The Wolfe Tones

mikefromcork

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121429186#Comment_121429186

Sure, it was only the one line. That reminds me of the best letter ever to Viz.

It's not fair. Jay Z uses the n word 15 times in a song and gets a Grammy. I use it once at my son's under 12 football game and I'm banned for life.

TokTik

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121430159#Comment_121430159

There’s their most famous set list of 2023. Care to point out the sectarian songs on it??

Gregor Samsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121462277#Comment_121462277

On a point of information. What you’ve referenced was their Electric Picnic set list, which is very different (and much, much shorter) than their regular gig set list.

I’m not commenting either way on any sectarian allegations, but it’s factually incorrect to claim that that particular set list is indicative of their regular live output, and it seems suspicious to me that you specifically chose that one to illustrate your point.

Francis McM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121462277#Comment_121462277

Any band which gets up on a stage and gets the crowd chanting "Uh Ah Up the RA" is clearly sectarian, given the reference to the IRA and numerous atrocities they were involved in , blowing up women, children and men etc. Remember Enniskillen, Bloody Friday, etc etc etc.

I would say the same if a band got up on stage and got the crowd chanting / supporting the UVF or Shankhill butchers or paramilitaries on the other side.

There is little hope of a united Ireland if people cannot see how chanting "uh ah Up the RA" would be very hurtful and insulting to the tens of thousands of victims of the !RA and their families.

Pogue eile

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121462314#Comment_121462314

He clearly states in his post that it is 'their most famous set list of 2023' so nothing factually incorrect or disingenuous or suspicious, you simply misread his post!!

Pogue eile

I would suggest to few here they actually look up the meaning of 'sectarian' I suspect it might be very different to what they seem to think it means.

Bobson Dugnutt

They are a shower of talentless auld chancers. Absolutely shít.

Pogue eile

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121462512#Comment_121462512

Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Rod Stewart, Shane MacGowan, Bono etc. all wrote and performed songs political songs from one side of the divide. Are the Beatles, The Pogues and U2 also sectarian and should be banned??

Gregor Samsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121462528#Comment_121462528

No, I read it carefully and correctly- including the irrelevent description of it being their “most famous” one of this year - which I assume means the one from their performance with the highest attendance.

The point stands - at 9 songs and 45 minutes in length, it’s still not representative of their usual live output, which can be 34 songs over 3 hours. It’s a reduced - one might say “sanitised” - set list.

Which, I will add, is not unusual for a festival performance, where one is not necessarily playing to paying fans who may have a higher tolerance (or expectation) for what may be referred to as “deeper cuts”.

scottser

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121462512#Comment_121462512

The IRA were not a sectarian organisation. Their membership was always open to protestants and even had their own 'prod squad'.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121462583#Comment_121462583

Name the Beatles songs as you specifically referenced the band.

As for U2, which political song did they write from one side of the divide and which side was it from?

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121462751#Comment_121462751

It wasn't even their most "famous" performance of 2023, that was the one in Belfast.

Francis McM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121462778#Comment_121462778

Until they "disappeared" those Protestants? Back to the thread topic of the Wolfe Tones.

Someone else said that "at the Good Friday Agreement and afterwards, the picture of Bono onstage with David Trimble and John Hume holding their arms aloft is still THE iconic image of that time.

The Wolfe Tones are the polar opposite: a bunch of geriatric singers blasting out anti-Brit bile and odious insults to unionists: and many moderate nationalists, many of whom I know, as well.

So the question arises: who the hell thinks it’s politically propitious to bring this rabble-rousing and rebel-revering bunch of musical mob-baiters back to Belfast next October?"

And he continues that they go to into the heartland of loyalist east Belfast to perform their appalling ‘Ooh, aah, Up the ‘Ra’ theme song at the SSE Arena.

It’s like booking the Shankill Protestant Boys flute band to play Andytown Leisure Centre and belt out The Billy Boys with that equally loathsome lyric ‘We’re up to our necks in Fenian blood...’

You know what would happen then.

There’d be a riot: it would make the mayhem that ignited over the late Willie Frazer’s Love Ulster march in Dublin in 2006 look like the proverbial picnic.

So fast forward to the SSE Arena staging the Wolf Tones next year. So what happens if, say, 1,000 loyalists get tickets and get inside and spark a riot?

The SSE Arena is a shared space. “Can you imagine if it was booked out by some band singing songs glorifying Michael Stone, the UVF and the UDA?

“There’d rightly be a big row.”

TokTik

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121462314#Comment_121462314

Poster said look at their recent set lists. This is their most famous set list of 2023. The reason they’ve gotten so much publicity. Here’s a set list of the songs they played most, on average over 2023.

Montage of Feck

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121462546#Comment_121462546

Exactly and were well past relevance a decade or two ago but now are the most dangerous musical act in the land! Maybe a black lash against the insipid popular culture?

Francis McM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121465817#Comment_121465817

Not sure if they were ever really relevant, any more than the case of a hypothetical band on stage singing songs glorifying Michael Stone, the UVF and the UDA, and getting their crowd to chant along, would be relevant.

scottser

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121465738#Comment_121465738

If you get offended by our nationalist history then that's on you. If you start conflating reasons to be offended on behalf of other cultures and societies then you're going to spend a lot of time offended.

Up The Ra means much more, and indeed much less than you think it does.

Francis McM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121466702#Comment_121466702

"Up the RA" is not nationalist, it is violent Republic and glorifying of paramilitary violence. If you cannot see the danger in that, and what is wrong with a "bunch of geriatric singers blasting out anti-Brit bile and odious insults to unionists: and many moderate nationalists, many of whom I know, as well", then there is little hope for you.

growleaves

There cannot be totalitarian control over folk culture, I think that's what posters here are missing. Normal people like music fans won't put up with it.

It would have been better to let the Wolfe Tones fizzle out (they are old and not writing any more new songs) but political liberals - especially in the ROI - cannot help exercising their impulse to prohibit and try to control culture, which they see solely as a vehicle for politics.

Inadvertently this has helped to revive the Wolfe Tones career. Oops

Francis McM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121467011#Comment_121467011

The ironic thing, which supporters of the PIRA and the Wolfe Tones may not realise, is that is is driving any hope of a U.I. even further away. You shouting out anti-Brit bile and odious insults to unionists will do nothing towards uniting people.

And as someone else questioned "what happens if, say, 1,000 loyalists get tickets for the W.Tones concert at the SSE arena in East Belfast and get inside and spark a riot? The SSE Arena is a shared space. Can you imagine if it was booked out by some band singing songs glorifying Michael Stone, the UVF and the UDA?"

There’d rightly be a big row - same as if a Shankill Protestant Boys flute band got to play Andytown Leisure Centre and belted out The Billy Boys with that equally loathsome lyric ‘We’re up to our necks in Fenian blood...’

growleaves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121467123#Comment_121467123

I'm not shouting insults at anyone.

You might be right about it being subversive of unity. But culture is not always rational.

I would think loyalists are too smart to riot but who knows.

I do not think a deletion of loyalist/unionist culture is the path to a UI either. Eliminating national cultures is the dream of politically correct liberals. I would much rather just find a way to take the sting out of these things, rather than banning them. One example is the re-branding (successful or not? you decide) of unionist marches as harmless family days out.

Michael Stone is involved in the arts iirc, so perhaps he can write a song about himself?

scottser

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121466910#Comment_121466910

Up the Ra doesn't glorify paramilitary violence, and it's ridiculously obtuse to believe that it does.

Look pal, you go ahead and be offended by it - nobody cares about you ranting at a cloud. But we should all be a bit more relaxed about these things otherwise we get nowhere and we never move on.

Allinall

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121467187#Comment_121467187

What’s the point of singing it if it doesn’t glorify paramilitary violence?

Francis McM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121467187#Comment_121467187

You claim Uh ah Up the RA and other songs and lyrics about the IRA does not glorify paramilitary violence.

If a band was singing Uh ah up the UVF and the Shankhill butchers etc, and getting thousands to sing such songs along with them, would you like that or think that was glorifying the loyalist paramilitaries?

According to your logic, there would be nothing wrong with the Shankill Protestant Boys flute band going to play Andytown Leisure Centre, bringing thousands of supporters along and belting out The Billy Boys with that equally loathsome lyric ‘We’re up to our necks in Fenian blood...’

TokTik

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121467011#Comment_121467011

The sectarian Wolfe Tones, named after one of Irelands most prominent Protestants.

TokTik

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121467123#Comment_121467123

Will you be down at the 3Arena on Saturday complaining about Ice Cube? I mean **** Da Police could incite a riot.

He also has quite a few songs that, if 1000 feminists were in the audience, could spark a riot.

Francis McM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121467251#Comment_121467251

The actions of the IRA speak louder than words.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121467269#Comment_121467269

Don't think Ice Cube or whatever you call them ever supported a paramilitary group who disappeared Protestants, blew them up when they were at Remembrance Day services etc.

Tony EH

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121467187#Comment_121467187

Some people don't want to move on. They want to be perpetually outraged. In this case it's about a silly song written for 100 years of Celtic F.C. that has a line in it in which the guy in the song sees a bit of graffiti on a wall which says "Up the Ra".

And there's some on here that have labelled an entire generation as "snowflakes".

You

couldn't

make

it

up

scottser

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121467237#Comment_121467237

That's too much whataboutery for me to unpick mate. Again, enjoy your shrieks of outrage and indignation.

scottser

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121467221#Comment_121467221

People sing it for all sorts of reasons, I imagine. You would be better asking them.