This space is dedicated to the proposition that we need to know the history of the struggles on the left and of earlier progressive movements here and world-wide. If we can learn from the mistakes made in the past (as well as what went right) we can move forward in the future to create a more just and equitable society. We will be reviewing books, CDs, and movies we believe everyone needs to read, hear and look at as well as making commentary from time to time. Greg Green, site manager
Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of The Wolftones Performing The Song In Honor Of "James Connolly". There are also some very good photographs of the destruction of Dublin after the British shelled the downtown area of "their province" to kingdom come.
Guest Commentary
In this song James Connolly is memorised as leader of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union (ITGWU) and founder of the Irish Citizen Army (ICA).
Another song tells the circumstances in which he was executed for his participation at the Easter Rising.
JAMES CONNOLLY
Where oh where is our James Connolly,
Where oh where can that brave man be,
He has gone to organise the Union,
That working men might yet be free.
Where oh where is the citizen army,
Where oh where can that brave band be,
They have gone to join the great rebellion,
And break the bonds of slavery.
And who will be there to lead the van,
Who will there be to lead the van,
Oh who should there be but our James Connolly,
The hero of each working man.
Who carries high our burning flag,
Who carries high our burning flag,
Oh who but James Connolly all pale and wounded,
Carries high our burning flag.
They carried him up to the jail,
They carried him up to the jail,
And 'twas there that they shot him one bright May morning,
And quickly laid him in his grave.
Who mourns now for our James Connolly,
Who mourns now for that fighting man,
Oh lay me down in yon green garden,
And make my bearers Union men.
We laid him down in yon green garden,
With Union men on every side,
And we swore that we'd make one mighty Union,
And fill that gallant man with pride.
So come all you noble young Irishmen,
Come join with me for liberty,
And we will forge a mighty weapon,
And break the bonds of Slavery.
James Connolly
A great crowd had gathered outside of Kilmainhem
With their heads all uncovered they knelt on the ground
For inside that grim prison lay a brave Irish soldier
His life for his country about to lay down.
He went to his death like a true son of Ireland,
The fireing party he bravely did face.
Then the order rang out: "Present arms, Fire!";
James Connolly fell into a ready made grave.
The black flag they hoisted, the cruel deed was over,
Gone was the man who loved Ireland so well,
There was many a sad heart in Ireland that morning,
When they murdered James Connolly, the Irish rebel.
God`s curse on you, England, you cruel hearted monster,
Your deeds would shame all the devils in Hell,
There were no flowers blooming but the Shamrock is growing
On the grave of James Connolly, the Irish rebel.
Many years have rolled by since the Irish rebellion,
When the guns of Brittania they loudly did speak,
The bold I.R.A. battled shoulder to shoulder,
as the blood of their bodies flowed down Sackville Street.
The Four Courts of Dublin, the English bombarded,
The spirit of freedom, they tried hard to quell
But above all the din rose the cry "No Surrender!"
`Twas the voice of James Connolly, the Irish Rebel.
As an antidote to the barrage of obsequious drivel we were subjected to by the bourgeois media during Queen Elizabeth’s visit to Ireland in May, we reprint below an article by Irish socialist James Connolly on the occasion of the visit to Ireland by King George V in 1911. For his part in leading the 1916 Easter uprising against British rule in Ireland, Connolly was executed by his British captors.
Fellow-Workers,
As you are aware from reading the daily and weekly newspapers, we are about to be blessed with a visit from King George V.
Knowing from previous experience of Royal Visits, as well as from the Coronation orgies of the past few weeks, that the occasion will be utilised to make propaganda on behalf of royalty and aristocracy against the oncoming forces of democracy and National freedom, we desire to place before you some few reasons why you should unanimously refuse to countenance this visit, or to recognise it by your presence at its attendant processions or demonstrations. We appeal to you as workers, speaking to workers, whether your work be that of the brain or of the hand — manual or mental toil — it is of you and your children we are thinking; it is your cause we wish to safeguard and foster.
The future of the working class requires that all political and social positions should be open to all men and women; that all privileges of birth or wealth be abolished, and that every man or woman born into this land should have an equal opportunity to attain to the proudest position in the land. The Socialist demands that the only birthright necessary to qualify for public office should be the birthright of our common humanity.
Believing as we do that there is nothing on earth more sacred than humanity, we deny all allegiance to this institution of royalty, and hence we can only regard the visit of the King as adding fresh fuel to the fire of hatred with which we regard the plundering institutions of which he is the representative. Let the capitalist and landlord class flock to exalt him; he is theirs; in him they see embodied the idea of caste and class; they glorify him and exalt his importance that they might familiarise the public mind with the conception of political inequality, knowing well that a people mentally poisoned by the adulation of royalty can never attain to that spirit of self-reliant democracy necessary for the attainment of social freedom. The mind accustomed to political kings can easily be reconciled to social kings — capitalist kings of the workshop, the mill, the railway, the ships and the docks. Thus coronation and king’s visits are by our astute never-sleeping masters made into huge Imperialist propagandist campaigns in favour of political and social schemes against democracy. But if our masters and rulers are sleepless in their schemes against us, so we, rebels against their rule, must never sleep in our appeal to our fellows to maintain as publicly our belief in the dignity of our class — in the ultimate sovereignty of those who labour.
What is monarchy? From whence does it derive its sanction? What has been its gift to humanity? Monarchy is a survival of the tyranny imposed by the hand of greed and treachery upon the human race in the darkest and most ignorant days of our history. It derives its only sanction from the sword of the marauder, and the helplessness of the producer, and its gifts to humanity are unknown, save as they can be measured in the pernicious examples of triumphant and shameless iniquities.
Every class in society save royalty, and especially British royalty, has through some of its members contributed something to the elevation of the race. But neither in science, nor in art, nor in literature, nor in exploration, nor in mechanical invention, nor in humanising of laws, nor in any sphere of human activity has a representative of British royalty helped forward the moral, intellectual or material improvement of mankind. But that royal family has opposed every forward move, fought every reform, persecuted every patriot, and intrigued against every good cause. Slandering every friend of the people, it has befriended every oppressor. Eulogised to-day by misguided clerics, it has been notorious in history for the revolting nature of its crimes.
— James Connolly, “Visit of King George V, 1911”, printed in James Connolly, Collected Works, Volume One (New Books Publications, 1987)
This is an excellent documentary source for today’s militants to “discover” the work of our forbears, whether we agree with their programs or not. Mainly not, but that does not negate the value of such work done under the pressure of revolutionary times. Hopefully we will do better when our time comes.
*************** Reviews
Matt Merrigan, Eagle or Cuckoo?: The Story of the ATGWU in Ireland, Matmer Publications, Dublin 1989, pp332, £9.50/£19.95
Many Irish workers continue to belong to unions based in Britain, just as they did before the Irish Republic was established. The Irish Region of the Transport and General Workers Union has its title prefaced by the word Amalgamated because of legal harassment by the Dublin based ITGWU.
This book is disappointing in that it gives a disproportionate amount of space to national conferences and bureaucratic quarrels compared to that devoted to grass-roots struggles. This is surprising, considering that Matt Merrigan is a highly respected left wing former official of the union, who has an outstanding record of service to the movement. However, as the book’s title implies, international recognition and legal considerations have been very important in fighting off nationalist attacks on the ATGWU’s right to exist.
These attacks have failed, partly because excluding British based unions from the Irish Republic would implicitly accept partition. The author accepts the Connolly/nationalist doctrine, which is more popular among the British left than among Irish workers, although he is more critical of the Catholic Church than Connolly ever was.
Mick- The Real Michael Collins, Peter Hart, Viking, New York, 2006
This is the 100th Anniversary of the Easter Uprising of 1916- Chocky Ar La
I have spent a fair amount of my adult political life fighting for a just solution to the national question in Ireland and for justice for the Catholic minority in the North (and any Protestant workers who will listen) thus I am no stranger to the name Michael Collins. However, as Peter Hart has gone to pains to describe in his well-thought out biography Mick is a very contradictory man both in his expression of his personal aspirations for Ireland (and himself) and the political choices that he made in the important 1920-22 period just before his death. The consequences of his actions (and others, notably Eamon de Valera) are still being played out today as the struggle for that just solution to the national question continues.
For those who are not familiar with Collins’s biography (affectionately known as the Big Fellow) or have not seen the fairly recent commercial film about his life (starring Liam Neelson) Collins represented that next generation of leaders who survived the Easter Uprising of 1916- the event that is the real start of the modern national liberation struggle in Ireland. Mr. Hart spends some useful time detailing Mick’s schooling, upbringing and the development of his administrative skills that would prove very helpful in his rise to the top of the Irish revolutionary movement. The real meat of the book, however, describes the rocky road to the top in the struggle to break Ireland from English domination.
This period from about 1917 to his death in 1922 is both where his huge reputation was made but also where the limits of his capacity to lead Ireland to real independence from the British are displayed. That failure, exemplified by the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, has caused no little ink to be spilled on both sides of the divide that ultimately led to the civil war that tore the republican camp apart. This is hardly the place to have a full discussion of that question but I confess that I am still baffled by Mick’s decision to sign the treaty. To a great extent he, more so than de Valera, was the very Irish face of the military struggle lead by the then current version the Irish Republican Army.
Despite Collins' well-informed and industrious intelligence apparatus formed in his role as ‘commander-in-chief’ of the republican military forces I believe that he overrated the ability of the British to stay in Ireland in the immediate post World War I period. That miscalculation, among other issues, led to the signing of the treaty widely seen as a betrayal of the republican struggle and the abandonment of the peoples in the North. While Collin’s historically has had the best of it on this question though the efforts of his many biographers this thorny issue is still with us. Too much blood has been spilled to ignore it. Read on.
Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Sinead O'Connor And The Chieftains Performing "The Foggy Dew".
CD Review
Fire In The Kitchen, The Chieftains and various artists, BMC, 1999
If you want to hear good old-fashioned Celtic music then The Chieftains is one place where you will have to visit to get a taste of that music done to more modern sensibilities. The lads have gone to Nova Scotia here to grab another aspect of the Celtic diaspora. Moreover, as here and on a number of their albums they have gotten virtual who’s who of top-notch musicians from many genres to play along with them. That is always a sure sign of respect. What else can you ask for? Well here how about Laura Smith on “My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean” or The Ennis Sisters doing “Red Is The Rose” (also known by many other names but the result remains the same, a deep longing for a lover). If you want to go to tradition how about The Rankins and “An Innis Aigh or “A Mhairi Bhoidheach” done by Mary Jane Lamond. My favorite on this one is “Come By The Hills” done by Rita MacNeil. Nice.
Long Black Veil lyrics
Ten years ago on a cold dark night
Someone was killed 'neath the town hall light
Just a few at the scene, and they all did agree
That the man who ran looked a lot like me
The judge said "Son, what's your alibi?
If you were somewheres else, then you won't have to die"
But I spoke not a word, tho' it meant my life
For I'd been in the arms of my best friend's wife
Chorus:
She walks these hills in a long black veil
Visits my grave when the night winds wail
Nobody knows, nobody sees
Nobody knows, but me
The scaffold is high, eternity near
She stands in the crowd, she sheds not a tear
But sometimes at night when the cold winds moan
In a long black veil, she cries o'er my bones
Chorus
The Chieftains
Mo Ghile Mear lyrics
Chorus:
'Se/ mo laoch, mo Ghile Mear
'Se/ mo Chaesar Gile Mear
Suan na/ se/an ni/ bhfuaireas fe/in
O/ chuaigh i gce/in mo Ghile Mear
Grief and pain are all I know
My heart is sore
My tears a'flow
We saw him go ....
No word we know of him...
Chorus
A proud and gallant cavalier
A high man's scion of gentle mien
A fiery blade engaged to reap
He'd break the bravest in the field
Chorus
Come sing his praise as sweet harps play
And proudly toast his noble frame
With spirit and with mind aflame
So wish him strength and length of day
Chorus
"The Foggy Dew"
As down the glen one Easter morn
To a city fair rode I.
There armed lines of marching men
In squadrons passed me by.
No pipe did hum, no battle drum
Did sound its loud tattoo,
But the Angelus Bells o'er the Liffey swells
Rang out in the foggy dew.
Right proudly high in Dublin town
Hung they out a flag of war.
T'was better to die 'neath an Irish sky
Than at Sulva or Sud el Bar.
And from the plains of Royal Meath
Strong men came hurrying through
While Brittania's huns with their long-range guns
Sailed in through the foggy dew.
The bravest fell and the requiem bell
Rang mournfully and clear
For those who died that Eastertide
In the springing of the year.
While the world did gaze with deep amaze
At those fearless men but few
Who bore the fight that freedom's light
Might shine through the foggy dew.
And back through the glen I rode again
And my heart with grief was sore
For I parted then with valient men
Whom I never shall see more.
But to and fro in my dreams I go
And I kneel and pray for you,
For slavery fled the glorious dead
When you fell in the foggy dew.
"The Rocky Road To Dublin"
In the merry month of may, from me home I started left the girls of
Tuam,
sad and broken hearted, salute me father dear,
and kissed me darlin' mother, drank a pint of beer,
me tears and grief to smother, off to reap the corn,
leave where I was born, I cut a stoat black thorn to banish ghosts and
goblins,
in a pair of brand new of brogues, I rattled over the bogs, frightened
all the dogs,
on the rocky road to Dublin, 1,2,3,4,5
hunt the hare and turn her down the rocky road,
and all the way to Dublin, whacks fer al de da!
In Dublin next arrived, and thought it such a pity to be so soon
deprived,
a view of that fair city, then I took a stroll,
all amongst the quality, me bundle it was stole,
in that neat locality, something crossed me mind, when I looked behind,
no bundle I could find, upon me stick a wobblin. Enquiring after the
rogue,
said me Connaught brogue, was not much in vogue,
on the rocky road to Dublin, 1,2,3,4,5
hunt the hare and turn her down the rocky road,
and all the way to Dublin, whacks fer al de da!
The boys of Liverpool, when we safely landed, called meself a fool,
I could no longer stand it, me blood began to boil,
me temper I was losing, for old Erin's isle,
they began abusing, horah say I, me Shelelagh I let fly,
some Galway boys were by, they saw I was a hobblin',
with a loud hurray, they joined in the afray,
we quickly cleared the way,
for the rocky road to Dublin, 1,2,3,4,5
hunt the hare and turn her down the rocky road,
nd all the way to Dublin, whacks fer al de da!
The times in America are out of joint, no question. The smell of civil war, at some primal level, fills my nostrils today and hence to thoughts of William Butler Yeat's highly symbolic, if not strictly politically on point, poem.
Meditations In Time Of Civil War
poem of William Butler Yeats
I. Ancestral Houses
Surely among a rich man's flowering lawns,
Amid the rustle of his planted hills,
Life overflows without ambitious pains;
And rains down life until the basin spills,
And mounts more dizzy high the more it rains
As though to choose whatever shape it wills
And never stoop to a mechanical
Or servile shape, at others' beck and call.
Mere dreams, mere dreams! Yet Homer had not Sung
Had he not found it certain beyond dreams
That out of life's own self-delight had sprung
The abounding glittering jet; though now it seems
As if some marvellous empty sea-shell flung
Out of the obscure dark of the rich streams,
And not a fountain, were the symbol which
Shadows the inherited glory of the rich.
Some violent bitter man, some powerful man
Called architect and artist in, that they,
Bitter and violent men, might rear in stone
The sweetness that all longed for night and day,
The gentleness none there had ever known;
But when the master's buried mice can play.
And maybe the great-grandson of that house,
For all its bronze and marble, 's but a mouse.
O what if gardens where the peacock strays
With delicate feet upon old terraces,
Or else all Juno from an urn displays
Before the indifferent garden deities;
O what if levelled lawns and gravelled ways
Where slippered Contemplation finds his ease
And Childhood a delight for every sense,
But take our greatness with our violence?
What if the glory of escutcheoned doors,
And buildings that a haughtier age designed,
The pacing to and fro on polished floors
Amid great chambers and long galleries, lined
With famous portraits of our ancestors;
What if those things the greatest of mankind
Consider most to magnify, or to bless,
But take our greatness with our bitterness?
II. My House
An ancient bridge, and a more ancient tower,
A farmhouse that is sheltered by its wall,
An acre of stony ground,
Where the symbolic rose can break in flower,
Old ragged elms, old thorns innumerable,
The sound of the rain or sound
Of every wind that blows;
The stilted water-hen
Crossing Stream again
Scared by the splashing of a dozen cows;
A winding stair, a chamber arched with stone,
A grey stone fireplace with an open hearth,
A candle and written page.
Il Penseroso's Platonist toiled on
In some like chamber, shadowing forth
How the daemonic rage
Imagined everything.
Benighted travellers
From markets and from fairs
Have seen his midnight candle glimmering.
Two men have founded here. A man-at-arms
Gathered a score of horse and spent his days
In this tumultuous spot,
Where through long wars and sudden night alarms
His dwinding score and he seemed castaways
Forgetting and forgot;
And I, that after me
My bodily heirs may find,
To exalt a lonely mind,
Befitting emblems of adversity.
III. My Table
Two heavy trestles, and a board
Where Sato's gift, a changeless sword,
By pen and paper lies,
That it may moralise
My days out of their aimlessness.
A bit of an embroidered dress
Covers its wooden sheath.
Chaucer had not drawn breath
When it was forged. In Sato's house,
Curved like new moon, moon-luminous
It lay five hundred years.
Yet if no change appears
No moon; only an aching heart
Conceives a changeless work of art.
Our learned men have urged
That when and where 'twas forged
A marvellous accomplishment,
In painting or in pottery, went
From father unto son
And through the centuries ran
And seemed unchanging like the sword.
Soul's beauty being most adored,
Men and their business took
Me soul's unchanging look;
For the most rich inheritor,
Knowing that none could pass Heaven's door,
That loved inferior art,
Had such an aching heart
That he, although a country's talk
For silken clothes and stately walk.
Had waking wits; it seemed
Juno's peacock screamed.
IV. My Descendants
Having inherited a vigorous mind
From my old fathers, I must nourish dreams
And leave a woman and a man behind
As vigorous of mind, and yet it seems
Life scarce can cast a fragrance on the wind,
Scarce spread a glory to the morning beams,
But the torn petals strew the garden plot;
And there's but common greenness after that.
And what if my descendants lose the flower
Through natural declension of the soul,
Through too much business with the passing hour,
Through too much play, or marriage with a fool?
May this laborious stair and this stark tower
Become a roofless min that the owl
May build in the cracked masonry and cry
Her desolation to the desolate sky.
The primum Mobile that fashioned us
Has made the very owls in circles move;
And I, that count myself most prosperous,
Seeing that love and friendship are enough,
For an old neighbour's friendship chose the house
And decked and altered it for a girl's love,
And know whatever flourish and decline
These stones remain their monument and mine.
V. The Road at My Door
An affable Irregular,
A heavily-built Falstaffian man,
Comes cracking jokes of civil war
As though to die by gunshot were
The finest play under the sun.
A brown Lieutenant and his men,
Half dressed in national uniform,
Stand at my door, and I complain
Of the foul weather, hail and rain,
A pear-tree broken by the storm.
I count those feathered balls of soot
The moor-hen guides upon the stream.
To silence the envy in my thought;
And turn towards my chamber, caught
In the cold snows of a dream.
VI. The Stare's Nest by My Window
The bees build in the crevices
Of loosening masonry, and there
The mother birds bring grubs and flies.
My wall is loosening; honey-bees,
Come build in the empty house of the state.
We are closed in, and the key is turned
On our uncertainty; somewhere
A man is killed, or a house burned,
Yet no clear fact to be discerned:
Come build in he empty house of the stare.
A barricade of stone or of wood;
Some fourteen days of civil war;
Last night they trundled down the road
That dead young soldier in his blood:
Come build in the empty house of the stare.
We had fed the heart on fantasies,
The heart's grown brutal from the fare;
More Substance in our enmities
Than in our love; O honey-bees,
Come build in the empty house of the stare.
VII. I see Phantoms of Hatred and of the Heart's
Fullness and of the Coming Emptiness
I climb to the tower-top and lean upon broken stone,
A mist that is like blown snow is sweeping over all,
Valley, river, and elms, under the light of a moon
That seems unlike itself, that seems unchangeable,
A glittering sword out of the east. A puff of wind
And those white glimmering fragments of the mist sweep by.
Frenzies bewilder, reveries perturb the mind;
Monstrous familiar images swim to the mind's eye.
'Vengeance upon the murderers,' the cry goes up,
'Vengeance for Jacques Molay.' In cloud-pale rags, or in lace,
The rage-driven, rage-tormented, and rage-hungry troop,
Trooper belabouring trooper, biting at arm or at face,
Plunges towards nothing, arms and fingers spreading wide
For the embrace of nothing; and I, my wits astray
Because of all that senseless tumult, all but cried
For vengeance on the murderers of Jacques Molay.
Their legs long, delicate and slender, aquamarine their eyes,
Magical unicorns bear ladies on their backs.
The ladies close their musing eyes. No prophecies,
Remembered out of Babylonian almanacs,
Have closed the ladies' eyes, their minds are but a pool
Where even longing drowns under its own excess;
Nothing but stillness can remain when hearts are full
Of their own sweetness, bodies of their loveliness.
The cloud-pale unicorns, the eyes of aquamarine,
The quivering half-closed eyelids, the rags of cloud or of lace,
Or eyes that rage has brightened, arms it has made lean,
Give place to an indifferent multitude, give place
To brazen hawks. Nor self-delighting reverie,
Nor hate of what's to come, nor pity for what's gone,
Nothing but grip of claw, and the eye's complacency,
The innumerable clanging wings that have put out the moon.
I turn away and shut the door, and on the stair
Wonder how many times I could have proved my worth
In something that all others understand or share;
But O! ambitious heart, had such a proof drawn forth
A company of friends, a conscience set at ease,
It had but made us pine the more. The abstract joy,
The half-read wisdom of daemonic images,
Suffice the ageing man as once the growing boy.
Click on the title to link a "YouTube" film clip of the Wolf Tones performing "Kevin Barry".
In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here.
Kevin Barry
Irish Folk song
In Mountjoy jail one Monday morning
High upon the gallows tree,
Kevin Barry gave his young life
For the cause of liberty.
But a lad of eighteen summers,
Still there's no one can deny,
As he walked to death that morning,
He proudly held his head on high.
2. Just before he faced the hangman,
In his dreary prison cell,
The Black and Tans tortured Barry,
Just because he wouldn't tell.
The names of his brave comrades,
And other things they wished to know.
"Turn informer and we'll free you"
Kevin Barry answered, "no".
3. "Shoot me like a soldier.
Do not hang me like a dog,
For I fought to free old Ireland
On that still September morn.
"All around the little bakery
Where we fought them hand to hand,
Shoot me like a brave soldier,
For I fought for Ireland."
4. "Kevin Barry, do not leave us,
On the scaffold you must die!"
Cried his broken-hearted mother
As she bade her son good-bye.
Kevin turned to her in silence
Saying, "Mother, do not weep,
For it's all for dear old Ireland
And it's all for freedom's sake."
5. Calmly standing to attention
While he bade his last farewell
To his broken hearted mother
Whose grief no one can tell.
For the cause he proudly cherished
This sad parting had to be
Then to death walked softly smiling
That old Ireland might be free.
6. Another martyr for old Ireland;
Another murder for the crown,
Whose brutal laws to crush the Irish,
Could not keep their spirit down.
Lads like Barry are no cowards.
From the foe they will not fly.
Lads like Barry will free Ireland,
For her sake they'll live and die.
Click on title to link to YouTube film clip on Bobby Sands and the Ten Irish Hunger Strikers of 1981
COMMENTARY
ALL HONOR TO THE MEMORY OF BOBBY SANDS, MP
This year marks the 25th Anniversary of the deaths of Bobby Sands and the 10 Irish Republican Freedom Fighters as a result of their hunger strikes against the British Occupation. Hunger strikes are a way, and justifiably so, of gaining the world’s attention to an injustice done to downtrodden and unequally matched people struggling against occupation. That was certainly the situation in the North at that time. Unfortunately there still is no peace in the North nor can there be until the bloody British Army gets out. That is the primary condition necessary before real peace will come. Nationalists, Republicans and Socialists may disagree on the political configurations of the future governments in Ireland but all can, and should, demand the end of the occupation. To really honor these heroes raise the demand- ALL BRITISH TROOPS OUT OF IRELAND (and get the hell out of Iraq while we are at it). And to honor James Connolly, Commandant, Irish Citizens Army, an earlier Irish martyr, let us fight for socialist solutions to the “Troubles”. Chocky Ar la (Our Day Will Come).
"Easter, 1916"-William Butler Yeats
I HAVE met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
That woman's days were spent
In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When, young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
This man had kept a school
And rode our winged horse;
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought.
This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vainglorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart,
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The horse that comes from the road.
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute they change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashes within it;
The long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call;
Minute by minute they live:
The stone's in the midst of all.
Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven's part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse -
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of The Chieftains and Sinead O'Connor Performing the Easter 1916 Classic "The Foggy Dew".
CD REVIEW
The Chieftains, The Chieftains and various artists, BMC, 1995
If you want to hear good old-fashioned Celtic music then The Chieftains is one place where you will have to visit to get a taste of that music done to more modern sensibilities. Moreover, as here and on a number of their albums they have gotten virtual who’s who of top-notch musicians from many genres to play along with them. That is always a sure sign of respect. What else can you ask for? Well here how about Mick and the boys doing “Long Black Veil” or Marianne Faithful doing “Love Is Teasin’” (also known by many other names but the result remains the same, a love affair gone bad). If you want to go to tradition how about Sting and “Mo Ghile Mear” or “He Moved Through The Fair” (also known by other names) by Sinead O’Connor. My favorite is Ry Cooder (yes, that Ry Cooder of "Buena Vista Social Club" fame, among other excellent work) doing “Coast Of Malabar”. His grandmother used to sing it to him back in the days. My grandmother did the same. Nice.
Long Black Veil lyrics
Ten years ago on a cold dark night
Someone was killed 'neath the town hall light
Just a few at the scene, and they all did agree
That the man who ran looked a lot like me
The judge said "Son, what's your alibi?
If you were somewheres else, then you won't have to die"
But I spoke not a word, tho' it meant my life
For I'd been in the arms of my best friend's wife
Chorus:
She walks these hills in a long black veil
Visits my grave when the night winds wail
Nobody knows, nobody sees
Nobody knows, but me
The scaffold is high, eternity near
She stands in the crowd, she sheds not a tear
But sometimes at night when the cold winds moan
In a long black veil, she cries o'er my bones
Chorus
The Chieftains
Mo Ghile Mear lyrics
Chorus:
'Se/ mo laoch, mo Ghile Mear
'Se/ mo Chaesar Gile Mear
Suan na/ se/an ni/ bhfuaireas fe/in
O/ chuaigh i gce/in mo Ghile Mear
Grief and pain are all I know
My heart is sore
My tears a'flow
We saw him go ....
No word we know of him...
Chorus
A proud and gallant cavalier
A high man's scion of gentle mien
A fiery blade engaged to reap
He'd break the bravest in the field
Chorus
Come sing his praise as sweet harps play
And proudly toast his noble frame
With spirit and with mind aflame
So wish him strength and length of day
Chorus
"The Foggy Dew"
As down the glen one Easter morn
To a city fair rode I.
There armed lines of marching men
In squadrons passed me by.
No pipe did hum, no battle drum
Did sound its loud tattoo,
But the Angelus Bells o'er the Liffey swells
Rang out in the foggy dew.
Right proudly high in Dublin town
Hung they out a flag of war.
T'was better to die 'neath an Irish sky
Than at Sulva or Sud el Bar.
And from the plains of Royal Meath
Strong men came hurrying through
While Brittania's huns with their long-range guns
Sailed in through the foggy dew.
The bravest fell and the requiem bell
Rang mournfully and clear
For those who died that Eastertide
In the springing of the year.
While the world did gaze with deep amaze
At those fearless men but few
Who bore the fight that freedom's light
Might shine through the foggy dew.
And back through the glen I rode again
And my heart with grief was sore
For I parted then with valient men
Whom I never shall see more.
But to and fro in my dreams I go
And I kneel and pray for you,
For slavery fled the glorious dead
When you fell in the foggy dew.
"The Rocky Road To Dublin"
In the merry month of may, from me home I started left the girls of
Tuam,
sad and broken hearted, salute me father dear,
and kissed me darlin' mother, drank a pint of beer,
me tears and grief to smother, off to reap the corn,
leave where I was born, I cut a stoat black thorn to banish ghosts and
goblins,
in a pair of brand new of brogues, I rattled over the bogs, frightened
all the dogs,
on the rocky road to Dublin, 1,2,3,4,5
hunt the hare and turn her down the rocky road,
and all the way to Dublin, whacks fer al de da!
In Dublin next arrived, and thought it such a pity to be so soon
deprived,
a view of that fair city, then I took a stroll,
all amongst the quality, me bundle it was stole,
in that neat locality, something crossed me mind, when I looked behind,
no bundle I could find, upon me stick a wobblin. Enquiring after the
rogue,
said me Connaught brogue, was not much in vogue,
on the rocky road to Dublin, 1,2,3,4,5
hunt the hare and turn her down the rocky road,
and all the way to Dublin, whacks fer al de da!
The boys of Liverpool, when we safely landed, called meself a fool,
I could no longer stand it, me blood began to boil,
me temper I was losing, for old Erin's isle,
they began abusing, horah say I, me Shelelagh I let fly,
some Galway boys were by, they saw I was a hobblin',
with a loud hurray, they joined in the afray,
we quickly cleared the way,
for the rocky road to Dublin, 1,2,3,4,5
hunt the hare and turn her down the rocky road,
nd all the way to Dublin, whacks fer al de da!
Click on the headline to link to a "YouTube" film clip of The Dubliners performing "The Patriot Game".
Commentary/CD REVIEW
I have mentioned in this space more times than one is reasonably allowed that in my youth in the early 1960's I listened to a local folk music radio program on Sunday nights. That program played, along with highlighting the then current up and coming folk revivalists like Bob Dylan and Dave Van Ronk, much American traditional music including things like the "Child Ballads". In short, music derived from parts of the "British" homeland. What I have not previously mentioned is that directly after that program I used to listen on that same radio station to the "Irish National Hour", a show devoted to all the old more traditional and unknown Irish ballads and songs. And, by the way, attempted to instill a respect for Irish culture, Irish heritage and the Irish struggle against the "bloody" British. (That struggle continues in one form or another today but that is a subject for another time.) Of course, today when every `progressive' radio station (or other technological format) has its obligatory "Keltic Twilight" programs we are inundated with music from the old country and this is no big deal but in those days it was another question.
All of this is by way of reviewing the music of the Irish Diaspora. Our Irish forebears had the `distinct' opportunity of following the British flag wherever it went, under one set of terms or another. And remember in those days the sun never set on that British Empire. So there are plenty of far-flung traditions to talk about. But, first comes the old country. Chocky Ar La (roughly translated- "Our Day Will Come")
20 Famous Irish Ballads, various artists, Outlet Recording Company, 1998
The music traditions made popular by the late Tommy Makem and the Clancy Brothers and The Dubliners are two of the first places any modern analysis of Irish music. Neither group kept strictly to the parameters of traditional music but certainly both groups had the primal respect for the traditions that is key to any appreciation of the music. Here we have The Dubliners and some groups and individuals influenced by their work doing twenty of the most famous Irish ballads. From “All For Me Grog” and “Take Me To Castlebar” at the most traditional end to songs in honor of the Irish national liberation struggle such as the one to the Irish Citizen’s Army leader and revolutionary socialist James Connolly and Sinn Fein’s founder Arthur McBride this CD is a great primer for those unfamiliar with Irish music beyond the St. Patty’s Day classics.
Special mention should be made here of the song “Patriot Game” by Dominic Behan (brother of the more famous, at least in America, playwright Brendan Behan and another brother who was a leader of one of the myriad of Trotskyist groups in Britain in the 1960’s). “Patriot Game” served as a cross-over, of sorts, during my youth between the generic folk music that I was interested in learning about and the folk music of my Irish heritage. I first heard this song on a Sunday folk music show that I have mentioned above, not the “Irish National Hour”. The sentiments expressed there concerning the fate of an Irish Republican Army rank and file liberation fighter were among the first that helped explain to me not only the roots but the need for political struggle to resolve “the Irish question” well before the uprisings in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. The period of the song actual represented trough in the fortunes of the IRA after several failed efforts to ignite the struggle in the North in the 1950’s.
Addition mention should also be made concerning the song “James Connolly” about one of the revolutionary Irish leaders of Easter, 1916 executed (despite being severely wounded) by the British for his role. Naturally the name James Connolly is a fitting one in this space and each Easter time has been the subject of commemoration. I need go no further here except to say, even today when I listen to this song I rage against the stupidities of the bloody British rulers who executed him. And you should too.
Patriot Game
words and music by Dominic Behan
Come all ye young rebels, and list while I sing,
For the love of one's country is a terrible thing.
It banishes fear with the speed of a flame,
And it makes us all part of the patriot game.
My name is O'Hanlon, and I've just turned sixteen.
My home is in Monaghan, and where I was weaned
I learned all my life cruel England's to blame,
So now I am part of the patriot game.
This Ireland of ours has too long been half free.
Six counties lie under John Bull's tyranny.
But still De Valera is greatly to blame
For shirking his part in the Patriot game.
They told me how Connolly was shot in his chair,
His wounds from the fighting all bloody and bare.
His fine body twisted, all battered and lame
They soon made me part of the patriot game.
It's nearly two years since I wandered away
With the local battalion of the bold IRA,
For I read of our heroes, and wanted the same
To play out my part in the patriot game.
[extra verse I found]
I don't mind a bit if I shoot down police
They are lackeys for war never guardians of peace
And yet at deserters I'm never let aim
The rebels who sold out the patriot game
And now as I lie here, my body all holes
I think of those traitors who bargained in souls
And I wish that my rifle had given the same
To those Quislings who sold out the patriot game.
Background: Tune: "One Morning In May", or "God on Our Side". This song was written by Dominic Behan, brother of Brendan. It tells the story of Fergal O'Hanlon from Ballybay, Co Monaghan, who tried to abolish the border between the Six Counties and the Republic. He was killed during the Brookborough attack at the age of 17. The song has become world famous. Undoubtedly one of the best ballads ever to come out of the Irish struggles.
During our first year together, we were introduced to a wide variety of music. One of the first tapes someone lent me was a tape of I.R.B. tunes. Well the very first task we had to figure out was what I.R.B. stood for? Irish Republican Brotherhood. The Irish Republican Brotherhood was formed on Saint Patrick's Day in 1858. It was an underground organization designed to remove the English from Ireland.
The song was recorded by numerous artists including Bob Dylan and the Kingston Trio. Our version came from the aforementioned I.R.B. compilation. I think it may have been the Wolfe Tones who sang it, but I'm not sure. In any case, it was the first rebel song we learned, and still one of our most popular.
JAMES CONNOLLY
In this song James Connolly is memorised as leader of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union (ITGWU) and founder of the Irish Citizen Army (ICA).
Another song tells the circumstances in which he was executed for his participation at the Easter Rising.
[top of page]
JAMES CONNOLLY
Where oh where is our James Connolly,
Where oh where can that brave man be,
He has gone to organise the Union,
That working men might yet be free.
Where oh where is the citizen army,
Where oh where can that brave band be,
They have gone to join the great rebellion,
And break the bonds of slavery.
And who will be there to lead the van,
Who will there be to lead the van,
Oh who should there be but our James Connolly,
The hero of each working man.
Who carries high our burning flag,
Who carries high our burning flag,
Oh who but James Connolly all pale and wounded,
Carries high our burning flag.
They carried him up to the jail,
They carried him up to the jail,
And 'twas there that they shot him one bright May morning,
And quickly laid him in his grave.
Who mourns now for our James Connolly,
Who mourns now for that fighting man,
Oh lay me down in yon green garden,
And make my bearers Union men.
We laid him down in yon green garden,
With Union men on every side,
And we swore that we'd make one mighty Union,
And fill that gallant man with pride.
So come all you noble young Irishmen,
Come join with me for liberty,
And we will forge a mighty weapon,
And break the bonds of Slavery.
Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of The Clancy Brothers Performing The Irish Revolutionary Fight Song From Wolfe Tone's 1798 Uprising "Rising Of The Moon".
CD REVIEWS
The Rising Of the Moon: Irish Songs Of Rebellion, The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, Tradition, 1998
I have mentioned in this space more times than one is reasonably allowed that in my youth in the early 1960’s I listened to a local folk music radio program on Sunday nights. That program played, along with highlighting the then current up and coming folk revivalists like Bob Dylan and Dave Van Ronk, much American traditional music including things like the “Child Ballads”. In short, music derived from parts of the “British” homeland. What I have not previously mentioned is that directly after that program I used to listen on that same radio station to the “Irish National Hour”, a show devoted to all the old more traditional and unknown Irish ballads and songs. And, by the way, attempted to instill a respect for Irish culture, Irish heritage and the Irish struggle against the “bloody” British. (That struggle continues in one form or another today but that is a subject for another time.) Of course, today when every other ‘progressive’ radio station (or other technological format) has its obligatory “Keltic Twilight” programs we are inundated with music from the old country this is no big deal but then it was another question.
All of this is by way of reviewing the music of the Irish Diaspora. Our Irish forebears had the ‘distinct’ opportunity of following the British flag wherever it went, under one set of terms or another. And in those days the sun never set on the British Empire. So there are plenty of far flung traditions to talk about. But, first comes the old country and hence this review of The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. Chocky Ar La (roughly translated- “Our Day Will Come”)
I have mentioned elsewhere that every devotee of the modern Irish folk tradition owes a debt of gratitude for the work of the likes of Tommy Makem and The Clancy Brothers for keeping the tradition alive and for making it popular with the young on both sides of the Atlantic. The obvious musical skills, talent and commitment to craftsmanship of this group during its history need no comment by me. Nor does their commitment to keeping alive the Irish folk tradition need further comment. Here the boyos produce a veritable what’s what of music of the Irish Rebellions from the early days through Wolfe Tone’s United Irishmen in 1798 to Easter, 1916 and beyond to the Civil War period. Let’s sort it out a little.
A word about the songs presented here. The liner notes included with the CD are helpful. The songs range in subject from “The Rising of the Moon” at the time of Wolfe Tone and the United Irishman, probably the last time that a united, independent, non-sectarian single Irish state was possible, to “Foggy Dew “which outlines the Easter struggle to “Kevin Barry' and `Sean Treacy' just before the partition in 1921, creating the mess that still confronts us politically today. That said, as these lines are being written we are approaching the 93rd Anniversary of the Easter Uprising of 1916. The vision that James Connolly and others of a Social Republic proclaimed at the General Post Office still waits. In short, there is still work to be done, North and South, united or as independent states. Listen to these songs to understand where we have come from and why we still need to fight.
Here are some songs of the Irish Rebellions
By the Rising of the Moon
words by J.K. Casey, music Turlough O'Carolan
And come tell me Sean O'Farrell tell me why you hurry so
Husha buachaill hush and listen and his cheeks were all a glow
I bare orders from the captain get you ready quick and soon
For the pikes must be together by the rising of the moon
By the rising of the moon, by the rising of the moon
For the pikes must be together by the rising of the moon
And come tell me Sean O'Farrell where the gath'rin is to be
At the old spot by the river quite well known to you and me
One more word for signal token whistle out the marchin' tune
With your pike upon your shoulder by the rising of the moon
By the rising of the moon, by the rising of the moon
With your pike upon your shoulder by the rising of the moon
Out from many a mud wall cabin eyes were watching through the night
Many a manly heart was beating for the blessed warning light
Murmurs rang along the valleys to the banshees lonely croon
And a thousand pikes were flashing by the rising of the moon
By the rising of the moon, by the rising of the moon
And a thousand pikes were flashing by the rising of the moon
All along that singing river that black mass of men was seen
High above their shining weapons flew their own beloved green
Death to every foe and traitor! Whistle out the marching tune
And hurrah, me boys, for freedom, 'tis the rising of the moon
'Tis the rising of the moon, 'tis the rising of the moon
And hurrah, me boys, for freedom, 'tis the rising of the moon
The Croppy Boy
It was early, early in the spring
The birds did whistle and sweetly sing
Changing their notes from tree to tree
And the song they sang was Old Ireland free.
It was early early in the night,
The yeoman cavalry gave me a fright
The yeoman cavalry was my downfall
And I was taken by Lord Cornwall.
'Twas in the guard-house where I was laid,
And in a parlour where I was tried
My sentence passed and my courage low
When to Dungannon I was forced to go.
As I was passing my father's door
My brother William stood at the door
My aged father stood at the door
And my tender mother her hair she tore.
As I was going up Wexford Street
My own first cousin I chanced to meet;
My own first cousin did me betray
And for one bare guinea swore my life away.
As I was walking up Wexford Hill
Who could blame me to cry my fill?
I looked behind, and I looked before
But my aged mother I shall see no more.
And as I mounted the platform high
My aged father was standing by;
My aged father did me deny
And the name he gave me was the Croppy Boy.
It was in Dungannon this young man died
And in Dungannon his body lies.
And you good people that do pass by
Oh shed a tear for the Croppy Boy.
"The Foggy Dew"
As down the glen one Easter morn to a city fair rode I
There Armed lines of marching men in squadrons passed me by
No fife did hum nor battle drum did sound it's dread tatoo
But the Angelus bell o'er the Liffey swell rang out through the foggy dew
Right proudly high over Dublin Town they hung out the flag of war
'Twas better to die 'neath an Irish sky than at Sulva or Sud El Bar
And from the plains of Royal Meath strong men came hurrying through
While Britannia's Huns, with their long range guns sailed in through the foggy dew
'Twas Britannia bade our Wild Geese go that small nations might be free
But their lonely graves are by Sulva's waves or the shore of the Great North Sea
Oh, had they died by Pearse's side or fought with Cathal Brugha
Their names we will keep where the fenians sleep 'neath the shroud of the foggy dew
But the bravest fell, and the requiem bell rang mournfully and clear
For those who died that Eastertide in the springing of the year
And the world did gaze, in deep amaze, at those fearless men, but few
Who bore the fight that freedom's light might shine through the foggy dew
Ah, back through the glen I rode again and my heart with grief was sore
For I parted then with valiant men whom I never shall see more
But to and fro in my dreams I go and I'd kneel and pray for you,
For slavery fled, O glorious dead, When you fell in the foggy dew.
"Kevin Barry"
In Mountjoy jail one Monday morning
High upon the gallows tree,
Kevin Barry gave his young life
For the cause of liberty.
But a lad of eighteen summers,
Still there's no one can deny,
As he walked to death that morning,
He proudly held his head on high.
2. Just before he faced the hangman,
In his dreary prison cell,
The Black and Tans tortured Barry,
Just because he wouldn't tell.
The names of his brave comrades,
And other things they wished to know.
"Turn informer and we'll free you"
Kevin Barry answered, "no".
3. "Shoot me like a soldier.
Do not hang me like a dog,
For I fought to free old Ireland
On that still September morn.
"All around the little bakery
Where we fought them hand to hand,
Shoot me like a brave soldier,
For I fought for Ireland."
4. "Kevin Barry, do not leave us,
On the scaffold you must die!"
Cried his broken-hearted mother
As she bade her son good-bye.
Kevin turned to her in silence
Saying, "Mother, do not weep,
For it's all for dear old Ireland
And it's all for freedom's sake."
5. Calmly standing to attention
While he bade his last farewell
To his broken hearted mother
Whose grief no one can tell.
For the cause he proudly cherished
This sad parting had to be
Then to death walked softly smiling
That old Ireland might be free.
6. Another martyr for old Ireland;
Another murder for the crown,
Whose brutal laws to crush the Irish,
Could not keep their spirit down.
Lads like Barry are no cowards.
From the foe they will not fly.
Lads like Barry will free Ireland,
For her sake they'll live and die.
Click on the title to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for Albany-cycle author William Kennedy.
Book Review
Flaming Corsage, William Kennedy, Viking Press, New York, 1996
Recently, in reviewing an early William Kennedy Albany-cycle novel, “Ironweed” I mentioned that he was my kind of writer. I will let what I stated there stand on that score here. Here is what I said:
“William Kennedy is, at least in his Albany stories, my kind of writer. He writes about the trials and tribulations of the Irish diaspora as it penetrated the rough and tumble of American urban WASP-run society, for good or evil. I know these people, my people, their follies and foibles like the back of my hand. Check. Kennedy writes, as here with the main characters Fran Phelan and Helen Archer two down at the heels sorts, about that pervasive hold that Catholicism has even on its most debased sons and daughters, saint and sinner alike. I know those characteristics all too well. Check. He writes about that place in class society where the working class meets the lumpen-proletariat-the thieves, grifters, drifters and con men- the human dust. I know that place well, much better than I would ever let on. Check. He writes about the sorrows and dangers of the effects alcohol on working class families. I know that place too. Check. And so on. Oh, by the way, did I mention that he also, at some point, was an editor of some sort associated with the late Hunter S. Thompson down in Puerto Rico. I know that mad man’s work well. He remains something of a muse for me. Check.”
That said, this little novel from an earlier time in the Albany cycle than "Ironweed", the period between the well-known and written about “robber baron” age (Edith Wharton, Henry James, etc.) in American and the end of the Victorian period just before World War I is the saga of an upwardly mobile son of a “bogtrotter’ Irishman and a daughter of a member of the central committee of Waspdom, Albany version. That the pair are congenially mated yet-ill-fated may speak to the problems of cross-class transformations, or to the unpredictable predilections of WASP maidens.
In any case as the tone of the novel is set from the first page by reference to the star-crossed lovers theme of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Mikado” (one of the few times in recorded history that that pair has been the source of a front piece quotation, I am sure). Kennedy, here keeps the dramatic tension up by going back and forth between times from early int he period until late as the tragedy behind the convoluted story unfolds. Katrina, the central female character, gives portent of the new age for women to be heralded at the end of this period by women's suffrage, although her appetites and melancholia prevent her from partaking of that freedom. I might add that Fran Phelan, the main character of “Ironweed” makes a cameo appearance here, and I am sure that as I read more in this cycle other references to the story will reappear. Needless to say, now that Mr. Kennedy has my attention I will be devouring the rest of the Albany cycle , as quickly as I can get my hands on copies of the other works.
Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of The Wolftones Performing The Song In Honor Of "James Connolly". There are also some very good photographs of the destruction of Dublin after the British shelled the downtown area of "their province" to kingdom come.
This is a repost of a commentary from 2006 concerning Jame Connolly's role in the Easter 1916 uprising. The task that he set for himself then remain to be completed.
COMMENTARY
ALL HONOR TO THE MEMORY OF JAMES CONNOLLY, COMMANDANT- IRISH CITIZEN ARMY- EXECUTED BY THE BLOODY BRITISH IMPERIALISTS MAY, 1916. ALL HONOR TO THE MEMORY OF BOBBY SANDS, MP AND THE 10 MARTYRED LONG KESH HUNGER STRIKERS. ALL HONOR TO THE MEMORY OF THE 92th ANNIVERSARY OF THE EASTER UPRISING, 1916. BRITISH TROOPS OUT OF IRELAND TODAY (AND WHILE WE ARE AT IT OUT OF IRAQ).
A word. They tell a story about James Connolly that just before the start of action on Easter Monday, 1916 he told the members of the Irish Citizen’s Army (almost exclusively workers, by the way) that if the uprising was successful to keep their guns handy. More work with them might be necessary against the nationalist allies of the moment organized as the Irish Volunteers. The Volunteers were mainly a petty bourgeois formation that had no intention of fighting for Connolly's vision of a Socialist Republic. True story or not, I think that gives a pretty good example of the strategy and tactics to be used in colonial and third world struggles by the working class. Would that the Chinese Communists in the 1920’s and other colonial and third world liberation fighters since then have paid heed to that strategic concept.
James Connolly, June 5, 1868-May 12, 1916, was of Scottish Irish stock. He was born in Edinburgh of immigrant parents. The explicit English colonial policy of trying to drive the Irish out of Ireland and thus created the Irish diaspora produced many such immigrants from benighted Ireland to England, America, Australia and the far flung parts of the world. Many of these immigrants left Ireland under compulsion of banishment. Deportation and executions were the standard English response in the history of the various “Troubles" from Cromwell’s time on.
Connolly, like many another Irish lad left school for a working life at age 11. The international working class has produced many such self-taught and motivated leaders. Despite the lack of formal education he became one of the preeminent left-wing theorists of his day in the pre- World War I international labor movement. In the class struggle we do not ask for diplomas, although they help, but commitment to the cause of the laboring masses. Again, like many an Irish lad Connolly joined the British Army, at the age of 14. In those days the British Army provided one of the few ways of advancement for an Irishman who had some abilities. As fate would have it Connolly was stationed in Dublin. I believe the English must rue the day they let Brother Connolly near weapons and near Dublin. As a line in an old Irish song goes- ‘ Won’t Old Mother England be Surprised’.
By 1892 Connolly was an important figure in the Scottish Socialist Federation which, by the way, tended to be more militant and more Celtic and less enamored of parliamentarianism than its English counterpart. Later, the failure to gather in the radical Celtic elements was a contributing factor in the early British Communist Party’s failure to break the working class from the Labor Party. Most of the great labor struggles of the period cam from the leadership in Scotland and Ireland. Connolly became the secretary of the Federation in 1895. In 1896 he left the army and established the Irish Socialist Republican Party. The name itself tells the program. Ireland at that time was essentially a classic English colony so to take the honored name Republican was to spit in the eye of the English. Even today the English have not been able to rise to the political level of a republic. Despite Cromwell’s valiant attempt in the 1600's and no thanks to today's British Labor Party’s policies this is still sadly the case. All militants, of whatever nation, can and must support this call- Abolish the British monarchy, House of Lords and the state Church of England.
In England Connolly was active in the Socialist Labor Party that split from the moribund, above-mentioned Social Democratic Federation in 1903. During the period before the Easter uprising he was heavily involved in the Irish labor movement and acted essentially as the right hand man to James Larkin in the Irish Transport and General Workers Union. In 1913 when Larkin led a huge strike in Dublin but was forced to leave due to English reprisals Connolly took over. It was at that time that Connolly founded the Irish Citizens Army as a defense organization of armed and trained laboring men against the brutality of the dreaded Dublin Metropolitan Police. Although only numbering about 250 men at the time their political goal was to establish an independent and socialist Ireland.
Connolly stood aloof from the leadership of the Irish Volunteers, the nationalist formation based on the middle classes. He considered them too bourgeois and unconcerned with Ireland's economic independence. In 1916 thinking the Volunteers were merely posturing, and unwilling to take decisive action against England, he attempted to goad them into action by threatening to send his Irish Citizens Army against the British Empire alone, if necessary. This alarmed the members of the more militant faction -Irish Republican Brotherhood, who had already infiltrated the Volunteers and had plans for an insurrection as well. In order to talk Connolly out of any such action, the IRB leaders, including Tom Clarke and Patrick Pearse, met with Connolly to see if an agreement could be reached. During the meeting the IRB and the ICA agreed to act together at Easter of that year.
When the Easter Rising occurred on April 24, 1916, Connolly was Commandant of the Dublin Brigade, and as the Dublin brigade had the most substantial role in the rising, he was de facto Commander in Chief. Following the surrender he was executed by the British for his role in the uprising. Although he was so badly injured in the fighting that he was unable to stand for his execution and he was shot sitting in a chair. The Western labor movement, to its detriment, no longer produces enough such militants as Connolly (and Larkin, for that matter). Learn more about this important socialist thinker and fighter. ALL HONOR TO THE MEMORY OF JAMES CONNOLLY.
A word on the Easter Uprising. The easy part of analyzing the Uprising is the knowledge, in retrospect, that it was not widely supported by people in Ireland and militarily defeated by the British forces send in main force to crush it and therefore doomed to failure. Still easier is to criticize the strategy and tactics of the action and of the various actors, particularly in underestimating the British Empire’s frenzy to crush any opposition to its main task of victory in World War I. The hard part is to draw any positive lessons of that national liberation experience for the future. If nothing else remember this though, and unfortunately the Irish national liberation fighters (and other national liberation fighters later, including later Irish revolutionaries) failed to take this into account in their military calculations. The British (or fill in the name of whatever colonial power applies) were entirely committed to defeating the uprising, including burning that colonial country to the ground if need be in order to maintain control. In the final analysis, it was not their metropolitan homeland, so the hell with it. Needless to say, British Labor’s position was almost a carbon copy of His Imperial Majesty’s. Labor leader Arthur Henderson could barely contain himself when informed that James Connolly had been executed. That should, even today, make every British militant blush with shame. Unfortunately, the demand for British militants and all other militants today is the same as back then in 1916- All British Troops Out of Ireland.
In various readings I have come across a theory that the Uprising was the first socialist revolution in Europe, predating the Bolshevik Revolution by over a year. Unfortunately, there is little truth to that idea. Of the Uprising’s leaders, only James Connolly was devoted to the socialist cause. Moreover, while the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army were prototypical models for urban- led national liberation forces such organizations, as we have witnessed in later history, are not inherently socialistic. The dominant mood among the leadership was in favor of political independence and/or fighting for a return to a separate traditional Irish cultural hegemony. Let poets rule the land, an old idea. As outlined in the famous Proclamation of the Republic posted on the General Post Office in Dublin, Easter Monday, 1916 the goal of the leadership appeared to be something on the order of a society like those fought for in the European Revolutions of 1848, a left bourgeois republic. Some formation on the order of the Paris Commune of 1871 or the Soviet Commune of 1917 did not figure in the political calculations at that time.
As noted above, James Connolly clearly was skeptical of his erstwhile comrades on the subject of the nature of the future state and apparently was prepared for an ensuing class struggle following the establishment of a republic. That does not mean that revolutionary socialists could not support such an uprising. On the contrary, Lenin, who was an admirer of Connolly for his anti-war stance in World War I, and Trotsky stoutly defended the uprising against those who derided the Easter Rising for involving bourgeois elements. Participation by bourgeois and petty bourgeois elements is in the nature of a national liberation struggle. The key, which must be learned by militants today, is who leads the national liberation struggle and on what program. As both Lenin and Trotsky made clear later in their own revolutionary experiences in Russia revolutionary socialists have to lead other disaffected elements of society to overthrow the existing order. There is no other way in a heterogeneous class-divided society. Moreover, in Ireland, the anti-imperialist nature of the action against British imperialism during wartime merited support. This is based on the old socialist principle that the main enemy is a home. Chocky Ar La.
THIS ARTICLE WAS WRITTEN FROM MEMORY AND THUS SOME OF THE DATES AND ORGANIZATIONAL NAMES MAY BE INCORRECT. THE WRITER WOULD APPRECIATE ANY CORRECTIONS. NEEDLESS TO SAY, NOTWITHSTANDING SUCH ERRORS, THE WRITER STANDS BY HIS POLITICAL CONCLUSIONS.
Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of The Dubliners Performing "The Irish Rover".
And Once Again, Making Joyful Irish Music
The Dubliners Collection, The Dubliners, BMG, 1999
I have mentioned elsewhere that every devotee of the modern Irish folk tradition owes a debt of gratitude for the work of the likes of Tommy Makem and The Clancy Brothers and the group under review here, The Dubliners, for keeping the tradition alive and for making it popular with the young on both sides of the Atlantic. Not only for the songs, but for the various reel and jig instrumentals from the old days that they have produced. Here The Dubliners produce a veritable what’s what of Irish music from the above-mentioned instrumentals to the fighting patriotic songs to the fighting barroom songs to the doggerel. Let’s sort it out a little on this CD.
In this CD The Dubliners do both modern and traditional pieces, some of them I have mentioned in other reviews of the work of The Dubliners. As for the instrumentals the “Queen Of The Fair” medley and “Doherty’s” medley stand out For songs of day to day Ireland in the old days “Donegal Danny”, “The Irish Rover”, “Farewell To Ireland” and “Danny Farrell” stick out (that last one about the plight of the ‘tinkers’ (travelling peoples). For those patriotically inclined “James Larkin” will touch a chord (in his leadership of the famous strike in 1913 and as the predecessor of James Connolly as leader of the Irish labor movement) as will “Johnson’s Motor Car” in a humorous way.
I have always been partial to “Ragland Road” and its theme of missed love and longing. For the culturati there is “The Aul’ Triangle”, the many times-covered Brendan Behan lyrics from his play "The Quare Fellow”. As a tip of the hat to the diaspora here there is a tribute to the much maligned “The Molly McGuires" (19th century Irish militant coalminers in Pennsylvania). As I always mention in discussing The Dubliners, if you are looking for some serious Irish music that goes beyond St. Patty’s Day but can still be appreciated then check out this well-done compilation. And you get Luke Kelly as a bonus. Nice, right?
Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Christy Moore Performing His Version Of "Viva La Quince Brigada".
Commentary
I have spilled no small amount of ink, and gladly, writing about the heroic military role of those Americans who fought in the American-led Abraham Lincoln Battalion of 15th International Brigade during the Spanish Civil War. The song "Viva La Quince Brigada" can apply to those of other nationalities who fought bravely for the Republican side in that conflict. Here's a take from the Irish perspective. Note the name Frank Ryan included here, a real hero of that operation.
Viva La Quince Brigada (Christy Moore)
Ten years before I saw the light of morning
A comradeship of heroes was laid.
From every corner of the world came sailing
The Fifteenth International Brigade.
They came to stand beside the Spanish people.
To try and stem the rising Fascist tide
Franco's allies were the powerful and wealthy,
Frank Ryan's men came from the other side.
Even the olives were bleeding
As the battle for Madrid it thundered on.
Truth and love against the force of evil,
Brotherhood against the Fascist clan.
Vive La Quince Brigada!
"No Paseran" the pledge that made them fight.
"Adelante" was the cry around the hillside.
Let us all remember them tonight.
Bob Hillard was a Church of Ireland pastor;
From Killarney across the Pyrenees ho came.
From Derry came a brave young Christian Brother.
Side by side they fought and died in Spain.
Tommy Woods, aged seventeen, died in Cordoba.
With Na Fianna he learned to hold his gun.
From Dublin to the Villa del Rio
Where he fought and died beneath the Spanish sun.
Many Irishmen heard the call of Franco.
Joined Hitler and Mussolini too.
Propaganda from the pulpit and newspapers
Helped O'Duffy to enlist his crew.
The word came from Maynooth: 'Support the Fascists.'
The men of cloth failed yet again
When the bishops blessed the blueshirts in Dun Laoghaire
As they sailed beneath the swastika to Spain.
This song is a tribute to Frank Ryan.
Kit Conway and Dinny Coady too.
Peter Daly, Charlie Regan and Hugh Bonar.
Though many died I can but name a few.
Danny Doyle, Blaser-Brown and Charlie Donnelly.
Liam Tumilson and Jim Straney from the Falls.
Jack Nally, Tommy Patton and Frank Conroy,
Jim Foley, Tony Fox and Dick O'Neill.
Written in 1983
Copyright Christy Moore
apr97
Lyrics to Jarama Valley :
by Woody Guthrie
There’s a valley in Spain called Jarama
It’s a place that we all know so well
It was there that we fought against the Fascists
We saw a peacful valley turn to hell
From this valley they say we are going
But don’t hasten to bid us adieu
Even though we lost the battle at Jarama
We’ll set this valley free 'fore we’re through
We were men of the Lincoln Battalion
We’re proud of the fight that we made
We know that you people of the valley
Will remember our Lincoln Brigade
From this valley they say we are going
But don’t hasten to bid us adieu
Even though we lost the battle at Jarama
We’ll set this valley free 'fore we’re through
You will never find peace with these Fascists
You’ll never find friends such as we
So remember that valley of Jarama
And the people that’ll set that valley free
From this valley they say we are going
Don’t hasten to bid us adieu
Even though we lost the battle at Jarama
We’ll set this valley free 'fore we’re through
All this world is like this valley called Jarama
So green and so bright and so fair
No fascists can dwell in our valley
Nor breathe in our new freedom’s air
From this valley they say we are going
Do not hasten to bid us adieu
Even though we lost the battle at Jarama
We’ll set this valley free 'fore we’re through
[ Jarama Valley Lyrics on http://www.lyricsmania.com/ ]
The Rising Of The Moon, William Martin, Crown Publishers, New York, 1987
The last time that the work of novelist William Martin appeared in this space was when I reviewed his novel, Harvard Yard several months ago. The idea behind reviewing that novel was simply to use Martin’s novelistic treatment of the history of Harvard University (his alma mater)that was, moreover, filled with interesting and informative historical facts about that august bourgeois training ground and use it to make some political points about the nature of American society, American class society mainly. I should also note that I came to like the novel as its plot unfolded so that was a bonus. Here, in reviewing The Rising Of The Moon, I have a slightly different reason tied in with my Irish heritage on the anniversary of the Easter uprising of 1916.
Here Mr. Martin roped me in by presenting another Boston local novel (he has also written other Boston-centered novels, Back Bay and Cape Cod as well). More importantly he has tied in the familiar Boston scene with a topic very close to my roots, my family roots, the struggle for Irish freedom from English tyranny. And has used the events of the national liberation struggle named forever and framed forever by William Butler Yeats’ poem, Easter 1916.
Of course a primary consideration of any national liberation struggle, old style or new, is weapons-guns, ammo, etc. in order to fight the oppressor. And that thread, that desperate need for weapons against a heavily armed opponent, the British Occupation Army, is what drives the plot. But let's face it a simple exposition of the military needs of insurgents, Irish or otherwise, would make for an interesting history book but would no find favor in modern novelistic conventions.
However, what if you linked the Irish struggle in 1916 with the Irish diaspora in Boston. And what if you linked up Irish freedom fighters in Ireland with co-opted Irish freedom fighters in Southie (oops, South Boston) then the homeland to a great portion of the American Irish diaspora. And what if you surrounded the problems associated with getting weapons with kinship questions, some unfinished family business between Irish cousins, and, and, a little off-hand sex and romance in the person of a fetching Jewish girl (who also happens to be interested in national liberation struggles elsewhere- in Palestine). Well then you have William Martin’s interesting little novel that helps fill in the gaps, painlessly, about the Irish struggles and about what Boston, Irish Boston, looked like about one hundred years ago. As I said about Harvard Yard I liked the novel better as its plot unfolded so that was a bonus here as well. Kudos.
Easter, 1916 -William Butler Yeats
I
I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
II
That woman's days were spent
In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When, young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
This man had kept a school
And rode our winged horse;
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought.
This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vainglorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart,
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terribly beauty is born.
III
Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The horse that comes from the road,
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute they change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashed within it;
The long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call;
Minute by minute they live:
The stone's in the midst of all.
IV
Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven's part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse -
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
Yes, I can hear the snickering, cyberspace snickering if that is possible anyway, between them now, just like in the old days, although I did not always know what it meant then but now I do. I do after Frankie’s, Francis Xavier Riley’s, recent desecration of this space to tell his wild and wooly story, Boy Meets Our Lady Of The Saint Patrick’s Day Night Girl, about how he and his ever-loving middle school and high school sweetheart, Joanne, came together as a couple through their adventures at the 1959 Saint Patrick’s Day parade over in Southie, South Boston that is. In case you were not aware, painfully aware by now, Frankie, king of the be-bop late 1950s and early 1960s schoolboy be-bop night in our old, mainly Irish, working class neighborhood in North Adamsville and his “ball and chain”, Joanne, Joanne Marion Murphy, decided as part of their Southie caper that three was “one too many” and that neither would ever cry, cry out loud about it. And the three, or third, was me, Markin, Peter Paul Markin, Frankie’s then (and now, now maybe) faithful retainer during his reign. I decided to go to school instead of “skipping” the day as they did. Thankfully I am resilient and such childish things as snickers by just barely teenage co-conspirators are so much, well, so much.
But that is not the end of it, not the end of it by a long shot, although you and I will wish that I had not taken the genie out of the bottle, at least I will. Now one of the beauties of the high tech age we live in is that long forgotten friends and acquaintances are “findable” in short order, at least those who have left enough traces to be found. The same holds true for the use of cyberspace, as used here, as something of a public diary about the back-in-the-days times of the be-bop high school 1960s night. Now I had not heard from Frankie for many years, maybe forty or so, as our paths went in very different directions at some point. All that is important right this minute is that Frankie, king Frankie, heard that I was writing, writing relentlessly, about the old days, and about his lordship. I will give you the details of the hows and whys of how he got in touch with me some other time, maybe. What you know, if you have been attentive is that Frankie has been spewing forth (sorry there is no other word, other appropriate public word, for it) to one and all about His take on the old days as my guest commentator.
Here is where the genie out of the bottle part comes in. Frankie, Francis Xavier Riley, is not the only one who knows how to work the marvels of cyberspace to get his “party line” out. Now, and christ I’ll be damned if I know how she found out (although I suspect my ex-wife, my first ex-wife that is, who was not part of the old North Adamsville scene but knew all about it, knew, as she said, “where all the bodies were buried”) Joanne, Joanne Marion Murphy (I will use her high school name here just to keep things from getting any more confused than they already are), has actually been following this space, especially since Frankie has “come on board.” And what she wants, no, what she insists on, is “equal time,” equal time to tell her side of the story, the 1959 Saint Patrick’s Day Parade story. She said that Frankie left a lot out, a lot that would make him a little less cocky (her word) if the world knew certain things. Also that Frankie had it wrong, half-arsed wrong, no, full-arsed wrong about her Irishness sensibilities and where they fit into her young schoolgirl life.
Can you believe that? What is more she says there are some other“inaccuracies” in Frankie’s other stories, mainly the ones I wrote. Well, those are fighting words in my book, and as Frankie can tell you, would bring some fists out in our old-fashioned values, mainly Irish working class neighborhood. Those were the old days and I was going to, really going to, just let old Joanne, old ever-loving Joanne twist in the wind on this one. But here is where you have be careful about people, well, okay about women because after I sent her an e-mail on my decision, about thirty-six seconds later I got a return e-mail. And that e-mail asked, pretty please asked, acidly-etched pretty please asked, didn’t I want to know about whether it was true or not that she was“smitten” with me back in the days. What? Who? Well that puts a different perspective on it and perhaps I, in the interest of hearing all sides should allow her this one opportunity to “put things straight.” Besides like I used to say in the old days I like to give the other side an opportunity to speak if only to hang themselves.
Joanne, Joanne Marion Murphy, comment:
Yes, one Frankie, Francis Xavier Riley (Christ, Markin has got me saying it now), and one Markin, Peter Paul Markin, were thick as thieves from the time Markin came over to North Adamsville Junior High School (yes, I know just like Frankie and Pee-pee, my pet name for Markin, know it is now called middle school) from the Adamsville projects over the other side of town in the middle of seventh grade. That part is true, and you can take my word for it. And the part about “Joanne was smart, check, pretty, check, had a winning smile, check, and was universally kind out her religiously-derived social sense, check.” Everything else that this pair has written about the old days, well, why don’t we just say“take it with the grain of salt.” Okay. Now I do not know how much old Markin, dear truth-at-any-price Peter Paul, is going to cut out (edit he calls it) so I want to make sure you know about three things: my opinion of Markin in those old days; the real story of Saint Patrick’s Day 1959; and various inaccuracies about what I did, or didn’t know, about Frankie’s girl flings after we had our little disputes (what he called “misunderstandings”). If I don’t get these points all through Markin’s(and maybe Frankie behind it, as well) meat-cutter please contact me at joannemarionmurphy@mit.edu.
Frankie thinks he had Markin figured out, and figured out easy. Just throw him a morsel of an idea and he’ll jump through hoops for you. Well, where do you think, and who do you think gave Frankie that idea? Didn’t I have it right, and here I am speaking "truth to power" about it as proof, on how to get Markin to let me write about the old days in his “space.” All I had to do was throw out the words “smitten" and "Joanne” and he was hooked, just like in the old days. And Frankie never would believe this then, and probably will not now but I was, I won’t say smitten but definitely attracted to Markin from the time he came to our school. No, no the looks, Frankie had them, no question. No, not the be-bop pitter-patter (weak stuff anyway as I will discuss later). No, not the clothes or “style” (Christ, Markin always looked about two inches from a hobo-on the good days-sorry). But Markin had something Frankie never did have, and never will have, his love of ideas (or morsels of ideas), and his love of sharing them with all and sundry.
Frankie just kind of used ideas as a pillow, as something convenient, as something for the moment. Markin would draw circles in the air around them, as if to keep them safe from harm or abuse. See, who do you think was “holding my hand” when old Frankie and I had our problems (sorry Frankie) and we would read poetry or something, or discuss books to make the Frankie-less times a little less hard. So when old Markin says he wouldn’t jump off a bridge for me, don’t you be fooled (or you either Frankie) by his deception. Notice how Pee-pee was talking about “looks”- ask him about intellectual companionship, or discussing books, or reading his inflamed poetry. [Markin interjection: well, yes, of course, which one]. So when Markin (or Frankie, for that matter) goes on and on about Joanne "ball and chain,” or "Joanne didn’t (or couldn’t) do this or that," or even "three’s one too many" that caused plenty of tensions, and caused Markin and I to be sometimes stiffly civil in Frankie presence from seventh grade on just remember what I said here.
Yes, after reading the Frankie screed about how we met in the seventh grade and how he swept me off my feet on Saint Patrick’s Day and after reading as well Peter Paul’s various defenses of his “king” I can confidently say this. The fact that we were all in the seventh grade in 1959, and that we were all in the same school at that time is true. Everything else that this pair has written about me, or about the Frankie-Joanne romance should be handled, well let me put it gently, with a cattle prod. The king and his scribe may have been familiar, in passing, with the idea of the truth, but the truth itself is as Markin was fond of saying in high school a book sealed with seven seals. Let me put you straight, if I can.
Sure I was attracted to Frankie, well, attracted, is probably too strong a word on the first day anyway, let’s call it intrigued. A good-looking (yes, even then twelve years old girls, and maybe, especially twelve year old girls, had their rating systems and Frankie rated pretty high among us girls in that department in those girls’ lav moments when we talked of such things), blondish-brown headed guy with little curled sideburns as was the style then, blue eyes, wiry, medium-built who also came into class wearing brown flannel shirts in September, black chino pants (without cuffs, as they both will endlessly tell you at the drop of a dime, if you just ask them), clunky work boots, workers' work boots, and his midnight sunglasses.
Especially the sunglasses, day and night, night and day. He called them his midnight sunglasses. I do not think that Frankie or Peter Paul mentioned the various battles over those sunglasses in school (and in my house when mother Doris and father James saw him midnight sun-glassed one night). Either selective memory, forget memory or something but what do you think- that a twelve year old kid walking into a working class junior high school in 1958, in the heat of the despised beat movement, was going to go unchallenged on wearing what did not appear to be prescription glasses in school. Well let them, or one of them, tell the whole story, I’ll just say that a compromise (parents, etc. present in principal’s office) was reached and said sunglasses were treated as regular eye wear. Yes, intrigued was just about right, and from the first day. Okay.
Okay, except no way, no way was I going to run with his crowd, especially when I heard, heard from somebody that I remember that I trusted, although I cannot remember her name just now, that Frankie swore, and swore a lot as part of his be-bop pitter patter (as he called it). These guys made fun of me here, and back then even worst, about my being pious, pious at least for public consumption, but I didn’t (and still don’t) like to hear swearing). Not because of some religious scruples but just because my father, and lots of people in the neighborhood, always felt free to swear, swear loudly and whenever they pleased, and it offended my so-called "lace curtain" sensibilities. But we, Frankie and I, were in the same class together and I kind of got used to his pitter-patter and actually, as least as far as I remember, he didn’t swear when I was within earshot. And earshot was the way I kept it for the first few months, maybe closer to the first half of seventh grade. But then I saw that some girls, some girls, some of those girls that Peter Paul called "not so bright" and he was right, that told me they would never go near Frankie and his awful clothes and those weird sunglasses started to hang around his table at lunch, and follow him during class passes. I even saw a couple of girls, a couple who were supposed to be friends of mine and even more pious, really more pious than I was, walking homeward with Frankie. And meantime I was starting to like the look of him. Although something inside still said "stay away."
Then one day, one January day maybe, Frankie cornered me after school, after school and on my way home, and started going on and on about religion, our Roman Catholic religion. I still am not quite sure what he was trying to get at but he went into all kinds of things that I knew were wrong, although the way he said them was nice. Still I thought he had gone off the deep-end rattling on about this and that, including theology that he did not know anything about. I dismissed him out of hand as a nice guy but not for me, not for me unless he showed me a better face.
And then he actually did that. During the February vacation I was working on a project at the old Thomas Crane Public Library on Atlantic Avenue, the one they had as a storefront before they built a better one up at Norfolk Downs across from our Sacred Heart Church. As I was leaving I saw Frankie come up the street. I swear, I swear on the Bible, that I tried to walk pass him as fast as I could and just gave him a friendly nod. But then he started to talk his pitter-patter talk, but this time talking about the Book of Kell, and Ireland, and the old days of struggle against the "bloody English." I found out that he had found out that I was interested in Irish history, and the Irish history of the Church, and stuff like that from my grandmother, Anna, Anna Maude Mulvey, nee O’Brian, who was very close to the people who fought in the struggles against those same "bloody English" in Dublin in 1916. Had relatives over there (some now here) and so on.
So I listened to him, and he sounded better than in January. And that sounding better got him a date, although when he asked me out, asked twelve year old me out, I thought like with other boys it would be, I don’t know, a movie or a dance or something. But, no, Frankie, had to push the Irish card to the fullest. He wanted us to go over to South Boston, along with his new stooge (my term) Peter Paul Markin who was hovering around him like crazy and trying to imitate his "style," unsuccessfully I might add, the stooge was to keep things "on the level," I suppose, for the upcoming Saint Patrick’s Day Parade, which was on a Wednesday, I think, a school day in North Adamsville. I said no way, no way because I didn’t want to miss school, and my mother would not have let me miss school for such a thing.
But Frankie was persistent, and every day he would add to his bleeding Ireland pitter-patter and, of course, I liked that he did it but still there was the mother factor, the mother factor, the pious, lace curtain Irish mother who had along with grandmother, so she claimed, had taken great pains, great pains as she said more than once, to get our family away from the heathen, half- heathen anyway, "shanty" Irish that overran South Boston on Saint Patrick’s Day (and every day as she, revealing her real position, also later mentioned more than once). What I did not know then (and didn’t find out about until a few years later was that her shanty Irish applied to Frankie, Peter Paul, and all other North Adamsville shanty Irish who lived on the wrong side of the tracks, and that was literally the wrong side of the tracks not just a figure of speech in that town. More than that she hated, purely hated the idea, the very idea, and fumed over it more than once right in my face about it, that I would go anywhere, anywhere at all with a heathen, or half-heathen, half-breed like Peter Paul who had a Protestant father, can you believe that a Protestant father (although I, and lots of other people, lots of other Roman Catholic to the manor born Irish like Frankie's father, and mine, liked Peter Paul’s father, Prescott, a lot).
And maybe Peter Paul knew this, or knows this now, but at the time when I was rolling the rock up the hill trying to get Doris to give in and let me go with Frankie to the parade when he said he couldn’t go, or wouldn’t go, that actually was when dear mother started to relent. But it was a struggle, no question. Then about two, or three days before that parade, Grandma Anna came over and talked to mother, and talked to her in no uncertain terms about the educational value, the Irish educational value, of going over to see my kindred, and the representative Irish stuff and all of that. And Grandma said she would take Frankie and me over herself. What mother didn't know, old sweet mother Doris, and she was sweet when you didn’t cross her little lace curtain Irish plans to become, I think, just regular Americans, not Irish-Americans like we, meaning my family and others around us call ourselves now, and not carry the baggage from the old days and the old country in our brains every minute, was that I had in desperation called in the “big guns,” Grandma Anna.
That is the term, "big guns," Markin always used whenever some dispute came up with his mother (Arlene, nee McNally) and she called in old Prescott to back her up. I had, in any case, sobbed to Grandma about my plight, about mother not letting me learn about the old country and show Irish pride.“Stop it,” she said. And then blasted out “You just want to be with that boy you’ve been mooning over for the last few months, Frankie, away from home a little and who knows what else, don’t tell me it’s all about Irish history although that doesn’t hurt either.” “But that will be our story, anyway,” she added. I admitted to her, and it is no telling tales out of school here, that I got a little faint when Frankie was around me, and looked my way. She didn’t say anything to that, she didn’t have to say anything to that but just gave her knowing little chuckle. And so grandma law prevailed and Frankie and I were on our way.
Later, a couple of weeks later, after she had taken us over to the parade in her car and them left us to ourselves when she told us she had some “business”to attend to (thanks, grandma,) she said, and I wish maybe I had listened a little more closely, watch out for blarney men, and watch out with both eyes. (Thanks, grandma again although then it was too late). I think Frankie already told you about the parade, and if he didn’t I can’t help much in describing those things because my head and heart were so full of Frankie that day, and about how he really had to be sweet when he went to all the trouble to learn about the troubles, the Irish troubles, just for me and about how I hoped that he would kiss me and that I would be his girl and not one of those other “less bright” girls that were still hanging around his table at lunch and were all moony over him. I know Frankie told you that he did kiss me, and kissed me more than once, and giving me Irish history kisses that I was thrilled to get, even if we both were giving and taking awkward twelve almost thirteen year old kisses. Yes, so if anybody is bothering to keep count, including old Peter Paul whose posed the question, yes I too proudly have a big A (for absence) on my North Adamsville Junior High School attendance sheet for March 17, 1959. A big Irish-kissed A. And what of it.
P.S. I wanted to make sure that Markin didn’t “delete” my telling of the story of Frankie and my first date so I didn’t put anything in about the errors in Frankie’s and Peter Paul’s other stories. This probably won’t make it through the Markin censor machine but if it does then here is the real scoop on old lover boy Frankie’s “love affairs” when we had our later “misunderstandings.”Okay? When Markin told the story of how Frankie went and tried to be the king of the teen age dance club and Frankie fell all over himself over what Markin called that Grace Kelly look-a-like girl whom I was friendly with and had a class with in school and who wouldn’t give him the time of day on the dance floor that night these two, showing definite male vanity, cooked up that part where old Grace Kelly said she was smitten with Frankie but that she wouldn’t mess with him because she was my serious boyfriend. Old Grace didn’t care one bit for Frankie, thought he was a silly old beatnik past his prime and thought it was juvenile in the nth degree to wear sunglasses in school in the hope that it would attract attention, her attention anyway. She said Frankie was“square,” very square and what she said about Frankie's scribe (self-described, Peter Paul self-described), cannot be repeated here (she knew how to swear which I didn’t like, as you know). Also she was not related to me in any way, although she was more than happy to snub old Frankie for me while I was away on summer vacation with my family. E-mail me if you want her full description of Frankie’s “approach” to her that night, it is a riot. We laughed about it for weeks.
More serious though, and this one really has to be straightened out was Markin’s story about another “misunderstanding” time with Frankie and me when Frankie and he were down at the Adventure Car Hop and Frankie picked up my cousin (yes, that part was true, second cousin) Sandy, a car hop there. Yes, Frankie did take her home at his insistence, and yes, he stayed the night. On the sofa. By himself. Sandy was lonely okay, her husband was in the service and wanted more company than a screaming baby to while away the night. And Frankie seemed cool to her that night, and was friendly as well. But when the deal went down she was “true blue” to Rick (her husband) who would also, no question, kill her, maybe literally, if he ever found out and he would. You and I know that too, it’s not that big a town. According to Sandy, Frankie didn’t press the issue, although I do find that part hard to believe but needed to stay at least until dawn to cover his story. A couple of days later Sandy, after finding out that I was Frankie’s honey, called me up with the straight story so I know it’s true. Yes, Frankie, Peter Paul, and I met and hung out together in seventh grade in 1959 and after but beyond that fact if you believe anything this pair has to say, then or now, do so at you peril.
[Markin interjection: Old Joanne, old Professor Murphy, has gone off the deep-end. I would not dream of cutting one word of this little Joanne “take” on our old times. I like to give everybody their say, give everybody enough rope to hang themselves, and she has.]
