Topic: So St. Patricks Day is coming....

[S.O.F]

I offer my edit of Come Out You Black and Tans:
Versions, for tune, and beat

I was born on a Dublin street where the loyal drums do beat
And the loving English feet they trampled  over us,
And each and every night when me da'd he'd come home tight
And invite the neighbors outside with this chorus:

CHORUS
So come out you black and tans,
Come out and fight me like a man
Show your wife how you won medals down in Flanders
Tell them how the IRA
Made you run like hell away,
From the green and lovely lanes in Killashandra.

Come tell us how you slew
Them old Arabs two by two
Like the Zulus they had not but spears an' arrows,
How you bravely faced each one
With your sixteen pounder gun
And you frightened them damn natives to the marrow.

Come let me hear you tell
How you slandered great Parnell,
How you thought him well and truly persecuted,
Where are the snears and jeers
That you louded let us hear
When our leaders of sixteen were executed.

CHORUS
So come out you black and tans,
Come out and fight me like a man
Show your wife how you won medals down in Flanders
Tell them how the IRA
Made you run like hell away,
From the green and lovely lanes in Killashandra.

Well come out you British arms
Come out and fight without your guns
Show your wives how you won medals up in Derry
Where  you murdered fifteen men and you'd do the same again
So get out and take your fucking army

Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien--
How you bravely called them swine!
Robert Emmett who you hung and drew and quartered!
There upon that scaffold high,
How you murdered Henry Joy!
And our Croppy Boys from Wexford you did slaughter!

CHORUS
So come out you black and tans,
Come out and fight me like a man
Show your wife how you won medals in the Flaklands
Tell them how the IRA
Made you run like hell away,
From the green and lovely lanes in Killashandra.

The day is coming fast
And the time is here at last,
When each yeoman will be cast aside before us,
And if there be a need
Sure my kids will sing, "Godspeed!"
To a verse or two of Beehan's fine chorus.

CHORUS
So come out you black and tans,
Come out and fight me like a man
Show your wife how you won medals down in Flanders
Tell them how the IRA
Made you run like hell away,
From the green and lovely lanes in Killashandra.

[S.O.F]

Now this is nationalist bunk But every year I am reminded of an argument I had with an English chick at the bar when she was kicking my ass at darts that especially in diasporas, people don't have the comeuppance when you win in the end and that US donors have been the largest to the IRA for years. But certain parts of this forum love imagined pasts so here you go... 

[S.O.F]

Or yo put it more accurately how does a man of the "left wing" end on this board have old world baggage (thank you various Great Aunts and the like), and recognize it when the conservative looking back folks don't?...

[GamesPoet]

A pub, a lasse on the window, and good ole Irish music ...

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9a8pVGa1Mo

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

[KTG17]

Now this is nationalist bunk But every year I am reminded of an argument I had with an English chick at the bar when she was kicking my ass at darts that especially in diasporas, people don't have the comeuppance when you win in the end and that US donors have been the largest to the IRA for years. But certain parts of this forum love imagined pasts so here you go...

So I have to admit I haven't followed Ireland politics that much and only know a little about the Troubles. How is it that Northern Ireland exists and why wouldnt all Irish want to be part of Ireland? I mean you could always have close ties with the UK, but England seized Northern Ireland, right? Who would appreciate that?

I assume Americans who supported the IRA were of Irish descendants as well, and we certainly have a lot of them. I had a friend was right-off-the-boat Irish and he said the Irish loved America, especially since so many Irish names appeared on sports jerseys here. Kinda surprising since we seem underappreciated everywhere else.

[S.O.F]

So I have to admit I haven't followed Ireland politics that much and only know a little about the Troubles. How is it that Northern Ireland exists and why wouldnt all Irish want to be part of Ireland? I mean you could always have close ties with the UK, but England seized Northern Ireland, right? Who would appreciate that?

Well because Northern Ireland isn't well Irish, not in a national sense but in the more early modern othering and divisions that care more about which version of Christianity you follow. Sure the Republic of Ireland was kind enough to put a orange stripe in the tricolor and the red hand of O'Neill remained an important symbol to Irish patriots, but Ulster had been lost since the end of the Nine Years War at the start of the 17th century. Plantations and immigration of protestants from both Scotland and England had forcibly displaced the original inhabitants, and while under Cromwell the English Republic had tried to expand this policy to Leinster and Munster it was far too brief a time to see the demographic change.

The Ulster question was one of the leading causes of the Irish Civil War in the 20's. To a degree it amuses me, the Unionist types now get to enjoy the largest headaches post-Brexit having an actual land border with an EU nation.

[KTG17]

Plantations and immigration of protestants from both Scotland and England had forcibly displaced the original inhabitants, and while under Cromwell the English Republic had tried to expand this policy to Leinster and Munster it was far too brief a time to see the demographic change.

Ahhhh I see. So these peeps literally draw their roots back to the UK, not to Ireland. Okay I can see how that would be problematic.

For the record I would like to see the UK out of Ireland altogether. But I have also heard Ireland might be reluctant to take in Northern Ireland even if Northern Ireland went for it.

So where was the IRA the most active? In Ireland itself or Northern Ireland?

[S.O.F]

So where was the IRA the most active? In Ireland itself or Northern Ireland?

Well everywhere during the fight for independence. The Northern Irish bit now is just a splinter of it left from the faction that refused the Free State solution of the 1920's during the Civil War.

[S.O.F]

I did like in College, dinky Platteville WI where I went for undergrad, had the normal fare of trees and US Presidents for cross streets and the ubiquitous North of the Mason-Dixon Union Street but also a De Velera St.

[KTG17]

Well, I remember Pres Clinton going over to Ireland and I believe help cutting off support for the IRA in the US. So I am guessing this was mostly happening in Northern Ireland? Guess I don't see much of a reason for them to be active in the south.

Would the IRA at the time in NA be Irish living in NA who want them to join the rest of Ireland, or the IRA be from the south trying to get the English out of NA?

[S.O.F]

Well, I remember Pres Clinton going over to Ireland and I believe help cutting off support for the IRA in the US. So I am guessing this was mostly happening in Northern Ireland? Guess I don't see much of a reason for them to be active in the south.

Would the IRA at the time in NA be Irish living in NA who want them to join the rest of Ireland, or the IRA be from the south trying to get the English out of NA?

Post Free State, IRA support while found in the Republic of Ireland was loudest from the diaspora. I long time family friend and faux Uncle of mine was apparently investigated by the FBI in the 80's for sending money to the IRA.

It is an interesting measure of demographics sometimes to. Until the 1920's there were more native born Irish living in the US then there were people living in all of Ulster. And the agitation of the diaspora was long and storied, post the US Civil War they invaded Canada in the hopes of trading it for Ireland. The Fenians even sold war bonds and the whole bit. Though they were barely a generation separated from the great famine, there is a cultural attraction to bitter history. The Easter Rising even bothered to recount that on six times previous the Irish had taken up arms against the English Crown as part of it's proclamation of a new Irish Republic.   

[S.O.F]

As an anecdote, I saw Flogging Molly in 2005 in Milwaukee at "The Rave". The part that is still striking to me is that the band pointed out that week the IRA had decided to agree with larger disarmament and the band talked of it. The mosh pit crowd and those on the floor of that venue, younger demographically cheered at this statement while the gallery of late 20's and up folks booed. Perhaps generational but old resentments die hard.

*I was just 21 and I made a meh sound leaning negative from the gallery.

When I was later in Grad School in Milwaukee one of that bars near campus had the straw and napkin array in the Irish flag form, I got a free drink for being the first ever to make comment on it and then had a long conversation with the owner on the Troubles and why he refused to ever take the order of an Irish Car Bomb.

[KTG17]

Ok, so I had to hit Wiki to try and sort out my confusion and got even more confusion:

The playwright and former IRA member Brendan Behan once said that the first issue on any Irish organisation's agenda was "the split".[3] For the IRA, that has often been the case. The first split came after the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921, with supporters of the Treaty forming the nucleus of the National Army of the newly created Irish Free State, while the anti-treaty forces continued to use the name Irish Republican Army. After the end of the Irish Civil War (1922–23), the IRA was around in one form or another for forty years, when it split into the Official IRA and the Provisional IRA in 1969. The latter then had its own breakaways, namely the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA, each claiming to be the true successor of the Army of the Irish Republic.

What the hell. All I have heard over here is the IRA. Didn't know things were so fractured. 

I feel like a civil war on an island like Ireland has to be a claustrophobic experience. Its not its easy to just drive off and avoid it. You're on an island, mixed in with people who may or may not share your same views but you might have a hard time knowing who you can trust.

[S.O.F]

Ok, so I had to hit Wiki to try and sort out my confusion and got even more confusion:

Have you never seen The Life of Brian?

[KTG17]

Yeah its an absolute classic and my fav Monty Python film.

[GamesPoet]

This has been a good thread.  Seeing SOF and KTG have a civil conversation has been good.

Here's some Irish fiddle music, and scenery from Ireland, Scotland, and Wales to celebrate such an occasion ...

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7QcOUlcIyw

[S.O.F]

This shit means something

[GamesPoet]

I got to get me a green sport coat some day ... and the gray vest is cool ...

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8gVXz8ZlHI

[GamesPoet]

[emailh=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IJWb8hwirQ]This shit means something [/email]

 Here's a direct link ... www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IJWb8hwirQ

[GamesPoet]

By the way ... awesome tune!

And if I was a bit younger, I'd want to date that violinist.

[S.O.F]

That violinist hot.....

How about Irish and current culture wars.....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMXjr6wLUiI

[S.O.F]

And the diaspora pays for this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehukpdse8_w&list=RDeWvdf_51Iq0&index=3

[GamesPoet]

I'll take a look, alhtough currently watching th following video ... War of the Three Kings Part 1, Scotland's invasion of Ireland ...

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9mAynM8ioI

The narrator is Brian Cox.

[S.O.F]

GP this song still resonates, sure one asshole Cornish man said stuff but still https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NlrsmEvv1Q

[Captain Dob Van Dwi]

So I have to admit I haven't followed Ireland politics that much and only know a little about the Troubles. How is it that Northern Ireland exists and why wouldnt all Irish want to be part of Ireland? I mean you could always have close ties with the UK, but England seized Northern Ireland, right? Who would appreciate that?

Well because Northern Ireland isn't well Irish, not in a national sense but in the more early modern othering and divisions that care more about which version of Christianity you follow. Sure the Republic of Ireland was kind enough to put a orange stripe in the tricolor and the red hand of O'Neill remained an important symbol to Irish patriots, but Ulster had been lost since the end of the Nine Years War at the start of the 17th century. Plantations and immigration of protestants from both Scotland and England had forcibly displaced the original inhabitants, and while under Cromwell the English Republic had tried to expand this policy to Leinster and Munster it was far too brief a time to see the demographic change.

The Ulster question was one of the leading causes of the Irish Civil War in the 20's. To a degree it amuses me, the Unionist types now get to enjoy the largest headaches post-Brexit having an actual land border with an EU nation.

Honestly I'd compare the Northern and Republican Irish in the same way I would compare Americans and English Canadians. That is, the same but also different. Much like Austrians, Germans and Swiss Germans.

Honestly I'm more surprised that America and Canada haven't come to blows (that is hot war, rather than the admittedly one sided current cold war) more often. Similar countries just love getting to in scraps.