*The Keltic Homeland Front And Center- The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem,

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem Performing The Irish Revolutionary Fight Song From Wolfe Tone's 1798 Uprising "Rising Of The Moon".

DVD Review

The Story Of The Clancy Brother and Tommy Makem, Tom, Pat and Liam Clancy, Tommy Makem, Shanachie Productions, 2003

The main points of this DVD review were used to review to review some of the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem CDs previously. I think the main points of appreciation apply here in this one hour film documentary that traces their steps, fittingly, before and during a 1984 New York City reunion concert. In addition to the points below about the key role they played in bringing back the Irish musical tradition there are some very good interviews with each member about their takes on their earlier success in this country. Also included are interviews with musicians like Bob Dylan, Tom Paxton and Dave Van Ronk who were influenced by the group (and perhaps later, in turn, influenced them). And of course it goes without saying that this presentation is filled with the "boyos" doing rousing versions of many old standards like “Finnegan’s Wake”, “The Rising Of The Moon”, ad “Brendan On The Moor”. Here are those other points:


“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. “



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.

*Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-"The Rising Of The Moon"- For Those Who Struggled For Ireland's Freedom

Click on the title to link a "YouTube" film clip of the Clancy Brothers performing the classic "Rising Of The Moon".

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. Markin.

By the Rising of the Moon-John Keegan

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

From The In Defense Of Marxism Website- On The 100th Anniversary-Ireland: Easter 2011 – The need for working class independence. A warning from history

Ireland: Easter 2016 – The need for working class independence. A warning from history

Written by Eóin Gilligan
Thursday, 21 April 2011


Share As we approach the 95th anniversary of the Easter Rising many Irish socialists and republicans will go out as they do every year to marches to celebrate the anniversary of the episode which asserted Ireland’s right to national self-determination. It was, however, also a revolution which saw the working class prove itself in the words of Connolly as “the incorruptible inheritors of the fight for freedom in Ireland.”

"We serve neither King nor Kaiser", the ICA outside Liberty Hall.The rising was led by James Connolly’s Irish Citizens’ Army, the armed wing of the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union established to protect workers during the 1913 Dublin lockout from scabs and the police.

Today workers in Ireland yet again find themselves confronted by capitalism in crisis. Yet today our class is far stronger than it was in 1916. The experience of international economic expansion and particularly the “Celtic Tiger” years which saw the economy more than double in size between 1995 and 2007 saw a massive growth in the size of the Irish working class. The period since the onset of the economic crisis has given the Labour Party an unprecedented opportunity that even saw it leading in the opinion polls. In the 2011 General Election Labour emerged as the biggest party in Dublin, winning 18 seats. If the 4 United Left Alliance seats and 4 Sinn Fein seats are also counted this marks an overall majority for the left in Ireland’s biggest city.

Unfortunately the response of the Labour leadership to this situation has been to go down the road of the failed policies of “social partnership” and they failed to learn the lessons of history or heed the advice of Connolly.

In 1916, shortly before the rising was due to begin, he warned the volunteers that even in the remote possibility of success they should “hold onto your rifles because the Volunteers may have a different goal.” This was in the context of the Citizens’ Army playing the leading role in the rising, with a vacillating layer of the middle class Irish Volunteers led by Padraig Pearse eventually also joining them. Even under these circumstances, when the rising was based around support for the Proclamation of the Irish Republic – which pledged the “right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland, and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies” – Connolly understood the fundamental differences in class interest and outlook.

Just as he recognised that “the cause of Ireland is the cause of labour and the cause of labour is the cause of Ireland” he also recognised the role of the Irish bourgeois as a class inherently linked by a thousand threads to international capitalism and reconciliation with British imperialism. Connolly commented that even as early as the late eighteenth century, “the Irish capitalist class was not able to combat the influence of the corruption fund of the English Government, or to create and lead a party strong enough to arrest the demoralisation of Irish public life.”

Proclamation of the Easter RisingThe period since Connolly’s murder in 1916, when he was shot tied to a chair despite being mortally wounded, has only confirmed his analysis. Labour’s failure to provide an alternative to Sinn Fein in the 1918 General Election saw it willingly subordinate itself to Sinn Fein. The War of Independence was marked by the lack of a coherent leadership and independent role of the working class. This directly resulted in partition and the onset of the “carnival of reaction” Connolly warned would arise from it.

In more recent years this has been repeatedly confirmed. In the 1980s Labour joined Fine Gael in coalition only to see it forced to implement a raft of cuts. Once again we are entering a situation where Irish and international capitalism is in crisis and attempting to force the working class to pay for it. The policies of “social partnership” will only lead to exponential failure. Once again the Irish bourgeois will not hesitate to use Labour to implement a series of cuts which will only see a squandering of the gains that have been made.

We can’t afford to simply commemorate the Easter Rising and James Connolly, we have to learn the lessons from the historical experience of our class in struggle and the ideas advanced by Ireland’s most eminent Marxist. Only a policy of class independence and a refusal to implement cuts and to challenge a system which sees the sick, the poor, the unemployed and the young pay for its crisis can provide the answer we need.

The recent election results and the demonstrations and public sector strikes of 2010 showed the willingness to struggle, only a leadership dedicated to taking over the major parts of industry and the banks under workers’ control can truly make the causes of Ireland and labour one. The events of 1916 marked a major development in the struggle for a socialist, united Ireland. We must finish what Connolly and the working people of Dublin began!

*Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By- Donagh McDonagh's "James Larkin"

Click on the title to link to a "YouTube " film clip of Patty Reilly performing "Jim Larkin" ( different song about Larkin than the lyrics printed below).

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.

James Larkin
(Donagh McDonagh)

In Dublin City in nineteen thirteen
The boss was rich and the poor were slaves
The women working and children starving
Then on came Larkin like a mighty wave
The workers cringed when the boss man thundered
Seventy hours was his weekly chore
He asked for little and less was granted
Lest given little then he'd ask for more

In the month of August the boss man told us
No union man for him could work
We stood by Larkin and told the boss man
We'd fight or die, but we wouldn't shirk
Eight months we fought and eight months we starved
We stood by Larkin through thick and thin
But foodless homes and the crying of children
It broke our hearts, we just couldn't win

Then Larkin left us, we seemed defeated
The night was black for the working man
But on came Connolly with new hope and counsel
His motto was that we'd rise again
In nineteen sixteen in Dublin City
The English soldiers they burnt our town
The shelled our buildings and shot our leaders
The Harp was buried 'neath the bloody crown

They shot McDermott and Pearse and Plunkett
They shot McDonagh and Clarke the brave
From bleak Kilmainham they took Ceannt's body
To Arbour Hill and a quicklime grave
But last of all of the seven heroes
I sing the praise of James Connolly
The voice of justice, the voice of freedom
He gave his life, that man might be free

*The Music Of The Irish Diaspora-In Honor Of Easter 1916

Click on the headline to link to a "YouTube' film clip of Dolores Keane performing "Mary Clare Malloy" from the Tom Russell album under review.

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.


Looking For The Roots

The Man From God Knows Where, Tom Russell, Iris Dement, Dave Van Ronk and other artists, Hightone Records, 1998

If a first look at the music of the Irish Diaspora has to begin with a look at the ballads and traditions from the old country then the next look almost logically, at least for one writing in America, is to look here for the dispersal of that music. America, as a nation of immigrants from its inception, was a natural place for those who had to flee the old country to land. In the particular case of my forebears it was in the `famine' ships of the late 1840's, necessitated by the potato blight that led to the starvation of millions (although there was, in fact, plenty of food- for the British).

For the creator of the CD under review, Tom Russell, it was an earlier time for his forebears but the conditions were the same-luck, fate, opportunity, political opposition call it any name but mainly, it was time to leave- or be pushed outof the old country. Russell, in his search for his roots, has created this "concept" CD that reaches deep into the Irish immigrant experience and what became of its progeny. In some sense it is a generic immigrant story, but mainly it is an Irish story that goes the length and breath of America over several generations.

Here is a question first though: What is not to like about a serial tale of the Texas Irish, the Irish liberation struggle and Iris Dement? Well, given my commentaries over the past year reviewing the literary work of Texas author Larry McMurtry, some reminiscences of my own growing up in a poor working class, mainly Irish, neighborhood in the Greater Boston area and my `discovery' of my "Arkie Angel", Iris Dement, who is heavily featured here (especially good are "Acres Of Corn" and "The Old Rugged Cross"), the answer is absolutely nothing. Add in an well-cast appearance as "The Outcast" (representing the wretched of the earth who landed on these shores, for good or evil) of an old folk favorite, Dave Van Ronk, and this sets up as a great CD for those searching for their roots.

Two themes dominate this album. The first is suggested by the title-"The Man From God Knows Where..." That little concept encapsulates the gist of the American experience over the past century and one half as the Irish (and others) assimilated and took their places in society. Nevertheless, as described here, it was a near thing and as some of the songs indicate it was dearly bought either by alienation from the main culture or a lost of sense of the past in the old country. Hence the search. In some senses that title song (broken up into several tracks interspersed throughout the album), "Patrick Russell" (about the first Russell on these shores), "Mary Clare Malloy" (about the landing on the shores) and "When Irish Girls Grow Up" (about the varied possibilities when young women leave home in search of adventure, etc.) represent that aspect of the immigrant experience.

The other theme is that of the "American Primitive Man" who takes this land by a storm, one way or another, starting with old Patrick and who twists and turns it to his liking-or gets turned and twisted by it. That contradiction lies just below the surface of this fine work, and is epitomized by the story of Tom Russell's Texas tall father (who is the inspiration for this whole thing) in "Chickasaw County Jail". But enough. Get this CD and listen (several times) to a slice of our common history.

Tom Russell, The Man From God Knows Where Tabs/Chords


Capo 3rd fret.

Intro: (Am) - (G) - (Am) x 2

(Am)Come gather round me children, a (G) story I will (Am) tell
(Am)I've been around since Jesus met the (G) woman at the (Am) well
(C)I've walked these roads ten (Am) thousand years,(C) I'm a ragtime (Am) millionaire
(Am)I'm the rake and the ramblin saint. I am(G) the man from God knows (Am) where

(Am)Oh, they hung me in Downpatrick, up (G) near St.Patrick's (Am) tomb
(Am)But my ghost rose up in the peat fire smoke (G) toward the rising of the (Am) moon
(C)Now as I drift through your (Am) villages, all the (C) maidens stop and (Am) stare
(Am)"There goes old Tom, the vagabond, he's the (G) man from God knows (Am) where"

(C)So it's rise up all you (Am) ancestors, (C) and dance upon your (G) graves
(C)I've come to hear your (Am) voices, now, (C) so maybe I'll be (Am) saved
(Am)Cursed are we who forget the past, but (G) pray and don't (Am) despair
(Am)My song might haunt your dreams tonight, I'm the (G) man from God knows (Am) where

(Am)I've slept beneath your bridges, near your (G) oil (Am) refineries
(Am)I've gambled on your river boats,(G) Shenandoah; (Am) Kanakee
(C)I'm the homeless lad, I'm an (Am) orphan child, (C) leaves of grass sewn through my (Am) hair
(Am)Yeah, me and old Walt Whitman, we're the (G) men from God knows (Am) where

(Am)I've rode the rods on steam trains with a (G) banjo on my (Am) knee
(Am)While the voice of Stephen Foster, (G) whisperd songs to (Am) me
(C)Of the storefront church and the (Am) chain gang choir; (C) Black sorrow filled the (Am) air
(Am)Then Stephen died on a doss house floor, like a (G) man from God knows (Am) where

(Am)I've heard the sound of Indian drums I've (G) heard the bugles (Am) blow
(Am)Before they re'wrote history, (G) into a Wild West (Am) Show
(C)My kin sailed toward (Am) America, (C) to steal their Indian (Am) ground
(Am)They passed Bill Cody's (G) circus ships, European (Am) bound

(Am)So lock up all your daughters, your (G) whiskey and your (Am) gold
(Am)I have come to claim my bounty, for (G) the lies that I've been (Am) told
And (C) as I look out on this (Am) crowd tonight, I (C) see most of you don't (Am) care
(Am)Come lift your glass, reveal your past, to the (G) man from God knows(Am) where

*Poet's Corner- William Butler Yeats' "Easter, 1916"

***Poet's Corner- William Butler Yeats' "Easter, 1916"

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of A Reading Of William Butler Yeats' Homage To The Lads Of 1916- "Easter 1916".

Guest Commentary

This is the 93rd Anniversary of the Irish Easter Uprising-

BELOW ARE TWO FAMOUS POEMS BY THE ANGLO-IRISH POET WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS-CHOCKY AR LA

Easter, 1916

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. 80

September 25, 1916


Sixteen Dead Men

O but we talked at large before
The sixteen men were shot,
But who can talk of give and take,
What should be and what not
While those dead men are loitering there
To stir the boiling pot?

You say that we should still the land
Till Germany's overcome;
But who is there to argue that
Now Pearse is deaf and dumb?
And is there logic to outweigh
MacDonagh's bony thumb?

How could you dream they'd listen
That have an ear alone
For those new comrades they have found,
Lord Edward and Wolfe Tone,
Or meddle with our give and take
That converse bone to bone?

Songwriter's Corner- Spain 1936- The Irish Connection

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 af 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


Here are a couple more Yeats classics.

THE SECOND COMING

by: W. B. Yeats (1865-1939)

TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

"The Second Coming" is reprinted from Michael Robartes and the Dancer. W.B. Yeats. New York: Macmillan, 1921.

ON A POLITICAL PRISONER

by: W. B. Yeats (1865-1939)

HE that but little patience knew,
From childhood on, had now so much
A grey gull lost its fear and flew
Down to her cell and there alit,
And there endured her fingers' touch
And from her fingers ate its bit.

Did she in touching that lone wing
Recall the years before her mind
Became a bitter, an abstract thing,
Her thought some popular enmity:
Blind and leader of the blind
Drinking the foul ditch where they lie?

When long ago I saw her ride
Under Ben Bulben to the meet,
The beauty of her country-side
With all youth's lonely wildness stirred,
She seemed to have grown clean and sweet
Like any rock-bred, sea-borne bird:

Sea-borne, or balanced in the air
When first it sprang out of the nest
Upon some lofty rock to stare
Upon the cloudy canopy,
While under its storm-beaten breast
Cried out the hollows of the sea.

"On a Political Prisoner" is reprinted from Michael Robartes and the Dancer. W.B. Yeats. New York: Macmillan, 1921.

Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By- DROPKICK MURPHYS-"Heroes From Our Past"

DROPKICK MURPHYS-"Heroes From Our Past"


And so the story's told of a hearty group of men it's a tale of their triumphs and their woes.
Be it raids and melees ancient or the modern worker's struggle
that inspires men to stand up for their rights.
And should we fall down by the wayside in this ever-changing world
we can look back to these heroes of our past.
With their staunch determination and ferocious iron will,
no tyranny would quell them in their task.

It's an age-old situation with an ever-present message:
that time and tide waiteth for no man.
So without fear of confrontation of the consequence of outcome,
it's for freedom and for happiness they toiled.
An in looking to the future,
we can see a better place where we can shake the yoke of tyranny for all.
It's been paved by generations who have gone now to their rest.
It's just remembrance of their dignity we ask.

[Chorus:]
So come on rally round this brave and valiant cause with tradition, pride, and honor at its core.
With swords drawn to defend stood these noble-hearted men fág an bealach,
clear the way, me boys!!

Under perilous conditions with small hope of success they left behind the lives that they once led
and by virtue of their fortitude and single-minded strength
they cleared the way for the people of today
so when we think back to our ancestors respectfully we hark
and thank the men whose struggle broke the chain it's a long road up ahead of us
let's forge on while we're strong and leave our mark of honor once again

So the story has been told and it comes now to an end.
It's setting any era, any land.
When abusive tyrants force the hands of matters great or small,
it inpires men to stand up for their rights.

*The Music Of The Irish Diaspora-In Honor Of Easter 1916

Click on the headline to link to a "YouTube" film clip of traditional Irish music.

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")

Chocky Ar La

The Rough Guide: Irish Folk, various artists, World Music Network, 1999


Because English domination and occupation of Ireland for many centuries meant that the lingua franca of commerce and administration was English the rich history of traditional Irish music in Gaelic (Irish) was placed under the radar. For most of the English occupation it was a serious criminal offense to speak Gaelic (to speak nothing of speaking "Irish" by an occasional rebellion). The reels, the jigs, the lonesome ballads the songs of love and redemption in the old language were thus either Anglicized like in the rest of the British Isles or existed in a subterranean culture away from the cities and the snooping eyes and ears of the bloody occupiers.

The CD under review represents a compilation of both types of musical expression. I would add here that this CD was produced as part of a series of world wide material to expand our knowledge of roots music beyond the `pop' tunes for holiday occasions. These tracks are not the stuff of St Patty's Day celebration, although your grandmother (or great-grandmother) may have sung some of them sweet and low when you were a child. The simple fiddle, as in many Western agrarian cultures, played a central role in forming the base line of such music as reeds and jigs that were the festivities that brought the folk together after a hard week's work.

That instrument and those musical expressions are well represented here in Brian Hughes' medley, Paddy Glackin's and The Tulla Ceili (party) Band's as well. The Gaelic traditional singing (and contests associated with such efforts, a separate subject which when I have time I will discuss later) is well represented here by Padraigin Ni Uallachain on "A Bhean Udai Thall" and Aine Ui Cheallaigh on "Seoladh Na nGgamhna". Damn, just listing this stuff brings back strong memories of grandmother humming these old tunes while working around her house.

*A Bit Of The Odd Manner- Irish Style- The Childhood Saga of Frank McCourt- In Honor Of Easter 1916

A Bit Of The Odd Manner- Irish Style- The Childhood Saga of Frank McCourt- In Honor Of Easter 1916

Book Review

Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir Of Childhood, Frank McCourt, Flamingo, London, 1997

Frank McCourt’s “Angela’s Ashes” is probably the easiest review that I have had to write since I have been doing such reviews in this space. Why? Frank McCourt’s book of childhood memoirs is my story. No, not in the details of his life’s story, or mine. But rather in how being Irish, being poor, and being uprooted affects your childhood, and later times as well. And those traumas, for good or evil, cross generational lines. McCourt, we are told as his story unfolds, was born in America of immigrants of the diaspora after Irish independence who, for one reason or another, returned to the old country in defeat in the 1930’s. As McCourt notes right at the beginning, that fact in itself provides a rather ironic twist if one is familiar with Irish history (at least until very recently). He is, in any case, thus a child of the Great Depression and World War II, the generation of my parents, as it was refracted through Ireland during that period. I, on the other hand, am a child of the 1960’s, the “Generation of ‘68” here in America born of the dreaded Irish Catholic-English Protestant combination- and raised in an Irish Catholic enclave. Nevertheless the pages of this memoir are filled to the brim with the results of the emotional (and sometimes physical scars) of being “shanty” Irish in this world that hit home, and hit home hard, to this reader.

That said, we do not share the terrible effect that “the drink” had on creating his dysfunctional family with his father’s, Malachy McCourt, crazed need for the alcohol cure to drown his sorrows and his bitterness and the fact that his great moment in life was his bit for “the cause” (of Irish independence). A familiar story in the Irish community here and in the old country but my father seldom drank, although he too was constantly out of work and shared with Frank’s father that same bitterness about his fate. He was uneducated, lacking in skills and prospects and as a “hillbilly” Protestant Southerner from coal country down in Kentucky was thus, an ‘outsider’ in the Boston milieu like Frank’s father had been in Limerick. That is the commonality that caught my eye (and sometimes my throat) as I read of Frank’s youthful trials, tribulations and adventures. McCourt’s ability to tap into that “mystical” something is what makes this a fine read, whether you are Irish or not.

Throughout the book McCourt’s woe-begotten but fatally prideful father is constantly referred to in the Irishtown working class poor ghetto of Limerick (and elsewhere, as well, but the heart of the story is told from there) as having an "odd manner". This reflects a certain clannishness against those from the North of Ireland (Dare I say it, the area then known as Ulster) and a sneaking suspicion amount that crowd of some alien (meaning English Protestant) heritage. As the book progresses that odd trait is transferred (by heredity?) to Frank in his various wanderings, enterprise and desires. What joins us together then is that "odd manner" that gets repeatedly invoked throughout the book. Frank survived to tell the tale. As did I. But in both cases it appears to have been a near thing.

There is more that unites us. The shame culture, not an exclusive Irish Catholic property but very strong nevertheless, drilled in by the clannishness, the closeness of neighbors, the Catholic religion and by the bloody outsiders- usually but not always Protestants of some sort (as least for blame purposes- you know, the eight hundred years of British tyranny, although very real to be sure). All driven by not having nearly enough of this world’s goods. Every time I read a passage about the lack of food, the quality of the food, the conditions of the various tenements that the McCourt family lived in, the lack of adequate and clean clothing I cringed at the thoughts from my own childhood. Or the various times when the family was seriously down and out and his mother, the beloved Angela of the title, had to beg charity of one form or another from some institution that existed mainly to berate the poor. I can remember own my mother’s plaintive cry when my brothers and I misbehaved that the next step was the county poor farm.

And how about the false pride and skewed order of priorities? Frank’s father was a flat out drunk and was totally irresponsible. From a child's perspective, however, he is still your dad and must be given the respect accordingly, especially against the viciousness of the outside world. But life’s disappointments for the father also get reflected in the expectations for the son. The dreams are smaller. Here, the horizons are pretty small when a governmental job with its security just above the “dole” is the touchstone of respectability. Sean O’Casey was able to make enduring plays from the slums of Dublin out of this material. And Frank McCourt enduring literature. Thanks, brother.

Note: The movie version of “Angela’s Ashes” pretty fairly reflects the intentions of Frank McCourt in his childhood memoirs and follows the book accordingly, without the usual dramatic embellishments of that medium. The story line is so strong it needs no such “touch-ups”. Particularly compelling is the very visual sense of utter poverty down at the base of Irish society in Frank McCourt’s childhood.

The two songs below are constantly being sung by Frank McCourt's father when he is "on the drink" to give a little musical flavor to this entry.

"Roddy McCorly"

O see the fleet-foot host of men, who march with faces drawn,
From farmstead and from fishers' cot, along the banks of Ban;
They come with vengeance in their eyes. Too late! Too late are they,
For young Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome today.

Up the narrow street he stepped, so smiling, proud and young.
About the hemp-rope on his neck, the golden ringlets clung;
There's ne'er a tear in his blue eyes, fearless and brave are they,
As young Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome today.

When last this narrow street he trod, his shining pike in hand
Behind him marched, in grim array, a earnest stalwart band.
To Antrim town! To Antrim town, he led them to the fray,
But young Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome today.

There's never a one of all your dead more bravely died in fray
Than he who marches to his fate in Toomebridge town today; ray
True to the last! True to the last, he treads the upwards way,
And young Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome today.

"Kevin Barry"

In MOUNT JOY jail one Monday morning
High upon the gallows tree
Kevin Barry gave his young life
For the 'cause of liberty
Just a lad of eighteen summers
Yet no true man can deny
As he walked to death that morning
He proudly held his head up high

Another martyr for old Erin
Another murder for the crown
The British laws may crush the Irish
But cannot keep their spirits down

Just before he faced the hangman
In his dreary prison cell
The British soldiers tortured Barry
Just because he would not tell
The name of all his brave companions
And other things they wished to know
Turn informer or we'll kill you
Kevin Barry answered no

Another martyr for old Erin
Another murder for the crown
Whose cruel laws may crush the Irish
But CANNOT KEEP their spirits down

The Children of Easter, 1916- A Moment In History…For M.M, Class of 1964

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of William Butler Yeats', Easter, 1916.

Peter Paul Markin, North Adamsville Class Of 1964, comment:

“A Terrible Beauty Is Born”, a recurring line from the great Anglo-Irish poet William Butler Yeats, Easter, 1916.

At the corner of Hancock Street and East Main Street, forming a wedge in front of our old beige-bricked high school, ancient North Adamsville High School now of blessed memory although that hard fact was not always the case after passing through its portals but that for another day, stands against all weathers a poled plaque, sometimes, perhaps, garlanded with a flower of flag. From that vantage point, upon a recent walk-by, I have noticed that it gives the old school building a majestic “mighty fortress is our home” look. The plaque atop the pole, as you have probably already figured since such plaques are not uncommon in our casualty-filled, war-weary world, commemorates a fallen soldier, here of World War I, and is officially known as the Frank O’Brien Square. The corners and squares of most cities and towns in most countries of the world have such memorials to their war dead, needless to say far too many.

That plaque furthermore now, as it did not back in the 1960s, competes, unsuccessfully, with a huge Raider red billboard telling one and all of the latest doings; a football game here, a soccer game there, or upcoming events; a Ms. Something pageant, a cheer-leading contest, a locally produced play; or honoring somebody who gathered some grand academic achievement, won some accolade for a well-performed act and so forth. In due course that billboard too will be relegated to the “vaults" of the history of our town as well. This entry, however, is not about that possible scenario or about the follies of war, or even about why it is that young men (and now women) wind up doing the dangerous work of war that is decided by old men (and now old women), although that would be a worthy subject. No, the focus here is the name of the soldier, or rather the last name, O’Brien, and the Irish-ness of it.

A quick run through of the names of the students listed in, our yearbook, the Magnet for the Class of 1964, will illustrate my point. If Irish surnames are not in the majority, then they are predominant, and that does not even take into consideration the half or quarter Irish heritage that is hidden behind other names. My own family history is representative of that social mixing with a set of Irish and English-derived grandparents. And that is exactly the point.

If North Adamsville in the old days was not exactly “Little Dublin”, the heritage of the Irish diaspora certainly was nevertheless apparent for all to see, and to hear. More than one brogue-dripped man or woman, reflecting newness to the country and to the town, could be heard by an attentive listener at Harry’s Variety Store on Sagamore Street seeking that vagrant bottle of milk (or making that bet with Harry’s book on the sure-fire winner in the sixth at Aqueduct but we will keep that hush since, who knows, the statute of limitations may still not have run out yet on that “crime,” although the horse certainly did, run out that is). Or at Doc Andrews’ Drugstore, ya, good old Doc over on the corner of Young Street and Newberry seeking, holy grail-seeking that vagrant bottle of whiskey, strictly for medicinal purposes of course. And one did not have to be the slightest bit attentive but only within a couple of blocks of the locally famous, or infamous as the case may be, Dublin Grille to know through the mixes of brogue and rough-hewn strange language English that the newcomers had “assimilated.” And, to be fair, those same mixes could be heard coming piously out of Sunday morning Mass at Sacred Heart or at any hour on those gas-guzzling, smoked-fumed Eastern Mass buses that got one hither and fro in the old town. That North Quincy was merely a way-station away from the self-contained Irish ghettos of Dorchester and South Boston to the Irish Rivieras, like Marshfield and heathen Cohasset and Duxbury, of the area was, or rather is, also apparent as anyone who has been in the old town of late will note.

And that too is the point. Today Asian-Americans, particularly the Chinese and Vietnamese, and other minorities have followed that well-trodden path to North Adamsville from way-station Boston. And they have made, and will make, their mark on the ethos of this hard-working working-class part of town. So while the faint aroma of corn beef and cabbage (and colorful, red-drenched pasta dishes, from the other main ethnic group of old North Adamsville, the Italians) has been replaced by the pungent smells of moo shi and poi and the bucolic brogue by some sweet sing-song Mandarin dialect the life of the town moves on.

Yet, I can still feel, when I haphazardly walk certain streets, the Irish-ness of the diaspora “old sod” deep in my bones. To be sure, as a broken amber liquor bottle spotted on the ground reminded me, there were many, too many, father whiskey-sodden nights (complete with the obligatory beer chaser) that many a man spent his pay on to keep his “demons” from the door. And to be sure, as well, the grandmother passed-down ubiquitous, much dented, one-size-fits all pot on the old iron stove for the potato-ladened boiled dinner (that’s the corn beef and cabbage mentioned above for the unknowing heathens) that stretched an already tight food budget just a little longer when the ever present hard times cast their shadow at that same door.

And, of course, there was the great secret cultural relic; the relentless, never-ending struggle to keep the family “dirty linen” from the public eye, from those “shawlie” eyes ready to pounce at the mere hint of some secret scandal. But also this: the passed down heroic tales of our forbears, the sons and daughters of Roisin, in their heart-rending eight hundred year struggle against the crushing of the “harp beneath the crown” (and even heathens know whose crown that was); of the whispered homages to the ghosts of our Fenian dead; of great General Post Office uprisings, large and small; and, of the continuing struggle in the North. Yes, as that soldier’s plaque symbolizes, an Irish presence will never completely leave the old town, nor will the willingness to sacrifice.

Oh, by the way, that Frank O'Brien for whom the square in front of the old school was named, would have been my grand uncle, the brother of my Grandmother Markin (nee O'Brien) from over on Young Street across from the Welcome Young Field.

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.

*Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By- Luke Kelly- "The Foggy Dew"

Click on the title to link a "YouTube" film clip of Luke Kelly performing "The Foggy Dew".

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.

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.

*A Saga Of The "Famine Ship" Irish- Albany-Style- William Kennedy's "Quinn's Book"

Click on the title to link to the "New York State Writers Institute" Website for its entry on Albany-cycle writer William Kennedy.

Book Review

Quinn’s Book, William Kennedy, Viking Press, New York, 1988

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 takes place in an earlier time in the Albany novel cycle, the earliest period thus far in my reading of the cycle. This is a story of the hard period in America for those “famine ship Irish” that were driven to seek a new life in the New World against their collective wills. But, certainly they were driven out of Ireland by economic necessity and desperation. For the most part the snippets of character detailed here, including the earliest generations of names that are familiar from later generations in Kennedy’s books , do not suggest that they were driven out due to some criminal activity, political or not, against old “Mother “England”.

That "snippet of character" reference above also can be used as a point that makes this novel a little different from the others in this cycle. The narrator, Daniel Quinn, a teenage boy-man orphan (nice touch, as narrator in a fresh, young country) with plenty of spunk and ambition, as is usually the case gets plenty of character build-up throughout. However this novel is driven more by the plot than by character development than prior Kennedy reads. That plot, such as it is, centers on Quinn's “golden quest” to win the hand of the “teen angel”, Maud, come hell or high water. Along the way, we are taken on a Kennedy version of “magical realism”, 19th century Albany Irish style: of the "famine ship" Irish; of the old Dutch squirarchy that ruled the Hudson Valley in those days; of the American racial and political scene in the pre-Civil War period, and much else. That “much else” sometimes gets in the way of the “golden quest”, but as almost always with Kennedy he gives us a good read, if not a great one.

Out In The Be-Bop 1950s Night- Girl Meets Our Lord Of The Saint Patrick’s Day Night Boy- For Frankie, Francis Xavier Riley, King Of North Adamsville Schoolboy Night - Class of 1964

Click on the headline to link to an online copy of Anglo-Irish poet William Butler Yeats’ Easter, 1916. The reason for that selection will be obvious, hopefully obvious, by the end of this entry.

Markin comment: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 way, 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 not 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 anymore 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” by 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 projects 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 called 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 other North Admasville 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 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.]