white wash the actions of the RUC and the involvement of British forces in actions against the Irish people of the North of Ireland. The reason the Republicans still hold onto these songs is that they enunciate the injustice against them. Kevin Barry was KILLED for not giving up his friends. Had he been British being held by Germans in WWII, you would be singing his song.

Instead of railing on about this stuff, how about you rail on against the Paisleyites and their intransigence against establishing a working government. That would tell me you care about the kids of the North of Ireland. Your post tells me something quite different.

Mick

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: GUEST,bob af
Date: 09 Jul 06 - 02:32 PM

Are some UK folk musicians actually still defenders of Brit imperialist rule in the north of Ireland and still opposed to Irish cultural resistance to the continued partition of Ireland by the UK imperialist state?

One reason the Clancy Brothers became very popular, historically, in the USA, however, is that most people in the United States have long been opposed to the continued violation of Irish national self-determination rights by British imperialism; and many U.S. folk musicians and U.S. folk music fans are very fond of Irish rebel folk music. Many folk music fans in the U.S. still like to hear songs that recall Irish freedom fighter resistance to British state terrorism in Ireland.

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 09 Jul 06 - 02:43 PM

Mick,
The British don't really sing songs about heroes.
There are a few 19th Century ones about the likes of Wolfe, and Nelson, but very few and rarely heard.
I can think of none about 20th Century heroes.

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 09 Jul 06 - 03:05 PM

Oh, I dunno, Keith. We have heard loads of the last couple of weeks.

Roooooo-neeeey, Roooooo-neeeey

and

Beeeeeckhaaaaam, Beeeeeckhaaaaam

being just 2 I can think of!

Back on the thread. What does it matter now if anyone supports the IRA? They are no longer a fighting force. They do not blow people up. The do not shoot people. They USED to. That was in the past. Everyone will, eventualy, get over it.

Would you have all songs involving people that have been at war with England banned? No German music? No Scottish? No American? Why pick on the Irish? Unless it is just to wind people up of course? Heaven forbid!

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 09 Jul 06 - 03:07 PM

The John Maclean March is a song about a hero, isn't it?

BTW, the last time I heard anyone sing an unequivocally pro-IRA song it was "The Men Behind the Wire". And the singer was an off-duty Britsih policeman.

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 09 Jul 06 - 03:23 PM

Jack Campin, are you a member trolling, or are you just another regular troll?

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: GUEST,Auldtimer
Date: 09 Jul 06 - 03:33 PM

The last time I heard pro-IRA songs was a couple of years ago on the last train from Glasgow, from a mob of drunken, and not so drunken, Celtic "fans". A frightening end to a day out for all the other passengers. Abandoned by any train staff, three carridges of passengers crushed themselves into two carridges, virtualy baricading themselves from the dozen fowlmouthed yobs. Hatred and incitement, is the only possible reason for the majority of these poorly written and researched, propaganda loaded songs being performed. Not my idea of fun and not what I have tried to further in Folk and Traditional music.

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 09 Jul 06 - 03:53 PM

John Maclean is not the kind of hero being discussed though is he.

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Jul 06 - 05:10 PM

mindblaster , perhaps it would be better if you said straight out. who or what has offended you and where.....

most folksingers sing the rebel ballads, or know them. they are good songs.

I don't like Kevin Barry as it offends his family. And the people who knew kevin Barry regarded the song as a terrible travesty and an a painful reminder of a terrible family tragedy. I call that no sort of tribute.

there is probably a time and place not to sing some rebel ballads, but they are a wonderful facet of Irish culture, and they are our neighbours - unless you are going to come out with name and packdrill, about who has offended you - I think you should behave yourself and stop stirring the shit. theres already too many doing that about English/Irish relations on mudcat.

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 09 Jul 06 - 05:34 PM

If you only sing songs that don't offend anyone, and that you agree with, you're not going to have much to sing about.

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: paddymac
Date: 09 Jul 06 - 07:18 PM

Ho Hum. I wonder - Is Mindblaster really a pseudonymn for Conrad B.? Go soak your head in a bucket of orange juice. You have my permission to leave it there.

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: GUEST,sorfingers
Date: 09 Jul 06 - 07:25 PM

Dick, you have it. It's not about offending people, it's about throwing things at them as you offend them.

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 01:32 AM

Most of us change old usages in songs that are offensive to people of African ethnic origin.

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 12:43 PM

Bloody mudcat anti-irish squad out again!

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: stallion
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 01:14 PM

Oh, I didn't think my comments were anti Irish, I said all killing and violence was wrong who ever does it. As on some other thread that I have mentioned my back ground, and indeed I have close familial links with Ireland. I do have issues with people that Torture and blow people up, innocent people, I just don't see a difference between the RUC, Army and the IRA, they all piss in the same pot.
As to the music, as a small child the first "folk" music I heard was TM & C. brothers "Live at Carnegie Hall", I think we had three albums in all. As I recall no one had issues with the music then, wounds, perhaps, had healed. I can understand that a generation growing up under the threat of being blown to kingdom come might be traumatised, I know how the A-bomb affected me and in a way my whole life since. Well I wasn't blown up, though I did lose a friend in Ireland to a bomb, the friendliest drunk and a-political man one could meet (some time deserter from the Irish Navy) And I wasn't interogated although I have been arrested for something I didn't do, fly posting, and demonstrating. So what is it all about, maybe it is about of sense of belonging, nailing your colours to the mast, being a patriot is belonging, "my country right or wrong". Well, buy into that if you like, I don't. Patriotism is an excuse for people (Oh and yes there are English, scottish, welsh, US as well as Irish patriots)do what they like to further someone else's ends, tragedy is that they are so full of hate they don't see it. Take IRAQ and Afghanistan, what the hell are our soldiers doing there? Why do we ( oh yes I didn't vote for them but as a democracy they are doing it in my name) vote for people like that. Beyond me

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 01:18 PM

True, Guest. I think is about time you packed it in. You are obviously not welcome here. Don't know how, or why, you have put up with it all these years.

Close the door on the way out please.

DtG

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 01:37 PM

Well put Stallion.
G

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 01:46 PM

Ballad of John Axon.

But I'd agree that songs about individual heroes are unusual in the modern English tradition, compared to the Irish. The same goes for songs about individual town and villages. Traditions vary. Different strokes for different folks.

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 05:49 PM

No Guest, just Keith.

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: GUEST,Norwood
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 06:34 PM

Remember an old L.P. we had at home called "Irish Ballads by Conrad Veidt" think he was Austrian ! My grandfather brought over from Ireland. Hard to listen to then, would love to hear it again for old times sake.

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: Charmain
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 06:53 PM

OK "mindblaster" songs are songs, they tell a story - whether its right or wrong whether you believe in it or not - there are whaling songs which bring a lump to my throat and a tear to my eye but I would as soon as support whaling as I would stick pins in my eyeballs never mind actually go on a whaling trip - one of my all time favourite Dubliners tracks is their live version of the Auld Orange Flute and I don't think anyone could call them Loyalists do you? Of course they did a mighty Salonika too - and yes it is wrong to glorify the deeds of muderers but surely it is right to tell the story of our collective past rather than limiting us only to the stories of those who did the "right" thing or were on the winning side or the acceptable side - and who were those people by the way? Don't just stop with attacking the folkies are you going to tell Bono to stop singing Sunday Bloody Sunday?

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 08:15 PM

Conrad Veidt, he was a film star, wasn't he?

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 10:02 PM

'Tis the season already? Time flies. It seems like just last week...

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Jul 06 - 12:16 AM

We turned over our weapons

We agree to peace

An you bloody march, bomb, rape for Ornage Day!!!

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: stallion
Date: 11 Jul 06 - 03:05 AM

mmmmmmmm a little less anger, sectarianism is orrid, I have been on the wrong end of an orangeman's boot and couldn't understand it. I don't do this tribal nonsense, if it wasn't green and orange, celtic rangers, everton liverpool, mods and rockers, punks v the rest then all that angry energy could be channelled into doing something useful for mankind , it's an easy cop out, doing something positive is much harder to do. So, all those harbouring festering grudges, put them in a box and move forward, lead by example and others will follow.

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: JamesHenry
Date: 11 Jul 06 - 04:26 AM

Guest 12:16

Is this the genuine GUEST or the dyslexic, tourette afflicted moron who has hi-jacked his identity??

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Jul 06 - 08:26 PM

the wrong end of an orangeman's boot Surely that'd be the end with the foot in it...

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: Bert
Date: 12 Jul 06 - 01:44 AM

...Why should I show any respect to people who worship the bastards that pulled a mother of 10 from her home then tortured and murdered her?...

Learn your history mindballster, you silly bugger, and come back and tell us what a good guy Cromwell was.

I sing Irish rebel songs because my Grandmother sang them to my Father (Long before the IRA were formed I believe, Mick may be able to verify this or correct me)and he sang them to me.

I also sing them because I believe that any country has the right to self rule, a few people here in the USA agree with that too.

Not many of us agree with terrorism, but you really have to look at the way that Catholics were treated in Northern Ireland, over the last 80 years or more, to see what YOU would have done had you been placed in that situation.

Sing a few rebel songs yourself and maybe people will eventually   treat each other with love and respect when they learn how badly people have treated each other in the past.

It wasn't you, it wasn't me and it wasn't Mick, but we should all try to learn from the past in order to make sure such atrocities remain in the past where they belong.

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: stallion
Date: 12 Jul 06 - 02:19 AM

Oh dear Bert, I think you are so ill informed. Putting out propaganda is one thing believing it is another. In the first instant, the bid for Irish independance was not a Catholic Protestant thing, does United Irishmen ring a bell? The whole thing seems to have been hijacked. British Parliament required one to swear an oath, catholics couldn't do this and were excluded however niether could athiest and they were excluded (Bradlaugh) The "Partition" probably saved Ireland from a more savage civil war than it had, one can never know that So it is only speculation. Oh yes Cromwell, a foriegner massacreing the local population, at least the Irish don't live on reservations and are allowed to vote. Where do you draw the line between freedom fighter and terrorist, were native North Americans terrorists or freedom fighters? Like the slave trade, the occupation of ireland, the theft of native american lands, however unpallatable it was, it wasn't you or I that were responsible. However, we are responsible for our own actions and we can all make a difference by moving forward and looking to the future and not looking back, it's hard I know but if it doesn't happen then we are going to hand hatred on to the future generations, lets hand on the music of a bygone age but not the hate. My uncle Jack was a Japanese POW, he was on board the Lisbon Matru (POW ship)when it was torpedoed by a US submarine, he escaped into captivity and endured some appalling experiences, a couple of years ago he went back to Japan and publicly and truly forgave his captors, he said that a majority of the nightmares ended with that forgiveness.
Passion, hate and jealousy are bedfellows, I don't think anyone has one without the others, but, try to be objective. This is so sad that people still think this way.

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: Terry K
Date: 12 Jul 06 - 03:54 AM

"A plebiscite within Northern Ireland on whether it should remain in the United Kingdom, or join the Republic, was held in 1973. The vote went heavily in favour (98.9%) of maintaining the status quo with approximately 57.5% of the total electorate voting in support, but most nationalists boycotted the poll ...." - from memory I think this Wiki entry is fairly accurate.

Despite the boycott, this still means that 56.87% of the population voted to stay within the UK. That would seem to be a majority. Bearing in mind that over 40% of the country is Catholic, it also says that unless the Protestant-and-others turnout was nigh on 100% (highly unlikely) a certain amount of the Catholic community DID vote, and voted in support.

But I tend to agree that the real crime is that the songs are mainly crap - if ever I am subjected to the Foggy bleedin' Dew again .....

cheers, Terry

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 12 Jul 06 - 04:20 AM

It is a different story when the blood bones, and bits of body are on the streets of your own cities and towns.
It is difficult therefore to compare living the experience, with living the dream.
I often think that a lot of patriotism is long distance, folk memory romanticism. Many English people don't care about anything but themselves when at home, but turn fiercely patriotic and belligerent when abroad.
What I do wonder is where many Americans get their news and/or facts about current happenings in Ireland, as I have struggled to find any foreign news in most US newspapers. If as I suspect they get them from news sheets put out by Irish Associations and clubs, or from the like of An Poblacht sent over from Ireland,then surely it is unlikely to be neutral?
I would agree though that it's difficult when someone sings a song AT you, rather than TO you, persuasion has always been better than indoctrination.
Giok

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Jul 06 - 12:14 PM

I think this thread needs to be killed, time to move on

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: ard mhacha
Date: 12 Jul 06 - 12:35 PM

Just before this Thread dies the death, all of the recent polls in the Irish press have come out in favour of a united Ireland, that poll Terry K refers to in 1973, resulted in a boycott by the nationalists, the figures were a complete farce.

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Jul 06 - 03:52 PM

My mother was a cousin of Kevin Barry but I haven't sang the song for several years, not because I disapproved of him but because his name, like so many others, was hijacked by people who had no mandate to carry on their "war". I don't want to go into another tit for tat atrocity rant but I hope that when Mr. Paisley passes on there will be some more moderate unionist leader who will face today's realitites and leave the past in the past.

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: stallion
Date: 12 Jul 06 - 05:31 PM

here here

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: michaelr
Date: 12 Jul 06 - 07:39 PM

Giok -- you are correct in saying that the mainstream media here in the US don't often cover Irish affairs, but there are a few monthlies (IAN out of Chicago, there's one in San Francisco) that do. There is also "Out of Ireland" on PBS, which has 15 minutes of RTE news a week. I pay attention to both.

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: Terry K
Date: 13 Jul 06 - 02:50 AM

ard mhacha - you say the 1973 plebiscite was a complete farce, but look carefully at the figures - despite the boycott by whomsoever, there was still a majority of the POPULATION (not just a majority of the voters) in favour of the status quo. In a democracy, that's all a government has to go on, so even if the event had not been "boycotted", the result would still have been the same. (And of course you wouldn't be the first to claim that a vote which went against you was "a complete farce").

What would then have happened if the government had decided to ignore the results and start to support unification against the declared wishes of the majority of the population?

You say that subsequent polls have been different - perhaps you've also noticed that the government's stance is now different? All they have ever needed is a mandate from a majority of the population.

Terry

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Jul 06 - 04:06 AM

Now what was the name of that bloke? Gerry Mandering or something like that.

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 13 Jul 06 - 04:28 AM

Gerrymander - In 1812 Governor Eldridge Gerry of Massachussets revised local Congressional boundaries so as to prevent his fellow Democrats from suffering an ignominous defeat. The painter Gilbert Stuart saw a map of the area in question while working at the Boston Centinel newspaper, declared it to resemble a salamander, and promptly augmented it with wings, claws and a beak to create a cartoon. His editor, Benjamin Russell, decided that Gerry-mander was a more appropriate name for it, and the word almost immediately became the popular term for any unfair adjustment of electoral boundaries, as the Gerry-mander cartoon was subsequently copied extensively in political literature. Stuart's other, greater claim to fame is as the painter of George Washington's portrait as used on the one dollar bill, and Gerry emerged from the scandal relatively unscathed, going on to be James Madison's Vice-President.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
His ghost is still around today, moving electoral boundaries to keep Americans free, of the other party!
Giok

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: ard mhacha
Date: 13 Jul 06 - 08:04 AM

Terry the plain facts are these, the majority in Britain want to get rid of NI, the majority of the whole of Ireland want unificaction, and why wouldn`t they, after all the Republic`s citizens have this week been elevated to second place as the most prosperous people in the world.

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 13 Jul 06 - 08:41 AM

Well Ard the fuel may be cheaper, but just about everything else is more expensive, so why wouldn't it be prosperous?
G.

Subject: RE: Folkies supporting IRA
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Jul 06 - 08:46 AM

Time to move this one to the BS bit.