I recently picked up Trinity from the office swap shelf, haven't read it since high school in the '70s. As I make my way through the saga, I've begun to wonder about how ITM figured into Ireland's struggles & troubles. I know Scotland has numerous Jacobite ballads, but haven't yet come across many Irish songs or tunes that speak directly to the conflicts. The key word here is 'yet', since I'm much more familiar with Scots ballads, probably because my wife's grandparents emigrated to Canada from Glasgow in the 1930's.
Any historians out there who can give me a brief rundown of the relationship between ITM and Irish political history? I'm including tunes and songs in my definition of ITM. Obviously tunes would not speak directly to Irish history, but rather have a context that might relate to what was going on at the time that they were composed.
As always, if this thread has already been done to death, shoot me a link. Also, I'd love to have a few suggestions for reading material that addresses this issue.
I'm not an expert in this field (sadly) but there are tunes out there, such as "The Repeal of the Union" and the "Home Ruler" which have political names. Additionally a song like the "Creggan White Hare," while ostensibly about a rabbit, is allegedly a political song but superficially harmless so people who sang it wouldn't end up being transported for treason. Then you have the thinly disguised Cathleen Ni Houlihan or Sean Bhean Bhocht, the poor old woman (or sometimes young woman) who has been disposessed of her four green fields. She appears in numerous plays, literature, and songs, from Thomas Pearce, to Yeats and Lady Gregory to Tommy Makem. Then there are ones that are blatantly political, like the "Foggy Dew" and "Arthur McBride." I don't know when these were composed.
Most theories of instrumental Irish traditional music being used as a political tool to keep the spirits of the poor, oppressed Irish alive while they suffered immeasurable tyrannies and degradations at the hands of the Norman/English/British occupiers is Guinness-fuelled drivel at worst, and wild speculation at best. Best to stick to analysis of the songs that have survived. Here are a couple of places to start.
The Foggy Dew was probably written between 1917-1930. Its exact provenance is unknown, but it is commonly associated with Peadar Kearney, the composer of the Irish national anthem.
Arthur McBride is an anti-recruiting song from the eighteenth century, probably the Queen Anne period. The version made famous by Paul Brady is an American variant, almost certainly closer to the original eighteenth century song than the simplified version sung by Planxty. It's not political in the nationalist sense, and may well derive from other English anti-recruiting songs of the period.
Canon Charles O'Neill has been credited with the composition of the words to the song by Franke Harte in 'Songs of Dublin', but I think there's very little evidence to back any of these rival claims...
"Most theories of instrumental Irish traditional music being used as a political tool to keep the spirits of the poor, oppressed Irish alive while they suffered immeasurable tyrannies and degradations at the hands of the Norman/English/British occupiers is Guinness-fuelled drivel at worst, and wild speculation at best. Best to stick to analysis of the songs that have survived."
It is well documented that many Irishmen were imprisoned having whistled or played what was deemed 'seditious". To dismiss the volumes of factual information on this is wrong. For example Dublin Castle considered it important in their intelligence gathering operations to include information relating to the playing of certain nationalist tunes as possible IRB members. This could lead to a potential visit to your employers or worst still a visit from the Black and Tans.
Some books which reveal some insight in a broader insight into the link between irish music and politics are Ernie O'Malley's On Another Man's Wounds.
Zimmerman's Songs of the Irish too is very interesting. There is a huge link between the politics and music of this country whether we like to admit it or not.
Sorry Lord Gordon, but you're mistaken. There is plenty of evidence with regards to certain songs being considered seditious, and the singing, whistling, or lilting of their attendant airs also considered to be seditious. If you note the part where I write 'instrumental Irish traditional music' you'll perhaps see the distinction I'm making. The giveaway is the 'instrumental' bit...
You'd do worse that have a read of Gary Hastings book 'With Fife & Drum'. His basic argument is that 'a good tune is a good tune' and crosses the political boundaries. It may be used by one side or the other in a partial or even sectarian way but whilst the words may change, the melody is basically the same.
Roisin Dubh is quite a political tune, written by James Connolly. I once went to a cross-community project organised by the Apprentice Boys in Derry. It was funny how the 'Ulster Scots' players knew the Irish tunes and the 'Irish' players knew the Ulster Scots tunes
Not in the same vein as a lot of what has been mentioned, but I particularly like song "The Dean's Pamphlet" written, satirically, by Jonathan Swift against himself for daring to suggest that the Irish should boycott English imports. There's a good version of it on Liam O'Flynn's "Out to another side."
(Of course the word boycott hadn't been "invented" when Swift was alive.)
Robert Ryan a still don't see how "Most theories of instrumental Irish traditional music being used as a political tool to keep the spirits of the poor, oppressed Irish alive while they suffered immeasurable tyrannies and degradations at the hands of the Norman/English/British occupiers is Guinness-fuelled drivel at worst, and wild speculation at best".
If were to read through books like Petrie, Joyce and some of O'Neill's such as Irish Minstrels and Musicians you would in fact see that alot of our instrumental airs including reels and jigs have political connotations.
Good point - it's only words that have the ability to politicise a melody in that a certain tune only becomes 'political' once it's association with political words is established. Dance music itself has only a small place in an analysis of Irish political history, not simply because its oral nature makes it impossible to evidence in anything other than an anecdotal way, but because 'a good tune is a good tune'.
There is no doubt more scope for a social analysis of the music in the six northern counties, where music of different types became, like language, a badge of identity, as well as a social practice. It was Irish priests and politicians in an independent Ireland who sought to stifle Irish traditional dance music, not the British. Songs are another matter entirely...
Lord Gordon, a couple of academic works does not consitute 'most theories'. Most theories are put forward by Dave down the pub, who talks crap. It's not that difficult to grasp mate.
the reason why the irish priests sought to stifle the music was because of their belief that it was the 'devil's' music. although that was their belief of most music around that time. the politicians that were against the music were loyal to westminister. the people who were for home rule DID use irish music and many other aspects of irish culture to promote their cause. there is evidence of this in many cases of tune names but we see this mainly in songs. one mentioned earlier was ;The Home Ruler' hornpipe however this is not connected to Home Rule at all. it is a relatively new tune. but there are lots of tune names out there that point to a clear political cause. but its not just names, do people really think that its a coincidence that fife playing and pipe marching bands and lambeg drums play a larger part in protestant culture? no, the two types of music were used to identify with certain political views as ryan says there. in the early part of the last century groups were set up to promote culture and raise funds for organisation setting out to gain home rule, for example there were travelling libraries with irish texts and people were taught irish. music also played a large part in this. it would be foolish to dismiss the involvement of music in politics. there is clear evidence of its use and even if we look at secondary school history books this is mentioned so it is not uncommon knowledge. thankfully today it is not like that.
Isn't the jig Garryowen played by both sides of the coin in Northern Ireland? It is said that some of the Orange lodge play this jig as well as Nationalists too. I read how General Custer over heard some of his Irish cavalry men whistling it one night before battle and adopted the tune as his pre battle anthem.
It always seems to be one of those tunes that Hollywood think that the Irish always play along with the Irish Washer Woman. Every time a cartoon with a hint of Irish or a Leprechaun film is aired out come these two tunes yet you would seldom hear them in a session.
It strikes me that the 60s (and 50s, if any) albums of The Dubliners are among other things a fair compendium of rebel and political songs that had endured and were, or could be made, popular in that time, when the actual things they commemorated were slipping back into history and by then no longer a burning issue. They were not going to be arrested for singing The Patriot Game - as far as I know. People involved in the 20s wars, and their families, would harbour bitter feelings but as far as I know there was no serious trouble in Ireland or with Britain till the end of the decade, and the Dubliners weren't out (as far as I know) to stir it up with these songs - of which I think they were marvellous interpreters.
From 1968 artists *did* live with or at least in the awareness an ongoing war. (The Dubliners - type songs became charged or at least edgy material, certainly in Britain.) A study of who sang what and how, and where and with what intended result, in connection with the 70s, 80s and 90s Troubles would probably give a few indications as to how singers and song-writers reacted to troubles, war, oppression etc. in Ireland's past. It wouldn't be by me, my trad diet from those years has mainly been from the less (overtly) politically involved musicians.
Incidentally, the Foggy Dew (mentioned above by Silver Spear) Composed by Father O'Keefe after the Easter Rebellion of 1916.
# Posted on January 19th 2009 by Mix O'Lydian
Fr Charlie O'Neill wrote the Foggy Dew, I believe when he was a curate at St Peter's in Belfast, now famous for Divis Tower as much as the twin spires.
He was parish priest in Newcastle Co Down when I went on holiday there as a kid in the early 1960s.
By the way from 1969 there have been about 20,000 "Rebel Songs" written, although I would not call "The Town I love so Well" a rebel song, it was more of a peace song.
Prior to 1969 there were about 200,000 "rebel" songs.
Now I know I am prone to exaggeration but not a lot in this case. There is one memorable title from the recent troubles, "The Sniper's Promise", which I didn't believe at first.
Anyone remember Arlo Guthrie's "Hobo's Lullaby"?
Well whisper it softly but to the same air in the north of Ireland we had "The Provies Lullaby". I kid you not.
Gordon Lightfoot's "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" had the air purloined for "Back Home in Derry" penned by Bobby Sands.
The Irish? And politics? Well, I guess those two worlds might meet some day. Wouldn't hold my breath though.
Brian Wilson wrote "Caroline No" as a warning—40 years ahead of time—to Caroline Kennedy, telling her not to seek Hillary Clinton's senate seat. (The Beach Boys were, collectively, the woodie-driving Nostradamus of 1960s southern California ocean-based recreational culture. Kewl, brah.)
One thing we can be relieved about is that "Dirty Old Town" isn't an Irish song at all - it's about the City of Salford, in Lancashire, England, and by all accounts the City Council wasn't best pleased about some of the lyrics, so changes had to be made.
A large number of the old sean nós songs in Irish were political, even though on the surface they look like love songs. I think "An Róisín Dubh" was around for a long time before James Connolly.
"It was Irish priests and politicians in an independent Ireland who sought to stifle Irish traditional dance music, not the British. "
Robert Ryan
Yes many priests did stifle irish music in many instances.
The British policies towards native irish culture including language and music was one which sought about wiping out gaelic culture. Fact.
I think I remember hearing or reading that Táimse 'im Chodladh is a political song.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by samiam590
It is indeed. The translation of the song is all about Ireland, being asleep fopr now, but when you awaken me, there will be many hit a slap, or words to that effect.
Roisin Dubh, my dark Rosaleen, Rosaleen being Ireland.
Rhychawr - d'ya see what you started??!! D'ye? I hope that you're happy. It was nice to run into you last night, anyway. Whip out that Octave Mando sometime...I'm trying to find out what time things get rolling at Dick's, as I've got a day of meetings over that way tomorrow.
It is indeed. The translation of the song is all about Ireland, being asleep fopr now, but when you awaken me, there will be many hit a slap, or words to that effect.
Roisin Dubh, my dark Rosaleen, Rosaleen being Ireland.
There are thousands of them.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by bodhran bliss
heh, I'd like to see a version of Táimse recorded where that message is expressed through the musicians...a sort of "why i oughta..." ubt I can see how some I've heard kind of give that impression.
arg, make "ubt" into "but" and i didn't mean that i had heard any recordings I've heard had my suggested feeling, but rather that the ones I've heard suggest the effect of sleeping Ireland.
Further to lazyhound's comment regarding "Dirty Old Town", perhaps Ewan Macoll should have called it "Dirty Old City", as Salford is a city.
"Smelled a spring on the Salford wind" was changed to smelled a spring on the smoky wind", though the Spinners used "Salford" when they recorded it. Hey, who's old enough to remember the Spinners!
It's my belief that the "Irish" association orginated from the Clancy brothers recording of the song.
However, since Ewan Macoll was actually born James Miller (of Scottish parents), maybe we should think of it as being a Scottish song.
Funny, from the title I thought this thread would be about who decides how many guitars are allowed, who doesn't like so-and-so playing at the local session, etc.
Tunes with Jenny in them, eg. Jenny's welcome to Charlie, tend to be about Scotland (for Scotland read Jenny).
I play a tune called the Burning of the Piper's Hut which was probably composed around the Jacobite rebellion when it was against the law to show any sort of clan allegiance.
Mind you it may have been just one hut because he was a rubbish piper
Beg your pardon, Silver Spear, but Frank McCollum wrote "The Home Ruler" to refer to his wife, as Ptarmigan authoritatively pointed out in another thread. A matter of domestic politics...
I like the thought of rancorous poser Ewan MacColl bowing to the repressive might of Salford Council and having to change his words and generally eat dust.
That may be the case but earlier recordings of the tune (Hill & Linnane for one) all referred to 'Daniel O Connell, The Home Ruler' as it's title. Which politicised it.
That's interesting. Jerry O'Donnell. Regarding the "Home Ruler", I have always conjured up in my mind "She Who Must Be Obeyed" - but at the same time assuming that the origin was political
Re: Home Ruler. I was aware that it was written about the composer's wife as well but I have also heard that he gave it a very deliberate double meaning.
Wow! What a response! I've learned a lot, but the main theme seems to be that *in general* political content in Irish songs and tunes is more subtle than in say, Scots ballads.
Robert Ryan
"Lord Gordon, a couple of academic works does not consitute 'most theories'. Most theories are put forward by Dave down the pub, who talks crap. It's not that difficult to grasp mate."
Robert Ryan you sound like a David old chum from Oxford swigging pints of bitter and waxing over the Rupert Brooke poems and Mr Punch and chuckling at how the demise of dear old Ireland since being left to their own charming yet silly devices. Catholic priests and rampant power craving lunatics politicians ruling the emerald Isle.
"It was Irish priests and politicians in an independent Ireland who sought to stifle Irish traditional dance music, not the British." Robert Ryan.
Keep fooling yourselves. The British administration in Ireland never once relented from its strategy of assimilating the Irish into loyal subjects and exterminating their language, religion, music and culture. Oxford University still tries to protect themselves and the British conscience from feeling guilty about their colonial strategies by continually scoffing at thee Paddy left to write his own histories by publishing books such as ed., The Oxford Illustrated History of Modern Ireland and The Irish Story: Telling Tales and Making It Up in Ireland.
in fact Mr Punch with some of the most outrageous racist comments on the Irish still remains a best seller in London. Would the English allow Muslims to publish such racist material? Would the Jewish community allow the Germans to publish such material? Yet the good humoured Irish with their Catholic priests and silly politicians can take any racist comments in good-old fashioned way.
I find your comments indicative of this attitude. Whether you picked them up in Oxford or indeed Ireland is irrelevant. Irish music, customs, bardic traditions and indeed its people were strategically and politically attacked with the view to assimilation or extermination at various stages in the British conquest of Ireland. Your disproportionate blaming on the Church and politicians in an independent Ireland is ignorant and ill conceived. In fact you sound like the one whose spouting verbal diatribe after swigging on too many points of ale.
How can a tune have political content? Even a subtle one?
And I remember, long long ago now, at the Cambridge folk festival (back in those impressionable days when I knew no better than to frequent such dens of mindless middle-class hippies) Christy Moor changing his words to the song:
"They came for Sacco, Vansetti, Bobby Sands and some of his friends"
to: "They came for Sacco, Vansetti, Sarah Tisdall and some of her friends".
... to the whooping applause of the majority in the audience ... the Guardian readers.
Most effective way to communicate the content and satisfy the soul I suppose.
Amazing post- cross between, history, anthropology, musicology and good old opinion.
Here in the US, songs like 'Wooden Ships', and 'Ohio' were reappearing and being hummed by many of us old farts given the abuse of power and civil rights we have experienced here in the past 8 years.
A good song may transcend politics. But a good song is also powerful politics. It Think the English found that out....as did our Presidents Johnson and Nixon (back when Ilig was frequenting dens of mindless middle class resistance-his characterization is right on though. Those faux rebels were the ones who seem to have rolled over in the past 8 years and aqcuiesced to our political goings on.)
I thought the song "Dirty Old Town" was about Chicago.
"Hobo's Lullaby" was originally performed and recorded by Jimmie Rodgers (who was billed as The Singing Brakeman or The Yodeling Brakeman) during his brief recording career before he died in 1933.
Rodgers supposedly wrote the words but it is likely he learned the tune from someone else while he was working for the railroad and borrowed the tune for "Hobo's Lullaby".
Lord Gordon, I think you should have a little lie down. Your assumption that I went to Oxford University because I live in Oxford is indicative of the levels of analysis of which your intelligence is capable. In other words, your conclusions are entirely circumstantial, and have no basis in evidential fact. Obviously you find it impossible to intelligently argue your points without descending into meaningless insult and unsubstantiated diatribe. You sound, to me, like one of those individuals whose low-level education at a second-rate university left them with enough information to regurgitate other peoples' ideas without having developed an ability to contribute to historical analysis and form ideas of your own. If you bothered to take the time to read any relevant material on Irish history you'd see for yourself that the Revisionist perspective is almost wholly universal these days, and that the only people who continue to spout the nationalsitic DeValerean notions of Irish history taught for so long in the Free State and the Republic are academic fossils and Guiness republicans. Like yourself.
Michael, a tune can't have a political content, only a political association. Like I said earlier in this discussion, the only worthwhile political analysis must be textual, in relation to the words of songs, otherwise the analysis flounders in conjecture and is underpinned by assumptions that have no evidential basis. If the assumption comes first, the 'evidence' that gets tacked on in order to 'prove' it is largely worthless. Selective evidence is appropriate only to polemics, not real history.
"Revisionist perspective is almost wholly universal these days..."
...and that's just as much of a shame as having the other view dominate. Proper historical perspective is gained by distilling truth from the 'facts' as reflected by opposing points of perception.
I agree, but if you look at 'historical' textbooks from the Free State and early-Republic period, you'll see why the Revisionist project is so vital. Without it the dialectic you mention is entirely absent, and we have nothing from which to root out our 'facts'.
It would be a very bad day if people were to take for granted Roy Foster's ultra-conservative and ultimately ideologically loaded reassessment of the Irish past.
The self-assurance with which Foster makes his points can be somewhat irritating, but the work carried out by people such as Peter Hart is vital and stimulating without being in any way condescending or presumptuous, and he is firmly situated in the Revisionist camp.
Anything taken for granted is ultimately lazy, I suppose.
Dialectic is not dialectic if the side claiming 'balance' only supports its own side without taking the other into consideration, then it's simply blindness.
If Irish historical revisionism is solely concerned with jumping on its side of the scales, because it thinks the other side has been too heavy for far too long, that's as much of as failure as what they complain of. It doesn't create the balance, it simply supports its side in its desire to spite the other. No balance or dialectic is reached, just a tipping of the scales the other way.
That's why one has to make the balance occur in one's own mind. Otherwise you'd just believe everything you read, no?
That 'if' is pretty important, too. Revisionism most certainly is not concerned with blind self-aggrandizement: that analysis would be a massive oversimplification, 'if' one was to make it.
Please answer the following questions relating to your assumptions, insults and demonstrations of snobbery and ignorance.
1. False Assumptions made by Robert
Robert Ryan “Your assumption that I went to Oxford University because I live in Oxford is indicative of the levels of analysis of which your intelligence is capable.”
I made no such assumption. Please reread. It is Ironic you should question my levels of analysis in this instance.
2. Melodies can have political connotations
Robert Ryan “it's only words that have the ability to politicise a melody in that a certain tune only becomes 'political' once it's association with political words is established. Dance music itself has only a small place in an analysis of Irish political history, not simply because its oral nature makes it impossible to evidence in anything other than an anecdotal way, but because 'a good tune is a good tune'.”
The playing of a melody can have political connotations. This fact has been established throughout this discussion. It may not be comforting for you to admit while playing some of your favourite tunes may have nationalist, unionist, sectarian or political connotations. Take for example the playing of the melody to “God Save the Queen”? Is this an obvious example of melody making a political association?
The playing of the Boyne Water or Rosc Catha na Mumhan has often resulted in violence and rioting throughout our history. Many other examples have been posted earlier in this thread.
3. Inconsistencies in the what Robert deems appropriate geographic and political areas where melodies/music can be political.
Robert Ryan “There is no doubt more scope for a social analysis of the music in the six northern counties, where music of different types became, like language, a badge of identity, as well as a social practice.
Please answer : Why would this be any different to the rest of Ireland? What about Ireland before the Treaty?
4. Robert’s disproportionate blame on priests and politicians in an independent Ireland while denying any British influence in the stifling of Irish traditional music.
Robert Ryan “It was Irish priests and politicians in an independent Ireland who sought to stifle Irish traditional dance music, not the British.
What role do you believe the British played if any in stifling Irish traditional dance music? I believe this to be a very spurious statement.
Are the priests and politicians solely to blame?
A true revisionist historian sifts through all available sources without bias and approaches his work in a serious and scientific way.
In what way did politicians deliberately seek to stifle Irish traditional dance music in an independent Ireland?
Please enlighten me on the British policy of assimilation of Irish citizens into loyal British subjects through the method of deliberate and methodical uprooting of their culture, language and rights.
I repeat “Your disproportionate blaming on the Church and politicians in an independent Ireland is ignorant and ill conceived.”
The reason many people playing Irish music pick up on the political connotations of Irish dance melodies is because of the severing of the melodies from its folklore, its context, and its background from its listeners and indeed musicians.
Can you please suggest reasons for this Robert?
5. Robert Ryan looking down his nose at “low-level Second-rate universities”
“You sound, to me, like one of those individuals whose low-level education at a second-rate university left them with enough information to regurgitate other peoples' ideas without having developed an ability to contribute to historical analysis and form ideas of your own.”
The fact that you look down your nose at an Irish “low-level education at a second-rate university” gives further indication of your snobby values. Does attended a fee-paying Oxford, Cambridge or Havard university give a person a more valued opinion on issues relating to Ireland or anything else for that matter?
I attended Trinity College Dublin where I encountered many snobs, revisionists and anti-revisionists. Studied History and Irish and ironically spent the best part of 4 years reading about R.F. Foster, Moody, Corkery, Lecky, Berkely, McArdle and Ruth Dudley Edwards etc. I do not use this as a pretension to be qualified on the matter but rather to highlight the inadequacies of such courses when compared to life-long learning. In the same way a music degree in performance does not mean you are a good player even if you have a cert and a photo in a colonial inspired gown to ‘prove’ it. However I do not entertain the snobby attitude of Robert Ryan at looking down his nose at supposed “low-level education at a second-rate university”.
Which further dismissed your next rant of diatribe:
6. Roberts Double Standard in Revisionism
Robert Ryan “If you bothered to take the time to read any relevant material on Irish history you'd see for yourself that the Revisionist perspective is almost wholly universal these days, and that the only people who continue to spout the nationalsitic DeValerean notions of Irish history taught for so long in the Free State and the Republic are academic fossils and Guiness republicans. Like yourself.”
Robert’s spurious claim that “revisionist perspective is almost wholly universal is not accurate. There has been a long legacy of intellectual debate in this country between schools of revisionism and anti-revisionism. Generally speaking, in the last decade much balance has been restored which is healthy. Revisionism at its best is refreshing and enlightening. However often people seemingly like Robert Ryan here are too rash, unbalanced approach that delights at opportunities to ridicule historical discourse which a young newly founded state instated. Aspects of the history taught in the country in the early state have been critisised (often fairly) as over-romantic and mythological. However the same set of standards must be brought to bear on the history taught in Ireland before independence when the romantic heroes and mythological figures in our books were selected as bringing about assimilation and pro-British allegiances. This is the double standards that serve to highlight some people’s attempts at hi-jacking the positivist method of revisionism to bash people of nationalistic pride and beliefs. Robert for example blames priests and politicians in independent Ireland for stifling ITDM yet accounts no blame on the British administration that were in power for centuries. Classic double standards. There is documentary evidence that some priests were instrumental in discouraging country house dances and crossroads meetings as highlighted in O’Neills. I think the claim against politicians is so broad that Robert will have to explain what parties or politicians does he mean.
What politicians do you mean Robert? Please give examples.
There is a huge body of evidence of British administration ‘stifling’ (to put it mildly) Irish traditional dance music in the country. How can Robert justify his fully exonerating of the British? Is this a balanced view considering your stating the priests and politicians of ‘Independent’ Ireland with the deliberately stifling Irish Traditional Dance Music?
Please answer this question Robert?
I made no claim to dismiss the merits of a truly revisionist, positivist and scientific study of Irish history. I made no claim to De Valera’s Fianna Fail history either.
Please name some of these academic fossils you describe?
Please highlight one example in this thread where you have displayed “an ability to contribute to historical analysis and form ideas of your own.”
Sorry. Most of the subheading after the numbers of the above post were meant to have been in bold writing s to distinguish them from the paragraphs. i hope Robert answers all of the questions even if the headings are rendered unclear.
Well, I knew that Hobo's Lullaby was around long before Arlo Guthrie, but Jimmie Rogers didn't sound right either, so I was inspired to look it up. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobo's_Lullaby
Wouldn't some musicologists say that political protest can be encoded into tunes - hasn't there been a lot of work addressing whether Shostakovich criticised Stalinism via his music? However, does anyone seriously think that, for example, any time an ITM tune modulates between D Dor and D Maj this is an implicit critique of British-sponsored Western tonality and musical aestheticism seeking to achieve cultural imperialism in colonial oppressed Ireland and intended to exclude musicians trained in that style?
If reading a thesis on why Ireland achieved independence I just would not expect to see ITM anywhere as an explanatory factor.
I would hope all serious historians are revisionists, form hypotheses and use empirical analysis to test them. Foster is a fine political and intellectual historian though I prefer Irish cliometric history - work by the wonderful Cormac O Grada and Joel Mokyr among others.
How about this for an idea - economic stagnation and high rates of emigration was good for ITM, where American and British markets supported recordings and live performance, while Irish communities there were affluent enough and lived in cities, which allowed them to sponsor music tuition and of course found the session scene. English traditional musicians by contrast wail that a lot of their music was lost due to early industrialisation and urbanisation.
"If reading a thesis on why Ireland achieved independence I just would not expect to see ITM anywhere as an explanatory factor."
This is true to a certain extent as a thesis written from a modern perspective may exclude ITM altogether in the struggle for independence. However, comrades who actively fought in the War of Independence wrote in their accounts the role ITM played in this struggle. For example the ballads and melodies Ernie O'Malley refers to and gives the lyrics which were very emotive to freedom fighters. Perhaps the most outrageous use of ITM i have ever read is in Tom Barry's Guerrilla Warfare in Ireland when he describes how as a military commander of considerable success he used an uilleann piper to play martial airs as part of some of his flying column attacks. I believe Foster is a selective revisionist and would not consider including such detail. I prefer accounts of people who were there first hand - be it British soldiers or Irish Volunteers over Foster. My point is Irish music played some role in many struggles the same as armies in Napoleon or armies in the American Civil War.
It's the job of the historian to carefully examine the data and rule out that which is impossible to verify from other sources. A certain element of anecdotal information makes for interesting reading, but it must be selected carefully and depicted as just that, not as what you describe as 'Fact'. Barry's 'comrades' were the first to point out that 'Guerilla Days in Ireland' was entirely unreliable as a historical document. The uilleann piper incident demonstrates this amply. It makes for great reading, but Barry would hardly have been 'a military commander of some success' in a guerilla campaign were he to alert his enemies of impending attacks by employing pipers. Who would presumably be sat in chairs, I might add. Perhaps they were mounted on the back of armoured horse-drawn carts? Barry's motives for this strange re-writing of his very successful career as a guerilla make for fascinating study however.
O'Malley's first memoir at least has the merit of excellent literary craftsmanship, but its impressionistic nature, as well as the delay in its publication, renders it adjunctive merely. Without other sources with which to cross-reference it can only impart a sense of the protagonist's own perceptions. Surely you must have learned this long before you studied at Trinity?
Just answer the questions Robert. My point is that ITM can be political and has been political. Fair points about the need for cross referencing sources - again i am an avid believer in true positivist methods. Answer the questions Robert please.
I never laid claim to Barry's work to be 'Fact' as you once more assumed. It is a reference to ITM in the struggle for independence which surely is relevant.
You, Robert Ryan made the most bogus claim yet on this thread. Robert Ryan's amazing FACT:
"It was Irish priests and politicians in an independent Ireland who sought to stifle Irish traditional dance music, not the British. "
I don't really have time to do them justice, and from your previous refusal to acknowledge the most basic and, frankly, elementary and obvious, point I made about tunes bearing political associations only through their use as song airs, I don't believe you'll pay much attention even if I were to take that time. I made the point three or four times, and you didn't bother to take notice, though you'll admit that it's strikingly obvious, if you are able to lower your defences and engage in a less hostile and aggressive manner. I notice that you were more willing to sling petty insults than to receive them, and they obviously bothered you a great deal more than they did me. I tried to stoop to your depth, but when I saw you attempting to correct my spelling mistakes, I realised that it was impossible to do so.
On a conciliatory note, it occurred to me that you might be interested to know that the Military Archive in Rathmines have recently made accessible to the public the Bureau of Military History records. You've stated that your interest lies in first-hand accounts of the revolutionary period, and the BMH is a wealth of witness statements of IV and IRA veterans. Understandably, very few were willing to write of their experiences in the Civil War period, but the details of 1916-1922 activities are fascinating. The staff at the archive, you may know them already, are excellent and accommodating to a fault. They will copy documents without delay, and if the material you require has not been made available digitally they will scan it and send it to you.
Q: Take for example the playing of the melody to “God Save the Queen”? Is this an obvious example of melody making a political association?
A: No, this is a painfully obvious example of a melody bearing political associations through its employment as a lyrical vehicle. It was first published in 1744, and a year later it's first official performance coincided with the Jacobite Rebellion. The following verse was clearly topical, and didn't survive: Lord, grant that Marshall Wade,/ May by they mighty aid,/ Victory bring,/ May he sedition hush and like a torrent rush,/ Rebellious Scots to crush,/ God save the king.
As you can see, the lyrics were no more inspired then than they are in the present version, though a little more exciting.
But despite what you might consider the exclusively English nature of this song, and its attendant melody, the tune itself went on to become the vehicle for not only the German national anthem 'Heil dir im Siegerkranz', but that of Russia, and Switzerland. Clearly the political associations of the melody were not so apparent to the citizens of these countries as they are to you. Again, I repeat that melodies bear political associations through their use as lyrical vehicles. It is a simple point.
Q: “There is no doubt more scope for a social analysis of the music in the six northern counties, where music of different types became, like language, a badge of identity, as well as a social practice.
Please answer : Why would this be any different to the rest of Ireland? What about Ireland before the Treaty?
A: It is different in the rest of Ireland because the rest of Ireland is qualitatively different, in social, political, economic and industrial terms, to the six counties that constitute 'Northern Ireland'. You may disagree for the sake of it, but the abuse of civil rights and political and social oppression that was allowed to continue in the Unionist state after 1922 was of a different nature than that which took place in Ireland as a whole in the twenty or so years before the Treaty. Bear in mind that only in a small number of the counties of Ulster were Catholics in the minority, and here there treatment was enormously different from that experienced by Catholics in the rest of Ireland. Oppression existed outside of Ulster, of course, but the experiences of the Catholic minority in the industrial north-east were different in many ways to those of the Catholic majority elsewhere. The Protestant land-owning class in rural Ireland were in a minority: there was not the same need to assert identity among the Catholic Irish – that identity was not threatened in the same way. Remember that Irishness and allegiance to the Crown remained entirely compatible until the failure of the IPP and the rise of separatist politics. The emergence of separatist nationalism as the primary political force in Ireland changed this, obviously, but the impact of this development had far more dangerous implications for those Catholics in the north-eastern counties, because they were threatened not only by the forces of the Crown (Catholic Irishmen, remember, predominated in the RIC), but by a hostile Protestant population who were in a position of numerical strength. As oppression in the North became further insitutionalised after 1922, the need for cultural self-identification no doubt grew in direct response to the very threat to that identification. Just as the Gaelic language in the western Gaeltacht is entirely different in both political and social terms to that spoken, for example, in the Falls in 1969, so too was the music that was played. The former is not necessarily political, it is not an attempt to self-identify with a Gaelic past and retain it in the present: it simply is. The Gaelic spoken in the Falls during the Troubles was an expression of identity under oppression, a risk, as well as a joy, as was the music played in such hostile environs, its very existence an insult to those who would see it as something abhorrent, vile or threatening.
To return to pre-Treaty Ireland as a whole, there is no doubt that Irish dance music was a vital component of the cultural revolution: I didn't deny that, but simply stated that there was more scope for its analysis in post-Treaty north-eastern Ireland. I didn't deny it's importance, but noted, quite accurately I believe, that it's analysis is made hugely difficult by its extra-textual nature. There is evidence of dancing and music being used in an overtly political way by the proponents of the cultural revolution, but it is impossible to say how many of those playing tunes at Gaelic League and GAA events were beginners inspired by the rhetoric of revolution, and how many of them were experienced musicians playing tunes at a dance, like any other dance, having learned their skills from family and local musicians, as the tradition has always demanded. If cultural revoltion inspired people to pick up the pipes and the fiddle and learn tunes, that's great, but we'll never know, any more than we'll know what tunes they were playing. Can we say that the Treaty changed the course of ITM forever? Of course we can't, even if it did, because there's no evidence. The assumption that people were fiddling and piping for a united and independent Ireland is very appealing, but there's no reason to assume that they weren't simply playing for the same reasons that musicians have always played: for the love of the tunes, the joy of the dance, the craic, the drink, the girls, whatever anyone has ever picked up a fiddle, or a whistle, a flute in order to achieve.
Q: “It was Irish priests and politicians in an independent Ireland who sought to stifle Irish traditional dance music, not the British." What role do you believe the British played if any in stifling Irish traditional dance music? I believe this to be a very spurious statement.
A: I agree, it was a spurious statement. What I should have said was that Irish priests and politicians were far more successful in stifling Irish traditional dance music than the British ever were. The existence of 16th, 17th and 18th Century cultural repression by the English is beyond doubt, but the the health and vitality of traditional Irish music in early 20th Century Ireland, not to mention the occurrence of violent revolution, attests to the failure of the British to achieve, as you curiously put it, the ' assimilation of Irish citizens into loyal British subjects through the method of deliberate and methodical uprooting of their culture' in the 19th Century. No doubt the land clearances, economic, political and social repression that took place in Ireland under the English prior to the Act of Union contributed to the concentration of old Gaelic cultural and linguistic practices in the western regions of the island, but dancing to traditional Irish music was very much a popular and widespread practice in Ireland in the 1920s. Not so in the 1940s, when American music was the driving music of public dancing. I don't deny that the English policies of cultural repression from the time of Elizabeth I onwards were cruel and destructive, a direct continuance of the bloody conquests, and directly achieved the end of most aspects of bardic culture, the wholesale destruction of the harping tradition in Ireland, and the loss of those ancient forms of music that are now only written of in ancient manuscripts. This is a loss that cannot be denied. The music of the Gaelic ruling class fell as the Gaelic ruling class fell, and left only the music of the masses, the dance music of Ireland.
Q: In what way did politicians deliberately seek to stifle Irish traditional dance music in an independent Ireland?
A. The Public Dance Halls Act (1935) was an act of legislation which effectively brought an end to the legal existence of the informal house-dance, and also brought an end to the crossroads or platform dance. Only those of 'good character' were granted a license, and in many cases this was the parish priest. Of course there were priests who believed that traditional Irish dance music was acceptable, even laudable, but there were many, priests and otherwise, who believed traditional Irish dance and the music that drove it, to be lewd and morally unsound, as well as the informal settings in which it took place to be encouraging of immoral behaviour. The dancing that occurred in the new dance halls, from which the government took a 25% cut of the entrance fee, took place to the beat of the foxtrot and the one-step, not the jig or the hornpipe. The principle purposes of the Act had been to make money from popular dancing by the issue of licences and the collection of ticket-tax, and to ensure the moral supervision of the poor population at house and barn dances only, but an overzealous rural clergy backed by the Gardai used it to effectively close down the traditional practice of crossroads dances in order to realise their moral fundamentalism, despite this being well outside the legal limitations of the act.
Other Irish politicians did seek to deliberatley root out the elements of ITDM that they opposed, though they failed miserably. The Gaelic League issued a ban on set-dancing as a foreign importation, and a threat to native Irish dance practices, despite its arrival in Ireland in the 18th Century, and its assimilation into the musical tradition. No doubt they would have banned polkas had they ventured far enough from Dublin to learn of their existence. The GL evidently didn't have a huge amount of success, which hardly contributes to the idea that the cultural revolutionary project had any profound impact on Irish traditional dance and music.
Q: Are the priests and politicians solely to blame?
A: Of course not, there are always a great number of factors to take into account when an important social shift takes place. The most important of these is probably emigration, the mainstay of the Irish economy throughout history. No doubt the British economic policies in Ireland can be blamed for the tragedy of Irish emigration throughout history, and if the country's best and brightest in every field were shipped off to America, England, Scotland and Australia, no doubt many of them were the best musicians as well as the strongest sons, and nimblest daughters. Ironically, this is one of the reasons Irish music is so strong today. As everybody knows, the first sessions took place in England and America, and while Irish music at home suffered the ravages of De Valera's Public Dance Hall Act, Irish music in New York, Boston and Philadelphia was thriving. Eventually it came home.
Q: The reason many people playing Irish music pick up on the political connotations of Irish dance melodies is because of the severing of the melodies from its folklore, its context, and its background from its listeners and indeed musicians.
Can you please suggest reasons for this Robert?
A: No, I'm afraid that sentence is incomprehensible. Too many possessive pronouns perhaps?
Do you mean that musicians now invent a political mythology to replace the lost folkloric mythology with which the music was once associated? And do you wish me to hazard my opinion as to why those folkloric associations have been lost?
Thanks Robert. Honestly enjoyed reading most of that. Under a bit of pressure here at the moment with other bits and pieces not working out for me. Only got chance to skim it. I'll read it more carefully later. Alot of fair points from what i can see so far. i realised that the last question you have above was incomprehensible the moment it posted but hoped you mightn't spot it.
Very interesting points Robert in fairness. I never sought to defend the priests or politicians. I felt it unfair to attribute to these while exonerating the British. Anyways you've qualified your statement now and it makes a much more compelling arguement. I understand exactly your frustration at my seemingly ignoring your point that a melody is only political when associated with political words/lyrics/imagery. I believe this extends itself to many jigs, and certainly marches and not just songs and slow airs. Its a matter of interpretation really. What is a melody such as A Nation Once Again is played without any reference to the lyrics? Perhaps as a march, or even removed slightly as a reel. Does this melody therefore have political connotations? It may if you play it in the wrong place! It may if you play it also in a place were is stirs the Guinness nationalists you spoke of. So, i believe that a melody can have political connotations if the listener has the ability to recognise it. Yes it is subtle and ambigious but it can not be ruled out too easliy. Can a piece of visual art have political connotations in a subtle way through the use of symbols and imagery without directly painting/illustrating its message in an overtly obvious way? I believe these connotations are obviously limited but there have been cases of a melody invoking political debates in the house of parliament in Ireland. For example the trouble caused by the playing of possibly the most troublesome of all Irish airs - The Boyne Water was discussed in Parliamentary debates as riots in Belfast were caused by its playing.
I've posted a link below to some references to this march below. http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/BOY_BOZ.htm#BOYNE_WATER_[1]
The political connotations of "The Boyne Water" long remained attached to the melody, even after it was imported to North America. Bayard (1981) relates that the mere playing of the tune in the presence of Catholic Irish in western Pennsylvania "could bring on a mass attack," and repeats the Fayette County story of an old Irishman digging potatoes in the garden while his wife followed along beside him picking the up in a sack. She absent‑mindedly began singing the air, upon which he turned around and, incensed, brained her with one blow of his spade. In fact, Pennsylvania fifers declined to play the tune for Bayard at gatherings, fearing to destroy the harmony of the group with "political pieces."
I like the thought of rancorous poser Ewan MacColl bowing to the repressive might of Salford Council and having to change his words and generally eat dust.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by nicholas
And I remember, long long ago now, at the Cambridge folk festival (back in those impressionable days when I knew no better than to frequent such dens of mindless middle-class hippies) Christy Moor changing his words to the song:
"They came for Sacco, Vansetti, Bobby Sands and some of his friends"
to: "They came for Sacco, Vansetti, Sarah Tisdall and some of her friends".
... to the whooping applause of the majority in the audience ... the Guardian readers.
No winning is there? Millar was working class and is described as a poser. Now he didn't have a great voice, he would have killed for Kelly's voice, but he wrote great songs, "First time, Sweet Thames, Travelling People, Shoals of Herring" and many others. He sang holding his ear because he didn't have a great voice and needed to really concentrate.
Those who imitated him were posers.
And all revolutionaries are middle class Michael, never been a revolution in history that wasn't led by the middle classes.
And a few historical points. Daniel O'Connell was well before the Home Rulers, he was famous for Catholic Emancipation.
And Tom Barry was both British soldier (fought at the Somme) and Irish volunteer just to confuse the issue.
Nothing confusing about that Bliss, many Volunteers were ex-soldiers. Where else would they have got the experience to train the Volunteers? The Boer War and WWI were events indispensable to the successful rise of militant Irish nationalism. Ironic isn't it?
ah, isn't it lovely to see gordon and ryan making peace. i think this site actually antagonises people into arguments due to the anonymity of it and the lack of face-2-face interaction. Case in point; I'd hazard a guess that if gordon and ryan met in a pub they would probably enjoy each others company and have a rewarding discussion.
Maybe you two should meet up and hug it out. May I suggest an equidistant venue from Dublin and Oxford - Wales. Have a look at this charming promotional video:
The English Civil War? It started in Scotland and there were more deaths per head of population in Scotland than in Ireland or England. All to do with the Covenanters. A very bloody business altogether.
Cromwell was merchant class to the hilt wasn't he?
What about magna carta - the "revolutionaries" were the bloody barons! What about the American War of Independence - middle class again e.g. George Washington.
If you want an easy revolution get the middle class to do it.
Give it time perhaps.
(Anyway the person who would be the real King of England, descended from Edward IV is an Australian according to recent research.) Lives in Jeridlerie, NSW.
Give it time perhaps.
(Anyway the person who would be the real King of England, descended from Edward IV is an Australian according to recent research.) Lives in Jeridlerie, NSW.
# Posted on January 26th 2009 by Duijera Dubh
My nephew is the rightful King of England.
My Grandmother was called MacBeth, true, and as the Scottish Kings became Kings of England with James, well we can trace a direct line.
His name is Conor, so he should be King Conor the First.
Feck me Bliss, (well not actually thanks), but my family is down from Duncan I - the poor bastard that git Macbeth murdered! Can we have a proper feud now?
Politics of ITM
Politics of ITM
I recently picked up Trinity from the office swap shelf, haven't read it since high school in the '70s. As I make my way through the saga, I've begun to wonder about how ITM figured into Ireland's struggles & troubles. I know Scotland has numerous Jacobite ballads, but haven't yet come across many Irish songs or tunes that speak directly to the conflicts. The key word here is 'yet', since I'm much more familiar with Scots ballads, probably because my wife's grandparents emigrated to Canada from Glasgow in the 1930's.
Any historians out there who can give me a brief rundown of the relationship between ITM and Irish political history? I'm including tunes and songs in my definition of ITM. Obviously tunes would not speak directly to Irish history, but rather have a context that might relate to what was going on at the time that they were composed.
As always, if this thread has already been done to death, shoot me a link. Also, I'd love to have a few suggestions for reading material that addresses this issue.
Thanks.
# Posted on January 19th 2009 by Rhychawr Catsmeat
Re: Politics of ITM
I'm not an expert in this field (sadly) but there are tunes out there, such as "The Repeal of the Union" and the "Home Ruler" which have political names. Additionally a song like the "Creggan White Hare," while ostensibly about a rabbit, is allegedly a political song but superficially harmless so people who sang it wouldn't end up being transported for treason. Then you have the thinly disguised Cathleen Ni Houlihan or Sean Bhean Bhocht, the poor old woman (or sometimes young woman) who has been disposessed of her four green fields. She appears in numerous plays, literature, and songs, from Thomas Pearce, to Yeats and Lady Gregory to Tommy Makem. Then there are ones that are blatantly political, like the "Foggy Dew" and "Arthur McBride." I don't know when these were composed.
# Posted on January 19th 2009 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Politics of ITM
Regarding tunes, the "Orange" marches of Northern Ireland spring to mind.
Regarding songs, the "Rebel" songs of the early and mid 20th c - e.g. "Dublin in the Green".
And laterly - and more poignantly the song: "The Town I loved So Well".
# Posted on January 19th 2009 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: Politics of ITM
http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/bibdbs/music/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Irish_ballads#Political
http://www.altculture.org/ccult/ccult16.html
Most theories of instrumental Irish traditional music being used as a political tool to keep the spirits of the poor, oppressed Irish alive while they suffered immeasurable tyrannies and degradations at the hands of the Norman/English/British occupiers is Guinness-fuelled drivel at worst, and wild speculation at best. Best to stick to analysis of the songs that have survived. Here are a couple of places to start.
http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/bibdbs/music/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Irish_ballads#Political
http://www.altculture.org/ccult/ccult16.html
# Posted on January 19th 2009 by Dragut Reis
Re: Politics of ITM
Whoops. Cut and paste issues...
# Posted on January 19th 2009 by Dragut Reis
Re: Politics of ITM
Incidentally, the Foggy Dew (mentioned above by Silver Spear) Composed by Father O'Keefe after the Easter Rebellion of 1916.
# Posted on January 19th 2009 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: Politics of ITM
The Foggy Dew was probably written between 1917-1930. Its exact provenance is unknown, but it is commonly associated with Peadar Kearney, the composer of the Irish national anthem.
Arthur McBride is an anti-recruiting song from the eighteenth century, probably the Queen Anne period. The version made famous by Paul Brady is an American variant, almost certainly closer to the original eighteenth century song than the simplified version sung by Planxty. It's not political in the nationalist sense, and may well derive from other English anti-recruiting songs of the period.
# Posted on January 19th 2009 by Dragut Reis
Re: Politics of ITM
Cross post...
Not heard that before Mix. Who was Fr. O'Keeffe?
# Posted on January 19th 2009 by Dragut Reis
Re: Politics of ITM
Canon Charles O'Neill has been credited with the composition of the words to the song by Franke Harte in 'Songs of Dublin', but I think there's very little evidence to back any of these rival claims...
# Posted on January 19th 2009 by Dragut Reis
Re: Politics of ITM
"Most theories of instrumental Irish traditional music being used as a political tool to keep the spirits of the poor, oppressed Irish alive while they suffered immeasurable tyrannies and degradations at the hands of the Norman/English/British occupiers is Guinness-fuelled drivel at worst, and wild speculation at best. Best to stick to analysis of the songs that have survived."
It is well documented that many Irishmen were imprisoned having whistled or played what was deemed 'seditious". To dismiss the volumes of factual information on this is wrong. For example Dublin Castle considered it important in their intelligence gathering operations to include information relating to the playing of certain nationalist tunes as possible IRB members. This could lead to a potential visit to your employers or worst still a visit from the Black and Tans.
Some books which reveal some insight in a broader insight into the link between irish music and politics are Ernie O'Malley's On Another Man's Wounds.
# Posted on January 19th 2009 by Lord Gordon
Re: Politics of ITM
I have heard songs like the Bold Fenian Men or The Fenian Gun pop up late in the night. Or the Rambler from Clare. Among others.
# Posted on January 19th 2009 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: Politics of ITM
Boulavogue and Dunlavin Green sound pretty political to me.
# Posted on January 19th 2009 by Steve Shaw
Re: Politics of ITM
Zimmerman's Songs of the Irish too is very interesting. There is a huge link between the politics and music of this country whether we like to admit it or not.
# Posted on January 19th 2009 by Lord Gordon
Re: Politics of ITM
Sorry Lord Gordon, but you're mistaken. There is plenty of evidence with regards to certain songs being considered seditious, and the singing, whistling, or lilting of their attendant airs also considered to be seditious. If you note the part where I write 'instrumental Irish traditional music' you'll perhaps see the distinction I'm making. The giveaway is the 'instrumental' bit...
# Posted on January 19th 2009 by Dragut Reis
Re: Politics of ITM
Robert Ryan - in answer to your question - I was told that it O'Keefe who composed the words.
But I've also been told that the words were composed by Canon Charles O Neill.
Not sure which is correct ..!
# Posted on January 19th 2009 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: Politics of ITM
Yet another ITM mystery, eh? The wonders of an oral tradition...
# Posted on January 19th 2009 by Dragut Reis
Re: Politics of ITM
Mind you, Lord Gordon's post gives a new take on the 'session police'...
G-Man: What was the name of that tune?
Muso: Er, Jenny's Knickers, I think, or was it Repeal of the Union?
G-Man: You're nicked me old beauty...
# Posted on January 19th 2009 by Dragut Reis
Re: Politics of ITM
You'd do worse that have a read of Gary Hastings book 'With Fife & Drum'. His basic argument is that 'a good tune is a good tune' and crosses the political boundaries. It may be used by one side or the other in a partial or even sectarian way but whilst the words may change, the melody is basically the same.
# Posted on January 19th 2009 by the wounded hussar
Re: Politics of ITM
Roisin Dubh is quite a political tune, written by James Connolly. I once went to a cross-community project organised by the Apprentice Boys in Derry. It was funny how the 'Ulster Scots' players knew the Irish tunes and the 'Irish' players knew the Ulster Scots tunes
# Posted on January 19th 2009 by Cradinski
Re: Politics of ITM
Not in the same vein as a lot of what has been mentioned, but I particularly like song "The Dean's Pamphlet" written, satirically, by Jonathan Swift against himself for daring to suggest that the Irish should boycott English imports. There's a good version of it on Liam O'Flynn's "Out to another side."
(Of course the word boycott hadn't been "invented" when Swift was alive.)
# Posted on January 19th 2009 by TomB-R
Re: Politics of ITM
Robert Ryan a still don't see how "Most theories of instrumental Irish traditional music being used as a political tool to keep the spirits of the poor, oppressed Irish alive while they suffered immeasurable tyrannies and degradations at the hands of the Norman/English/British occupiers is Guinness-fuelled drivel at worst, and wild speculation at best".
If were to read through books like Petrie, Joyce and some of O'Neill's such as Irish Minstrels and Musicians you would in fact see that alot of our instrumental airs including reels and jigs have political connotations.
# Posted on January 19th 2009 by Lord Gordon
Re: Politics of ITM
Good point - it's only words that have the ability to politicise a melody in that a certain tune only becomes 'political' once it's association with political words is established. Dance music itself has only a small place in an analysis of Irish political history, not simply because its oral nature makes it impossible to evidence in anything other than an anecdotal way, but because 'a good tune is a good tune'.
There is no doubt more scope for a social analysis of the music in the six northern counties, where music of different types became, like language, a badge of identity, as well as a social practice. It was Irish priests and politicians in an independent Ireland who sought to stifle Irish traditional dance music, not the British. Songs are another matter entirely...
# Posted on January 19th 2009 by Dragut Reis
Re: Politics of ITM
Bloody hell, multiple cross-posts...
Lord Gordon, a couple of academic works does not consitute 'most theories'. Most theories are put forward by Dave down the pub, who talks crap. It's not that difficult to grasp mate.
# Posted on January 19th 2009 by Dragut Reis
Re: Politics of ITM
Don't forget "The Rights of Man".
# Posted on January 19th 2009 by Guernsey Pete
Re: Politics of ITM
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=7CXbgxPj8UQ
Gary Hastings talking. Someone linked to it last time this was discussed.
# Posted on January 19th 2009 by David50
Re: Politics of ITM
"Rights of Man", Guernsey?
I always understood that was a reference to the declaration made after the French Revolution.
"Droits des Hommes"
# Posted on January 19th 2009 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: Politics of ITM
Thomas Paine
# Posted on January 19th 2009 by David50
Re: Politics of ITM
An english man ?
# Posted on January 19th 2009 by bazouki dave
Re: Politics of ITM
" Rights of Man" could be a red herring. Except that some of english poor also got a raw deal from the relics of the Norman aristocracy.
# Posted on January 19th 2009 by David50
Re: Politics of ITM
the reason why the irish priests sought to stifle the music was because of their belief that it was the 'devil's' music. although that was their belief of most music around that time. the politicians that were against the music were loyal to westminister. the people who were for home rule DID use irish music and many other aspects of irish culture to promote their cause. there is evidence of this in many cases of tune names but we see this mainly in songs. one mentioned earlier was ;The Home Ruler' hornpipe however this is not connected to Home Rule at all. it is a relatively new tune. but there are lots of tune names out there that point to a clear political cause. but its not just names, do people really think that its a coincidence that fife playing and pipe marching bands and lambeg drums play a larger part in protestant culture? no, the two types of music were used to identify with certain political views as ryan says there. in the early part of the last century groups were set up to promote culture and raise funds for organisation setting out to gain home rule, for example there were travelling libraries with irish texts and people were taught irish. music also played a large part in this. it would be foolish to dismiss the involvement of music in politics. there is clear evidence of its use and even if we look at secondary school history books this is mentioned so it is not uncommon knowledge. thankfully today it is not like that.
# Posted on January 19th 2009 by fiddleruairi
Re: Politics of ITM
Isn't the jig Garryowen played by both sides of the coin in Northern Ireland? It is said that some of the Orange lodge play this jig as well as Nationalists too. I read how General Custer over heard some of his Irish cavalry men whistling it one night before battle and adopted the tune as his pre battle anthem.
It always seems to be one of those tunes that Hollywood think that the Irish always play along with the Irish Washer Woman. Every time a cartoon with a hint of Irish or a Leprechaun film is aired out come these two tunes yet you would seldom hear them in a session.
# Posted on January 19th 2009 by upmine3
Re: Politics of ITM
It strikes me that the 60s (and 50s, if any) albums of The Dubliners are among other things a fair compendium of rebel and political songs that had endured and were, or could be made, popular in that time, when the actual things they commemorated were slipping back into history and by then no longer a burning issue. They were not going to be arrested for singing The Patriot Game - as far as I know. People involved in the 20s wars, and their families, would harbour bitter feelings but as far as I know there was no serious trouble in Ireland or with Britain till the end of the decade, and the Dubliners weren't out (as far as I know) to stir it up with these songs - of which I think they were marvellous interpreters.
From 1968 artists *did* live with or at least in the awareness an ongoing war. (The Dubliners - type songs became charged or at least edgy material, certainly in Britain.) A study of who sang what and how, and where and with what intended result, in connection with the 70s, 80s and 90s Troubles would probably give a few indications as to how singers and song-writers reacted to troubles, war, oppression etc. in Ireland's past. It wouldn't be by me, my trad diet from those years has mainly been from the less (overtly) politically involved musicians.
# Posted on January 19th 2009 by nicholas
Re: Politics of ITM
Incidentally, the Foggy Dew (mentioned above by Silver Spear) Composed by Father O'Keefe after the Easter Rebellion of 1916.
# Posted on January 19th 2009 by Mix O'Lydian
Fr Charlie O'Neill wrote the Foggy Dew, I believe when he was a curate at St Peter's in Belfast, now famous for Divis Tower as much as the twin spires.
He was parish priest in Newcastle Co Down when I went on holiday there as a kid in the early 1960s.
# Posted on January 19th 2009 by bodhran bliss
Re: Politics of ITM
By the way from 1969 there have been about 20,000 "Rebel Songs" written, although I would not call "The Town I love so Well" a rebel song, it was more of a peace song.
Prior to 1969 there were about 200,000 "rebel" songs.
Now I know I am prone to exaggeration but not a lot in this case. There is one memorable title from the recent troubles, "The Sniper's Promise", which I didn't believe at first.
Anyone remember Arlo Guthrie's "Hobo's Lullaby"?
Well whisper it softly but to the same air in the north of Ireland we had "The Provies Lullaby". I kid you not.
Gordon Lightfoot's "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" had the air purloined for "Back Home in Derry" penned by Bobby Sands.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by bodhran bliss
Re: Politics of ITM
Bodhran - in my initial post I mentioned O'keefe, but in a subsequent post I said that I had also heard that it was O'Neil.
From what you say, it would appear that the latter is true.
I gave Dublin in the Green as an example of a "rebel song"
I certainly wasn't suggesting that "The Town I Loved So Well" was in that category.
I only mentioned it as it was written as a result of the troubles.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: Politics of ITM
I think I remember hearing or reading that Táimse 'im Chodladh is a political song.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by samiam590
Re: Politics of ITM
The Irish? And politics? Well, I guess those two worlds might meet some day. Wouldn't hold my breath though.
Brian Wilson wrote "Caroline No" as a warning—40 years ahead of time—to Caroline Kennedy, telling her not to seek Hillary Clinton's senate seat. (The Beach Boys were, collectively, the woodie-driving Nostradamus of 1960s southern California ocean-based recreational culture. Kewl, brah.)
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by NEW Pure Drop® Ear Canal Oil
Re: Politics of ITM
I will die a happy man if someone ever writes a song with lyrics combining:
• the 'Troubles'
• the 'excitement'
• the 'thirst'
In any order.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by NEW Pure Drop® Ear Canal Oil
Re: Politics of ITM
One thing we can be relieved about is that "Dirty Old Town" isn't an Irish song at all - it's about the City of Salford, in Lancashire, England, and by all accounts the City Council wasn't best pleased about some of the lyrics, so changes had to be made.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Politics of ITM
A large number of the old sean nós songs in Irish were political, even though on the surface they look like love songs. I think "An Róisín Dubh" was around for a long time before James Connolly.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by Murph
Re: Politics of ITM
"It was Irish priests and politicians in an independent Ireland who sought to stifle Irish traditional dance music, not the British. "
Robert Ryan
Yes many priests did stifle irish music in many instances.
The British policies towards native irish culture including language and music was one which sought about wiping out gaelic culture. Fact.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by Lord Gordon
Re: Politics of ITM
Wind that shakes the barley (Robert Dwyer Joyce (1830-1883) I believe is one of those semi-disguised political songs.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by suesinger
Re: Politics of ITM
"I will die a happy man if someone ever writes a song with lyrics combining:
• the 'Troubles'
• the 'excitement'
• the 'thirst'
In any order"
No problem, mate. All these elements are present in abundance in "The Wild Rover!"
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by Steve Shaw
Re: Politics of ITM
Re: Politics of ITM
I think I remember hearing or reading that Táimse 'im Chodladh is a political song.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by samiam590
It is indeed. The translation of the song is all about Ireland, being asleep fopr now, but when you awaken me, there will be many hit a slap, or words to that effect.
Roisin Dubh, my dark Rosaleen, Rosaleen being Ireland.
There are thousands of them.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by bodhran bliss
Re: Politics of ITM
Rhychawr - d'ya see what you started??!! D'ye? I hope that you're happy. It was nice to run into you last night, anyway. Whip out that Octave Mando sometime...I'm trying to find out what time things get rolling at Dick's, as I've got a day of meetings over that way tomorrow.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by tomw
Fiddler's Companion notes ~ Andrew Kuntz
http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/RI_RJ.htm#RIGHTS_OF_MAN
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by Ben Steen
Re: Politics of ITM
It is indeed. The translation of the song is all about Ireland, being asleep fopr now, but when you awaken me, there will be many hit a slap, or words to that effect.
Roisin Dubh, my dark Rosaleen, Rosaleen being Ireland.
There are thousands of them.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by bodhran bliss
heh, I'd like to see a version of Táimse recorded where that message is expressed through the musicians...a sort of "why i oughta..." ubt I can see how some I've heard kind of give that impression.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by samiam590
Re: Politics of ITM
arg, make "ubt" into "but" and i didn't mean that i had heard any recordings I've heard had my suggested feeling, but rather that the ones I've heard suggest the effect of sleeping Ireland.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by samiam590
Dirty Old Town
Further to lazyhound's comment regarding "Dirty Old Town", perhaps Ewan Macoll should have called it "Dirty Old City", as Salford is a city.
"Smelled a spring on the Salford wind" was changed to smelled a spring on the smoky wind", though the Spinners used "Salford" when they recorded it. Hey, who's old enough to remember the Spinners!
It's my belief that the "Irish" association orginated from the Clancy brothers recording of the song.
However, since Ewan Macoll was actually born James Miller (of Scottish parents), maybe we should think of it as being a Scottish song.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by Mix O'Lydian
Rights of Persons?
Random - the link that you posted (Rights of Man) would seem to confirm what I said in my earlier post.
Further to the latter, I'm surprised that the politcally correct brigade haven't yet spotted it and changed it to "Rights of Persons"!
Or perhaps there is scope for someone to write a new hornpipe called "Rights of Women".
"Droits des Femmes"
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: Politics of ITM
Funny, from the title I thought this thread would be about who decides how many guitars are allowed, who doesn't like so-and-so playing at the local session, etc.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by polkageist
Re: Politics of ITM
Silver bow - were these the "session police"?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulster_Special_Constabulary
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: Politics of ITM
Tunes with Jenny in them, eg. Jenny's welcome to Charlie, tend to be about Scotland (for Scotland read Jenny).
I play a tune called the Burning of the Piper's Hut which was probably composed around the Jacobite rebellion when it was against the law to show any sort of clan allegiance.
Mind you it may have been just one hut because he was a rubbish piper
Probably not......
I'll leave now
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by Geoff Pollitt
Re: Politics of ITM
"Anyone remember Arlo Guthrie's "Hobo's Lullaby"?"
If you look up Pecker Dunne on YouTube you can see him singing The Tinker's Lullaby, same song
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by Bren
Re: Politics of ITM
Beg your pardon, Silver Spear, but Frank McCollum wrote "The Home Ruler" to refer to his wife, as Ptarmigan authoritatively pointed out in another thread. A matter of domestic politics...
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by Jerry O'Donnell
Re: Politics of ITM
I like the thought of rancorous poser Ewan MacColl bowing to the repressive might of Salford Council and having to change his words and generally eat dust.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by nicholas
Re: Politics of ITM
That may be the case but earlier recordings of the tune (Hill & Linnane for one) all referred to 'Daniel O Connell, The Home Ruler' as it's title. Which politicised it.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: Politics of ITM
That's interesting. Jerry O'Donnell. Regarding the "Home Ruler", I have always conjured up in my mind "She Who Must Be Obeyed" - but at the same time assuming that the origin was political
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: Politics of ITM
LOL Geoff Pollit!
- If you know of any unemployed arsonists, just send them down to my neck of the woods!
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: Politics of ITM
... I'll leave now ...
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: Politics of ITM
Re: Home Ruler. I was aware that it was written about the composer's wife as well but I have also heard that he gave it a very deliberate double meaning.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Politics of ITM
Wow! What a response! I've learned a lot, but the main theme seems to be that *in general* political content in Irish songs and tunes is more subtle than in say, Scots ballads.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by Rhychawr Catsmeat
Re: Politics of ITM
Robert Ryan
"Lord Gordon, a couple of academic works does not consitute 'most theories'. Most theories are put forward by Dave down the pub, who talks crap. It's not that difficult to grasp mate."
Robert Ryan you sound like a David old chum from Oxford swigging pints of bitter and waxing over the Rupert Brooke poems and Mr Punch and chuckling at how the demise of dear old Ireland since being left to their own charming yet silly devices. Catholic priests and rampant power craving lunatics politicians ruling the emerald Isle.
"It was Irish priests and politicians in an independent Ireland who sought to stifle Irish traditional dance music, not the British." Robert Ryan.
Keep fooling yourselves. The British administration in Ireland never once relented from its strategy of assimilating the Irish into loyal subjects and exterminating their language, religion, music and culture. Oxford University still tries to protect themselves and the British conscience from feeling guilty about their colonial strategies by continually scoffing at thee Paddy left to write his own histories by publishing books such as ed., The Oxford Illustrated History of Modern Ireland and The Irish Story: Telling Tales and Making It Up in Ireland.
in fact Mr Punch with some of the most outrageous racist comments on the Irish still remains a best seller in London. Would the English allow Muslims to publish such racist material? Would the Jewish community allow the Germans to publish such material? Yet the good humoured Irish with their Catholic priests and silly politicians can take any racist comments in good-old fashioned way.
I find your comments indicative of this attitude. Whether you picked them up in Oxford or indeed Ireland is irrelevant. Irish music, customs, bardic traditions and indeed its people were strategically and politically attacked with the view to assimilation or extermination at various stages in the British conquest of Ireland. Your disproportionate blaming on the Church and politicians in an independent Ireland is ignorant and ill conceived. In fact you sound like the one whose spouting verbal diatribe after swigging on too many points of ale.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by Lord Gordon
Re: Politics of ITM
pints of ale
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by Lord Gordon
Re: Politics of ITM
How can a tune have political content? Even a subtle one?
And I remember, long long ago now, at the Cambridge folk festival (back in those impressionable days when I knew no better than to frequent such dens of mindless middle-class hippies) Christy Moor changing his words to the song:
"They came for Sacco, Vansetti, Bobby Sands and some of his friends"
to: "They came for Sacco, Vansetti, Sarah Tisdall and some of her friends".
... to the whooping applause of the majority in the audience ... the Guardian readers.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by llig leahcim
Re: Politics of ITM
How can a tune have political content?
Most effective way to communicate the content and satisfy the soul I suppose.
Amazing post- cross between, history, anthropology, musicology and good old opinion.
Here in the US, songs like 'Wooden Ships', and 'Ohio' were reappearing and being hummed by many of us old farts given the abuse of power and civil rights we have experienced here in the past 8 years.
A good song may transcend politics. But a good song is also powerful politics. It Think the English found that out....as did our Presidents Johnson and Nixon (back when Ilig was frequenting dens of mindless middle class resistance-his characterization is right on though. Those faux rebels were the ones who seem to have rolled over in the past 8 years and aqcuiesced to our political goings on.)
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by zippydw
Re: Politics of ITM
In the spirit of his
I thikn I will play 'Palm Sunday' tonight
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by zippydw
Re: Politics of ITM
I thought the song "Dirty Old Town" was about Chicago.
"Hobo's Lullaby" was originally performed and recorded by Jimmie Rodgers (who was billed as The Singing Brakeman or The Yodeling Brakeman) during his brief recording career before he died in 1933.
Rodgers supposedly wrote the words but it is likely he learned the tune from someone else while he was working for the railroad and borrowed the tune for "Hobo's Lullaby".
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by fauxcelt
Re: Politics of ITM
I think you're confusing 'Hobo's Meditation' with 'Hobo's Lullaby', faux.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by MacCruiskeen
Re: Politics of ITM
Lord Gordon, I think you should have a little lie down. Your assumption that I went to Oxford University because I live in Oxford is indicative of the levels of analysis of which your intelligence is capable. In other words, your conclusions are entirely circumstantial, and have no basis in evidential fact. Obviously you find it impossible to intelligently argue your points without descending into meaningless insult and unsubstantiated diatribe. You sound, to me, like one of those individuals whose low-level education at a second-rate university left them with enough information to regurgitate other peoples' ideas without having developed an ability to contribute to historical analysis and form ideas of your own. If you bothered to take the time to read any relevant material on Irish history you'd see for yourself that the Revisionist perspective is almost wholly universal these days, and that the only people who continue to spout the nationalsitic DeValerean notions of Irish history taught for so long in the Free State and the Republic are academic fossils and Guiness republicans. Like yourself.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by Dragut Reis
Re: Politics of ITM
Michael, a tune can't have a political content, only a political association. Like I said earlier in this discussion, the only worthwhile political analysis must be textual, in relation to the words of songs, otherwise the analysis flounders in conjecture and is underpinned by assumptions that have no evidential basis. If the assumption comes first, the 'evidence' that gets tacked on in order to 'prove' it is largely worthless. Selective evidence is appropriate only to polemics, not real history.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by Dragut Reis
Re: Politics of ITM
"Revisionist perspective is almost wholly universal these days..."
...and that's just as much of a shame as having the other view dominate. Proper historical perspective is gained by distilling truth from the 'facts' as reflected by opposing points of perception.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Politics of ITM
...and thank goodness for tunes. Let's all have a pint and play some, brothers and sisters, all.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Politics of ITM
I agree, but if you look at 'historical' textbooks from the Free State and early-Republic period, you'll see why the Revisionist project is so vital. Without it the dialectic you mention is entirely absent, and we have nothing from which to root out our 'facts'.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by Dragut Reis
Re: Politics of ITM
Coyote, I'm beginning to see your point.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by Rhychawr Catsmeat
Re: Politics of ITM
Well, there's revisionism and revisionism.
It would be a very bad day if people were to take for granted Roy Foster's ultra-conservative and ultimately ideologically loaded reassessment of the Irish past.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by MacCruiskeen
Re: Politics of ITM
The self-assurance with which Foster makes his points can be somewhat irritating, but the work carried out by people such as Peter Hart is vital and stimulating without being in any way condescending or presumptuous, and he is firmly situated in the Revisionist camp.
Anything taken for granted is ultimately lazy, I suppose.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by Dragut Reis
Re: Politics of ITM
Dialectic is not dialectic if the side claiming 'balance' only supports its own side without taking the other into consideration, then it's simply blindness.
If Irish historical revisionism is solely concerned with jumping on its side of the scales, because it thinks the other side has been too heavy for far too long, that's as much of as failure as what they complain of. It doesn't create the balance, it simply supports its side in its desire to spite the other. No balance or dialectic is reached, just a tipping of the scales the other way.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Politics of ITM
That's why one has to make the balance occur in one's own mind. Otherwise you'd just believe everything you read, no?
That 'if' is pretty important, too. Revisionism most certainly is not concerned with blind self-aggrandizement: that analysis would be a massive oversimplification, 'if' one was to make it.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by Dragut Reis
Re: Politics of ITM
Dear Robert Ryan,
Please answer the following questions relating to your assumptions, insults and demonstrations of snobbery and ignorance.
1. False Assumptions made by Robert
Robert Ryan “Your assumption that I went to Oxford University because I live in Oxford is indicative of the levels of analysis of which your intelligence is capable.”
I made no such assumption. Please reread. It is Ironic you should question my levels of analysis in this instance.
2. Melodies can have political connotations
Robert Ryan “it's only words that have the ability to politicise a melody in that a certain tune only becomes 'political' once it's association with political words is established. Dance music itself has only a small place in an analysis of Irish political history, not simply because its oral nature makes it impossible to evidence in anything other than an anecdotal way, but because 'a good tune is a good tune'.”
The playing of a melody can have political connotations. This fact has been established throughout this discussion. It may not be comforting for you to admit while playing some of your favourite tunes may have nationalist, unionist, sectarian or political connotations. Take for example the playing of the melody to “God Save the Queen”? Is this an obvious example of melody making a political association?
The playing of the Boyne Water or Rosc Catha na Mumhan has often resulted in violence and rioting throughout our history. Many other examples have been posted earlier in this thread.
3. Inconsistencies in the what Robert deems appropriate geographic and political areas where melodies/music can be political.
Robert Ryan “There is no doubt more scope for a social analysis of the music in the six northern counties, where music of different types became, like language, a badge of identity, as well as a social practice.
Please answer : Why would this be any different to the rest of Ireland? What about Ireland before the Treaty?
4. Robert’s disproportionate blame on priests and politicians in an independent Ireland while denying any British influence in the stifling of Irish traditional music.
Robert Ryan “It was Irish priests and politicians in an independent Ireland who sought to stifle Irish traditional dance music, not the British.
What role do you believe the British played if any in stifling Irish traditional dance music? I believe this to be a very spurious statement.
Are the priests and politicians solely to blame?
A true revisionist historian sifts through all available sources without bias and approaches his work in a serious and scientific way.
In what way did politicians deliberately seek to stifle Irish traditional dance music in an independent Ireland?
Please enlighten me on the British policy of assimilation of Irish citizens into loyal British subjects through the method of deliberate and methodical uprooting of their culture, language and rights.
I repeat “Your disproportionate blaming on the Church and politicians in an independent Ireland is ignorant and ill conceived.”
The reason many people playing Irish music pick up on the political connotations of Irish dance melodies is because of the severing of the melodies from its folklore, its context, and its background from its listeners and indeed musicians.
Can you please suggest reasons for this Robert?
5. Robert Ryan looking down his nose at “low-level Second-rate universities”
“You sound, to me, like one of those individuals whose low-level education at a second-rate university left them with enough information to regurgitate other peoples' ideas without having developed an ability to contribute to historical analysis and form ideas of your own.”
The fact that you look down your nose at an Irish “low-level education at a second-rate university” gives further indication of your snobby values. Does attended a fee-paying Oxford, Cambridge or Havard university give a person a more valued opinion on issues relating to Ireland or anything else for that matter?
I attended Trinity College Dublin where I encountered many snobs, revisionists and anti-revisionists. Studied History and Irish and ironically spent the best part of 4 years reading about R.F. Foster, Moody, Corkery, Lecky, Berkely, McArdle and Ruth Dudley Edwards etc. I do not use this as a pretension to be qualified on the matter but rather to highlight the inadequacies of such courses when compared to life-long learning. In the same way a music degree in performance does not mean you are a good player even if you have a cert and a photo in a colonial inspired gown to ‘prove’ it. However I do not entertain the snobby attitude of Robert Ryan at looking down his nose at supposed “low-level education at a second-rate university”.
Which further dismissed your next rant of diatribe:
6. Roberts Double Standard in Revisionism
Robert Ryan “If you bothered to take the time to read any relevant material on Irish history you'd see for yourself that the Revisionist perspective is almost wholly universal these days, and that the only people who continue to spout the nationalsitic DeValerean notions of Irish history taught for so long in the Free State and the Republic are academic fossils and Guiness republicans. Like yourself.”
(Spelling mistakes: nationalsitic DeValerean, Guiness)
Robert’s spurious claim that “revisionist perspective is almost wholly universal is not accurate. There has been a long legacy of intellectual debate in this country between schools of revisionism and anti-revisionism. Generally speaking, in the last decade much balance has been restored which is healthy. Revisionism at its best is refreshing and enlightening. However often people seemingly like Robert Ryan here are too rash, unbalanced approach that delights at opportunities to ridicule historical discourse which a young newly founded state instated. Aspects of the history taught in the country in the early state have been critisised (often fairly) as over-romantic and mythological. However the same set of standards must be brought to bear on the history taught in Ireland before independence when the romantic heroes and mythological figures in our books were selected as bringing about assimilation and pro-British allegiances. This is the double standards that serve to highlight some people’s attempts at hi-jacking the positivist method of revisionism to bash people of nationalistic pride and beliefs. Robert for example blames priests and politicians in independent Ireland for stifling ITDM yet accounts no blame on the British administration that were in power for centuries. Classic double standards. There is documentary evidence that some priests were instrumental in discouraging country house dances and crossroads meetings as highlighted in O’Neills. I think the claim against politicians is so broad that Robert will have to explain what parties or politicians does he mean.
What politicians do you mean Robert? Please give examples.
There is a huge body of evidence of British administration ‘stifling’ (to put it mildly) Irish traditional dance music in the country. How can Robert justify his fully exonerating of the British? Is this a balanced view considering your stating the priests and politicians of ‘Independent’ Ireland with the deliberately stifling Irish Traditional Dance Music?
Please answer this question Robert?
I made no claim to dismiss the merits of a truly revisionist, positivist and scientific study of Irish history. I made no claim to De Valera’s Fianna Fail history either.
Please name some of these academic fossils you describe?
Please highlight one example in this thread where you have displayed “an ability to contribute to historical analysis and form ideas of your own.”
Lord Gordon
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by Lord Gordon
Re: Politics of ITM
Sorry. Most of the subheading after the numbers of the above post were meant to have been in bold writing s to distinguish them from the paragraphs. i hope Robert answers all of the questions even if the headings are rendered unclear.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by Lord Gordon
Re: Politics of ITM
Ding Ding seconds out Robert Ryan comes out for round 4.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by upmine3
Re: Politics of ITM
Don't be silly.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by Dragut Reis
Re: Politics of ITM
Well, I knew that Hobo's Lullaby was around long before Arlo Guthrie, but Jimmie Rogers didn't sound right either, so I was inspired to look it up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobo's_Lullaby
# Posted on January 21st 2009 by oldstrings
Re: Politics of ITM
Wouldn't some musicologists say that political protest can be encoded into tunes - hasn't there been a lot of work addressing whether Shostakovich criticised Stalinism via his music? However, does anyone seriously think that, for example, any time an ITM tune modulates between D Dor and D Maj this is an implicit critique of British-sponsored Western tonality and musical aestheticism seeking to achieve cultural imperialism in colonial oppressed Ireland and intended to exclude musicians trained in that style?
If reading a thesis on why Ireland achieved independence I just would not expect to see ITM anywhere as an explanatory factor.
I would hope all serious historians are revisionists, form hypotheses and use empirical analysis to test them. Foster is a fine political and intellectual historian though I prefer Irish cliometric history - work by the wonderful Cormac O Grada and Joel Mokyr among others.
How about this for an idea - economic stagnation and high rates of emigration was good for ITM, where American and British markets supported recordings and live performance, while Irish communities there were affluent enough and lived in cities, which allowed them to sponsor music tuition and of course found the session scene. English traditional musicians by contrast wail that a lot of their music was lost due to early industrialisation and urbanisation.
# Posted on January 21st 2009 by S1obhan
Re: Politics of ITM
I knew it was you as soon as I started reading...
Do some bloody work yeah?
# Posted on January 21st 2009 by Dragut Reis
Re: Politics of ITM
Very interesting points Siobhan.
"If reading a thesis on why Ireland achieved independence I just would not expect to see ITM anywhere as an explanatory factor."
This is true to a certain extent as a thesis written from a modern perspective may exclude ITM altogether in the struggle for independence. However, comrades who actively fought in the War of Independence wrote in their accounts the role ITM played in this struggle. For example the ballads and melodies Ernie O'Malley refers to and gives the lyrics which were very emotive to freedom fighters. Perhaps the most outrageous use of ITM i have ever read is in Tom Barry's Guerrilla Warfare in Ireland when he describes how as a military commander of considerable success he used an uilleann piper to play martial airs as part of some of his flying column attacks. I believe Foster is a selective revisionist and would not consider including such detail. I prefer accounts of people who were there first hand - be it British soldiers or Irish Volunteers over Foster. My point is Irish music played some role in many struggles the same as armies in Napoleon or armies in the American Civil War.
# Posted on January 21st 2009 by Lord Gordon
Re: Politics of ITM
It's the job of the historian to carefully examine the data and rule out that which is impossible to verify from other sources. A certain element of anecdotal information makes for interesting reading, but it must be selected carefully and depicted as just that, not as what you describe as 'Fact'. Barry's 'comrades' were the first to point out that 'Guerilla Days in Ireland' was entirely unreliable as a historical document. The uilleann piper incident demonstrates this amply. It makes for great reading, but Barry would hardly have been 'a military commander of some success' in a guerilla campaign were he to alert his enemies of impending attacks by employing pipers. Who would presumably be sat in chairs, I might add. Perhaps they were mounted on the back of armoured horse-drawn carts? Barry's motives for this strange re-writing of his very successful career as a guerilla make for fascinating study however.
O'Malley's first memoir at least has the merit of excellent literary craftsmanship, but its impressionistic nature, as well as the delay in its publication, renders it adjunctive merely. Without other sources with which to cross-reference it can only impart a sense of the protagonist's own perceptions. Surely you must have learned this long before you studied at Trinity?
# Posted on January 21st 2009 by Dragut Reis
Re: Religion of ITM
Ok, now for round two...
Has ITM sorted out the name of the one true god and the best way to worship?
# Posted on January 21st 2009 by Rhychawr Catsmeat
Re: Politics of ITM
Oh, now you've gone too far. You must die, infidel!
# Posted on January 21st 2009 by Dragut Reis
Re: Politics of ITM
Just answer the questions Robert. My point is that ITM can be political and has been political. Fair points about the need for cross referencing sources - again i am an avid believer in true positivist methods. Answer the questions Robert please.
# Posted on January 21st 2009 by Lord Gordon
Re: Politics of ITM
I never laid claim to Barry's work to be 'Fact' as you once more assumed. It is a reference to ITM in the struggle for independence which surely is relevant.
You, Robert Ryan made the most bogus claim yet on this thread. Robert Ryan's amazing FACT:
"It was Irish priests and politicians in an independent Ireland who sought to stifle Irish traditional dance music, not the British. "
Answer the questions please.
# Posted on January 21st 2009 by Lord Gordon
Re: Politics of ITM
I don't really have time to do them justice, and from your previous refusal to acknowledge the most basic and, frankly, elementary and obvious, point I made about tunes bearing political associations only through their use as song airs, I don't believe you'll pay much attention even if I were to take that time. I made the point three or four times, and you didn't bother to take notice, though you'll admit that it's strikingly obvious, if you are able to lower your defences and engage in a less hostile and aggressive manner. I notice that you were more willing to sling petty insults than to receive them, and they obviously bothered you a great deal more than they did me. I tried to stoop to your depth, but when I saw you attempting to correct my spelling mistakes, I realised that it was impossible to do so.
On a conciliatory note, it occurred to me that you might be interested to know that the Military Archive in Rathmines have recently made accessible to the public the Bureau of Military History records. You've stated that your interest lies in first-hand accounts of the revolutionary period, and the BMH is a wealth of witness statements of IV and IRA veterans. Understandably, very few were willing to write of their experiences in the Civil War period, but the details of 1916-1922 activities are fascinating. The staff at the archive, you may know them already, are excellent and accommodating to a fault. They will copy documents without delay, and if the material you require has not been made available digitally they will scan it and send it to you.
# Posted on January 21st 2009 by Dragut Reis
Re: Politics of ITM
Actually, I can't resist...
Q: Take for example the playing of the melody to “God Save the Queen”? Is this an obvious example of melody making a political association?
A: No, this is a painfully obvious example of a melody bearing political associations through its employment as a lyrical vehicle. It was first published in 1744, and a year later it's first official performance coincided with the Jacobite Rebellion. The following verse was clearly topical, and didn't survive: Lord, grant that Marshall Wade,/ May by they mighty aid,/ Victory bring,/ May he sedition hush and like a torrent rush,/ Rebellious Scots to crush,/ God save the king.
As you can see, the lyrics were no more inspired then than they are in the present version, though a little more exciting.
But despite what you might consider the exclusively English nature of this song, and its attendant melody, the tune itself went on to become the vehicle for not only the German national anthem 'Heil dir im Siegerkranz', but that of Russia, and Switzerland. Clearly the political associations of the melody were not so apparent to the citizens of these countries as they are to you. Again, I repeat that melodies bear political associations through their use as lyrical vehicles. It is a simple point.
# Posted on January 22nd 2009 by Dragut Reis
Re: Politics of ITM
Q: “There is no doubt more scope for a social analysis of the music in the six northern counties, where music of different types became, like language, a badge of identity, as well as a social practice.
Please answer : Why would this be any different to the rest of Ireland? What about Ireland before the Treaty?
A: It is different in the rest of Ireland because the rest of Ireland is qualitatively different, in social, political, economic and industrial terms, to the six counties that constitute 'Northern Ireland'. You may disagree for the sake of it, but the abuse of civil rights and political and social oppression that was allowed to continue in the Unionist state after 1922 was of a different nature than that which took place in Ireland as a whole in the twenty or so years before the Treaty. Bear in mind that only in a small number of the counties of Ulster were Catholics in the minority, and here there treatment was enormously different from that experienced by Catholics in the rest of Ireland. Oppression existed outside of Ulster, of course, but the experiences of the Catholic minority in the industrial north-east were different in many ways to those of the Catholic majority elsewhere. The Protestant land-owning class in rural Ireland were in a minority: there was not the same need to assert identity among the Catholic Irish – that identity was not threatened in the same way. Remember that Irishness and allegiance to the Crown remained entirely compatible until the failure of the IPP and the rise of separatist politics. The emergence of separatist nationalism as the primary political force in Ireland changed this, obviously, but the impact of this development had far more dangerous implications for those Catholics in the north-eastern counties, because they were threatened not only by the forces of the Crown (Catholic Irishmen, remember, predominated in the RIC), but by a hostile Protestant population who were in a position of numerical strength. As oppression in the North became further insitutionalised after 1922, the need for cultural self-identification no doubt grew in direct response to the very threat to that identification. Just as the Gaelic language in the western Gaeltacht is entirely different in both political and social terms to that spoken, for example, in the Falls in 1969, so too was the music that was played. The former is not necessarily political, it is not an attempt to self-identify with a Gaelic past and retain it in the present: it simply is. The Gaelic spoken in the Falls during the Troubles was an expression of identity under oppression, a risk, as well as a joy, as was the music played in such hostile environs, its very existence an insult to those who would see it as something abhorrent, vile or threatening.
To return to pre-Treaty Ireland as a whole, there is no doubt that Irish dance music was a vital component of the cultural revolution: I didn't deny that, but simply stated that there was more scope for its analysis in post-Treaty north-eastern Ireland. I didn't deny it's importance, but noted, quite accurately I believe, that it's analysis is made hugely difficult by its extra-textual nature. There is evidence of dancing and music being used in an overtly political way by the proponents of the cultural revolution, but it is impossible to say how many of those playing tunes at Gaelic League and GAA events were beginners inspired by the rhetoric of revolution, and how many of them were experienced musicians playing tunes at a dance, like any other dance, having learned their skills from family and local musicians, as the tradition has always demanded. If cultural revoltion inspired people to pick up the pipes and the fiddle and learn tunes, that's great, but we'll never know, any more than we'll know what tunes they were playing. Can we say that the Treaty changed the course of ITM forever? Of course we can't, even if it did, because there's no evidence. The assumption that people were fiddling and piping for a united and independent Ireland is very appealing, but there's no reason to assume that they weren't simply playing for the same reasons that musicians have always played: for the love of the tunes, the joy of the dance, the craic, the drink, the girls, whatever anyone has ever picked up a fiddle, or a whistle, a flute in order to achieve.
# Posted on January 22nd 2009 by Dragut Reis
Re: Politics of ITM
Q: “It was Irish priests and politicians in an independent Ireland who sought to stifle Irish traditional dance music, not the British." What role do you believe the British played if any in stifling Irish traditional dance music? I believe this to be a very spurious statement.
A: I agree, it was a spurious statement. What I should have said was that Irish priests and politicians were far more successful in stifling Irish traditional dance music than the British ever were. The existence of 16th, 17th and 18th Century cultural repression by the English is beyond doubt, but the the health and vitality of traditional Irish music in early 20th Century Ireland, not to mention the occurrence of violent revolution, attests to the failure of the British to achieve, as you curiously put it, the ' assimilation of Irish citizens into loyal British subjects through the method of deliberate and methodical uprooting of their culture' in the 19th Century. No doubt the land clearances, economic, political and social repression that took place in Ireland under the English prior to the Act of Union contributed to the concentration of old Gaelic cultural and linguistic practices in the western regions of the island, but dancing to traditional Irish music was very much a popular and widespread practice in Ireland in the 1920s. Not so in the 1940s, when American music was the driving music of public dancing. I don't deny that the English policies of cultural repression from the time of Elizabeth I onwards were cruel and destructive, a direct continuance of the bloody conquests, and directly achieved the end of most aspects of bardic culture, the wholesale destruction of the harping tradition in Ireland, and the loss of those ancient forms of music that are now only written of in ancient manuscripts. This is a loss that cannot be denied. The music of the Gaelic ruling class fell as the Gaelic ruling class fell, and left only the music of the masses, the dance music of Ireland.
Q: In what way did politicians deliberately seek to stifle Irish traditional dance music in an independent Ireland?
A. The Public Dance Halls Act (1935) was an act of legislation which effectively brought an end to the legal existence of the informal house-dance, and also brought an end to the crossroads or platform dance. Only those of 'good character' were granted a license, and in many cases this was the parish priest. Of course there were priests who believed that traditional Irish dance music was acceptable, even laudable, but there were many, priests and otherwise, who believed traditional Irish dance and the music that drove it, to be lewd and morally unsound, as well as the informal settings in which it took place to be encouraging of immoral behaviour. The dancing that occurred in the new dance halls, from which the government took a 25% cut of the entrance fee, took place to the beat of the foxtrot and the one-step, not the jig or the hornpipe. The principle purposes of the Act had been to make money from popular dancing by the issue of licences and the collection of ticket-tax, and to ensure the moral supervision of the poor population at house and barn dances only, but an overzealous rural clergy backed by the Gardai used it to effectively close down the traditional practice of crossroads dances in order to realise their moral fundamentalism, despite this being well outside the legal limitations of the act.
Other Irish politicians did seek to deliberatley root out the elements of ITDM that they opposed, though they failed miserably. The Gaelic League issued a ban on set-dancing as a foreign importation, and a threat to native Irish dance practices, despite its arrival in Ireland in the 18th Century, and its assimilation into the musical tradition. No doubt they would have banned polkas had they ventured far enough from Dublin to learn of their existence. The GL evidently didn't have a huge amount of success, which hardly contributes to the idea that the cultural revolutionary project had any profound impact on Irish traditional dance and music.
Q: Are the priests and politicians solely to blame?
A: Of course not, there are always a great number of factors to take into account when an important social shift takes place. The most important of these is probably emigration, the mainstay of the Irish economy throughout history. No doubt the British economic policies in Ireland can be blamed for the tragedy of Irish emigration throughout history, and if the country's best and brightest in every field were shipped off to America, England, Scotland and Australia, no doubt many of them were the best musicians as well as the strongest sons, and nimblest daughters. Ironically, this is one of the reasons Irish music is so strong today. As everybody knows, the first sessions took place in England and America, and while Irish music at home suffered the ravages of De Valera's Public Dance Hall Act, Irish music in New York, Boston and Philadelphia was thriving. Eventually it came home.
Q: The reason many people playing Irish music pick up on the political connotations of Irish dance melodies is because of the severing of the melodies from its folklore, its context, and its background from its listeners and indeed musicians.
Can you please suggest reasons for this Robert?
A: No, I'm afraid that sentence is incomprehensible. Too many possessive pronouns perhaps?
# Posted on January 22nd 2009 by Dragut Reis
Re: Politics of ITM
Do you mean that musicians now invent a political mythology to replace the lost folkloric mythology with which the music was once associated? And do you wish me to hazard my opinion as to why those folkloric associations have been lost?
# Posted on January 22nd 2009 by Dragut Reis
Re: Politics of ITM
Thanks Robert. Honestly enjoyed reading most of that. Under a bit of pressure here at the moment with other bits and pieces not working out for me. Only got chance to skim it. I'll read it more carefully later. Alot of fair points from what i can see so far. i realised that the last question you have above was incomprehensible the moment it posted but hoped you mightn't spot it.
# Posted on January 22nd 2009 by Lord Gordon
Re: Politics of ITM
No worries. This is a neglected area of research it would seem. Might have to do something about that at some point...
# Posted on January 22nd 2009 by Dragut Reis
Re: Politics of ITM
Very interesting points Robert in fairness. I never sought to defend the priests or politicians. I felt it unfair to attribute to these while exonerating the British. Anyways you've qualified your statement now and it makes a much more compelling arguement. I understand exactly your frustration at my seemingly ignoring your point that a melody is only political when associated with political words/lyrics/imagery. I believe this extends itself to many jigs, and certainly marches and not just songs and slow airs. Its a matter of interpretation really. What is a melody such as A Nation Once Again is played without any reference to the lyrics? Perhaps as a march, or even removed slightly as a reel. Does this melody therefore have political connotations? It may if you play it in the wrong place! It may if you play it also in a place were is stirs the Guinness nationalists you spoke of. So, i believe that a melody can have political connotations if the listener has the ability to recognise it. Yes it is subtle and ambigious but it can not be ruled out too easliy. Can a piece of visual art have political connotations in a subtle way through the use of symbols and imagery without directly painting/illustrating its message in an overtly obvious way? I believe these connotations are obviously limited but there have been cases of a melody invoking political debates in the house of parliament in Ireland. For example the trouble caused by the playing of possibly the most troublesome of all Irish airs - The Boyne Water was discussed in Parliamentary debates as riots in Belfast were caused by its playing.
I've posted a link below to some references to this march below.
http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/BOY_BOZ.htm#BOYNE_WATER_[1]
The political connotations of "The Boyne Water" long remained attached to the melody, even after it was imported to North America. Bayard (1981) relates that the mere playing of the tune in the presence of Catholic Irish in western Pennsylvania "could bring on a mass attack," and repeats the Fayette County story of an old Irishman digging potatoes in the garden while his wife followed along beside him picking the up in a sack. She absent‑mindedly began singing the air, upon which he turned around and, incensed, brained her with one blow of his spade. In fact, Pennsylvania fifers declined to play the tune for Bayard at gatherings, fearing to destroy the harmony of the group with "political pieces."
# Posted on January 22nd 2009 by Lord Gordon
Re: Politics of ITM
That's a fair point, and one that I immediately realised I had neglected when I saw this discussion posted: http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/20401
What jigs did you have in mind?
# Posted on January 22nd 2009 by Dragut Reis
Re: Politics of ITM
Mind you, looking at the Fiddler's Companion info. it does state that it was originally the air to a song, before it became a march...
# Posted on January 22nd 2009 by Dragut Reis
Re: Politics of ITM
I like the thought of rancorous poser Ewan MacColl bowing to the repressive might of Salford Council and having to change his words and generally eat dust.
# Posted on January 20th 2009 by nicholas
And I remember, long long ago now, at the Cambridge folk festival (back in those impressionable days when I knew no better than to frequent such dens of mindless middle-class hippies) Christy Moor changing his words to the song:
"They came for Sacco, Vansetti, Bobby Sands and some of his friends"
to: "They came for Sacco, Vansetti, Sarah Tisdall and some of her friends".
... to the whooping applause of the majority in the audience ... the Guardian readers.
No winning is there? Millar was working class and is described as a poser. Now he didn't have a great voice, he would have killed for Kelly's voice, but he wrote great songs, "First time, Sweet Thames, Travelling People, Shoals of Herring" and many others. He sang holding his ear because he didn't have a great voice and needed to really concentrate.
Those who imitated him were posers.
And all revolutionaries are middle class Michael, never been a revolution in history that wasn't led by the middle classes.
And a few historical points. Daniel O'Connell was well before the Home Rulers, he was famous for Catholic Emancipation.
And Tom Barry was both British soldier (fought at the Somme) and Irish volunteer just to confuse the issue.
# Posted on January 23rd 2009 by bodhran bliss
Re: Politics of ITM
Nothing confusing about that Bliss, many Volunteers were ex-soldiers. Where else would they have got the experience to train the Volunteers? The Boer War and WWI were events indispensable to the successful rise of militant Irish nationalism. Ironic isn't it?
# Posted on January 23rd 2009 by Dragut Reis
Re: Politics of ITM
It is not ironic to me. I taught Cruise-O'Brien revisionism.
# Posted on January 23rd 2009 by bodhran bliss
Re: Politics of ITM
I'd say you had to bate it into him, did ya Bliss?
# Posted on January 24th 2009 by Dragut Reis
Re: Politics of ITM
ah, isn't it lovely to see gordon and ryan making peace. i think this site actually antagonises people into arguments due to the anonymity of it and the lack of face-2-face interaction. Case in point; I'd hazard a guess that if gordon and ryan met in a pub they would probably enjoy each others company and have a rewarding discussion.
Maybe you two should meet up and hug it out. May I suggest an equidistant venue from Dublin and Oxford - Wales. Have a look at this charming promotional video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOZlJiOvXsU
And before you scoff at the video, listen to the response to the question posed 40 seconds into the clip - quite apt for this discussion.
# Posted on January 24th 2009 by flying fists of poo poo
Re: Politics of ITM
Hee hee
# Posted on January 24th 2009 by Dragut Reis
Re: Politics of ITM
All the revolutionaries may well be middle class. But not all the middle class are revolutionaries. Particularly so of the English middle class.
# Posted on January 26th 2009 by llig leahcim
Re: Politics of ITM
What, like Oliver Cromwell?
# Posted on January 26th 2009 by Skull Duggeraigh Dubh
Re: Politics of ITM
Ah yes, that brief period of the English republic. And Cromwell had only been dead a couple of years and the King was back.
(but best not mention Cromwell on a site dediacated to Irish Diddley music eh?)
# Posted on January 26th 2009 by llig leahcim
Re: Politics of ITM
The English Civil War? It started in Scotland and there were more deaths per head of population in Scotland than in Ireland or England. All to do with the Covenanters. A very bloody business altogether.
# Posted on January 26th 2009 by Rudall the time
Re: Politics of ITM
Cromwell was merchant class to the hilt wasn't he?
What about magna carta - the "revolutionaries" were the bloody barons! What about the American War of Independence - middle class again e.g. George Washington.
If you want an easy revolution get the middle class to do it.
# Posted on January 26th 2009 by Skull Duggeraigh Dubh
Re: Politics of ITM
Yes, France too. And yet it's only in britian we still have the monachy
# Posted on January 26th 2009 by llig leahcim
Re: Politics of ITM
Give it time perhaps.
(Anyway the person who would be the real King of England, descended from Edward IV is an Australian according to recent research.) Lives in Jeridlerie, NSW.
# Posted on January 26th 2009 by Skull Duggeraigh Dubh
Re: Politics of ITM
ha, yeah, and even though he lives on the other side of the world, his queen is still the Brittish queen.
# Posted on January 26th 2009 by llig leahcim
Re: Politics of ITM
Yeah, but he says he's a republican!
# Posted on January 26th 2009 by Skull Duggeraigh Dubh
Re: Politics of ITM
ha yeah, do you think if he formally abdicated, the queen would have to give us all our money back?
# Posted on January 26th 2009 by llig leahcim
Re: Politics of ITM
Not unless he doesn't want back rent!
http://outbackvoices.com/stories-galore/king-mick-of-jerilderie
# Posted on January 26th 2009 by Skull Duggeraigh Dubh
Re: Politics of ITM
Give it time perhaps.
(Anyway the person who would be the real King of England, descended from Edward IV is an Australian according to recent research.) Lives in Jeridlerie, NSW.
# Posted on January 26th 2009 by Duijera Dubh
My nephew is the rightful King of England.
My Grandmother was called MacBeth, true, and as the Scottish Kings became Kings of England with James, well we can trace a direct line.
His name is Conor, so he should be King Conor the First.
# Posted on January 28th 2009 by bodhran bliss
Re: Politics of ITM
Feck me Bliss, (well not actually thanks), but my family is down from Duncan I - the poor bastard that git Macbeth murdered! Can we have a proper feud now?
# Posted on January 28th 2009 by Pomme de Terre
Re: Politics of ITM
The MacBeth's have learned since the days of treacherous Duncan. It is now purely business, not personal.
You wouldn't have a chance.
And as I will be the Duke of Edinburgh it would look bad if I was controversial, or doing or saying stupid things.
Wouldn't it?
# Posted on January 30th 2009 by bodhran bliss