Songs of Struggle

Conor McGuinness
Ógra Shinn Féin, Connacht

My relationship with Republican music has been a long and interesting one. Ever since stumbling upon a Wolfe Tones tape when I was eight years old I have been fascinated by it.

I still remember the sense of awe and pride I felt when I first heard their song ‘Padraig Pearse’. Spurred on by my Wolfe Tones experience I searched through my Parents tapes and records and was thrilled when I found a Dubliners L.P. that included ‘Kelly the Boy From Killane’, ‘The Rising of the Moon’ and ‘A Nation Once Again’. ‘The Foggy Dew’ sung by Sinéad O’ Connor, on a Chieftans tape completed my early rebel collection. Since that time I have had an intense interest in the music of our struggle.

My tastes have changed often and my experiences have broadened and I’ve come to realise that there exists a number of different types of music that can be broadly described as ‘Republican’. There are the obvious ones; the poignantly tragic songs of our fallen comrades, examples like ‘The Loughall Martyrs’ and ‘The Ballad of Máiréad Farrell’ come to mind.

There are the sad yet uplifting songs of a communities resilience and resistance in the face of overwhelming odds and great suffering, be that a people’s reaction to famine or to internment. There are of course the witty songs that relate funny episodes from the Struggle, or poke fun at the Brits, such as ‘Johnston’s Motor Car’ and ‘My Little Armalite’.

Add to these the foot-stomping, adrenaline-pumping, I, I, I R A-chanting classics such as ‘Go On Home British Soldiers’ and you’ve pretty much described the entire Republican retinue.
Or have you?

In recent years I’ve begun to listen to more and more of what is described as Folk music. Artists such as Christy Moore, Damien Dempsey, Woodie Guthrie, Steve Earle, Hamish Imlach and others. Their music often examines universal issues that concern young Republican activists.

Songs about prejudice, poverty, inequality and community have, in this writer’s opinion, a central place in the ‘genre’ of republican music, and can act as an inspiration and even an education to activists.

‘Talking Union’ by the Almanac Singers tells of the need to organise unions in our workplaces and gives advice on dealing with such obstacles as the boss; “The boss won't listen when one guy squawks But he's got to listen when the union talks.”

‘Go, Move, Shift’ by Christy Moore portrays the prejudice and the hypocrisy of members of a materialistic society in their dealings with fellow human beings, and delivers a damning judgment of that society.

Likewise much of Damien Dempsey’s music treats of social issues that many Republican activists will be familiar with. His lyrics not only give expression to the thoughts and feelings of a generation of young working class people, but also offer analysis and highlights issues such as drug abuse and urban decay. What these artists are doing with their music, young Republicans should be doing in their activism.

As our struggle is both domestic and international, so to the music of that struggle is not limited to Irish songs or Irish artists. Perhaps the greatest of revolutionary songs, ‘The Internationale’ was written by Eugene Pottier, in nineteenth-century France.

It has been translated into over sixty languages and is sang by revolutionaries the world over. It has meaning for the communist guerilla in Columbia, or the protesting student in Tanzania, likewise, and in common with our other songs of struggle; it has meaning for Republican activists here.

These songs of struggle sustain us; they educate and inform us. They can comfort and inspire us. From the loudest, fastest angriest song, to the ballad that has you laughing from start to finish, to a song that sums up our whole political ideology, each has its time and its place, and in our struggle, each has its use.