"Now there's just a pile of rubble, where the workers used to go..."

hatrickpatrick

...just a stone's throw from the banks through which the old Clare river flows
When the people hear his haunting tune, they pack and leave their homes:
The Pied Piper's, and he's living on the dole.

And it seems when he came over, things were fairly looking up
Played full forward for Mount Bellow when they won the county cup
Young Barret's moved to Boston, so he has to play in goal...
The Pied Piper's come to Ireland and he's living on the dole.

The Pied Piper's come to Ireland, and he's living on the dole:
Played in Spiddal with the Waterboys, now he loves rock and roll...

You can stroll through Cong or Ballinrobe
You can walk the streets of Tuam
Thumb out as far as Headford
On returning pass through Shrule
You won't see many young ones
No matter where you roam
For fear of revolution, the Pied Piper gets the dole.

WOOOOOOO!!!
*epic guitar solo*


I hear they're raising money, abroad in New York town,
It's not for guns or bombs this time but to turn the tables 'round
One last job for the Piper, we'll pay one great amount
To drive them all into the sea, that gang in Leinster houuuuuuuuuse....

The Pied Piper's come to Ireland, and he's living on the dole
Playing in Spiddal with the Waterboys, now he loved rock and rolllllllll...

WOO!!!
*epic guitar/banjo solo*

^^^^^
The above lyrics are from a song called "The Pied Piper" by the Saw Doctors. It was released early in 1992 and presumably written the year before.

Was going through some old albums earlier and this song came on. I stood there in disbelief and listened a few times. Release date of the album is 1992. Does the story sound familiar to anyone else?

It strikes me that this song could be just as fittingly used for the story of today, and clearly this one is about mass emigration at the end of the 80s. But if you look even deeper, he described the common workplace as a pile of rubble and equates it with banks.
He also makes reference to how it's the government who's ****ed it all up.

This isn't the only other big coincidence I've noticed either. Another, for example, is how much you could look at the Catholic Church abuse scandal - to summarize, the government gave the church a free reign and let them do what they wanted and get away with it. They also in some cases helped to cover up abuse when it occurred.

Now take the above summary and replace "Catholic Church" with "Banking Sector", then change "abuse" to "fraud". IT's the same effing situation, just with different people - the government getting into bed with a particular special interest group and treating them like royalty whilst leaving the rest of the population to pick up the pieces.

I'm curious, just how often can history repeat itself in one country?

Even worse, how many more times WILL it repeat itself? I mean you hear a lot of people these days saying "never again will we let this happen", but as far as I'm concerned this has happened three times just with different special interest groups, they have been allowed a free reign to utterly **** up the country. And yet the nation continued to vote in the same elite political group, be it FF or FG, but the general "political class" we have in Ireland, again and again and again.

Can we honestly hope that anything's going to change now? Or, like the government scandals listed above, are we just going to get very angry, rage about it for a while, sulk for a while after that and then utterly fail to learn from ANY of our mistakes?

What do ye think?

angelfire9

Alot of the sawdoctors songs dealt with Emigration issues in the late '80's and early '90's
Look at the first 2 lines from N17:

Well I didn’t see much future
When I left the Christian brothers school
So i waved it goodbye with a wistful smile
And I left the girls of Tuam
Sometimes when I’m reminiscing
I see the prefabs and my old friends
And I know that they’ll be changed or gone
By the time I get home again.

I remember when I was at secondary school during this period we used to do alot of debating in Irish & English and the topic of emigration came up again and again, when i was in 2nd year i was the ONLY PERSON in my class of 30 who did not have an immediate relative who had emigrated to find work! :eek:

Scofflaw

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Can we honestly hope that anything's going to change now? Or, like the government scandals listed above, are we just going to get very angry, rage about it for a while, sulk for a while after that and then utterly fail to learn from ANY of our mistakes?

What do ye think?

Judging from the number of people spending time and energy looking for someone - anyone - else to blame for Ireland's predicament, and the fact that back then we didn't vote for an alternative government with any great sense of hope either...we'll be here again, I'd say. Gilmore is even replicating the Spring Tide.

cordially,
Scofflaw