Dear old Skibereen

Chances are, if you are of irish extraction in the UK or the States (47 million in the states are of irish extraction), a big part of your gene pool will have emigrated due to An Gorta Mór  euphamistically known as the (potatoe famine)in the 1840s. You don’t know what the gaelic means do you? Neither do I, thats because our language was near destroyed too, but thats another subject we’ll be dealing with on this blog at some point….

In Scotland, where anti irish racism has never been acknowledged never mind tackled the opening of carfin monument to the famine victims with theTaoiseach Berti Ahern had to be posponed due to the controversy it would cause around a rangers and celtic game.

This song Skibbereen captures this period well and we should pay heed to its message which has contemporary relevance to the famines we periodically witness in places such as Africa. All of which are social!!! The last verse demonstrates that it does not take Amartya Sen to suss this out and that the victims know fine well who the perpetrators of such holochausts are and that there shall be payback for these injustices.

Below are the lyrics and a version of the song that i found on youtube.

Oh father dear, I often hear you speak of Erin’s isle

Her lofty hills, her valleys green, her mountains rude and wild

You say she is a lovely land wherein a saint might dwell

So why did you abandon her, the reason to me tell.

Oh son, I loved my native land with energy and pride

Until a blight came on the land, my sheep, my cattle died

My rent and taxes went unpaid, I could not them redeem

And that’s the cruel reason why I left old Skibbereen.

Oh well do I remember that bleak December day

The landlord and the sheriff came to take us all away

They set my roof on fire with their cursed foreign spleen

I heaved a sigh and bade goodbye to dear old Skibbereen.

Your mother too, God rest her soul, fell on the stony ground

She fainted in her anguish seeing desolation ’round

She never rose but passed away from life to immortal dream

She found a quiet grave, me boy, in dear old Skibbereen.

It’s well I do remember the year of forty-eight,

When we arose with Erin’s boys to fight against our fate;

I was hunted through the mountains as a traitor to the Queen,

And that’s another reason why I left Old Skibbereen

And you were only two years old and feeble was your frame

I could not leave you with my friends for you bore your father’s name

I wrapped you in my cota mor in the dead of night unseen

I heaved a sigh and bade goodbye to dear old Skibbereen.

Oh father dear, the day will come when in answer to the call

All Irish men of freedom stern will rally one and all

I’ll be the man to lead the band beneath the flag of green

And loud and clear we’ll raise the cheer, Revenge for Skibbereen

 

quick rant on islamism, democracy,hamas, fatah, palestine, isreal and the occupied 6 counties of (northern)ireland

There is the attempt to construct what is happening in palestine that Hamas seized power. They never siezed power. They were democratically elected, but all the powers that be  such as the US and the EU (which withdrew its funding for the emerging palestinian state), and including the old palestinian adminstration rearguard combined together and did thier damned hardest to countervaile the democratic wishes of the palestinian people.

Secondly, PLO, Fatah etc are hardly famed for thier democratic credentials, i mean lets face it arafat was a gangster that was towards the end of his reign was getting loathed by the palestinian people which was also the time of the rise of Hamas.

Thirdly, there isnt any historical precendent to justify the notion that if islamist type administration get into power  through democratic or the very least quasi-democratic means that they will impose antidemocracy. Becuase, the contingent facts regarding islamis regimes is that whenever they nearly come to fruition through the popular will of the people they have always been undermined by forces within the nation states (military juntas) and forces without these nations states such as US support. Algeria is a classic example of this.

And i believe to an extent that in a sence its by the fact that whenever there is a move to islamism by the popular will of the people that is repressed that actually shapes the anti democratic islamist responce. Since thier aspirations no longer can be achieved through democracy of course its going to channel it in another direction. Thats exactly what happened in Algeria.

IMHO if islamic aspirations had been allowed to manifest themselves through the will of the people and then for them to Feck up just like any other grand social experiment it wouldve probably meant that radical islam woudlve died off a long time ago, but now its a hornets nest.

The lessons never get learned, i mean look at how in turkey where they are making small cautious islamist steps have the military waiting in the wings to defend the ‘free’ secular state…

One last point. Its only when you get the people at the extremes of poltical viewpoints to come to a resolution that progress can get made. People in the middle of two opposing viewpoints always have common ground its the people at the fringes that really call the shots. I mean look at the sucess of the power sharing they’ve got going in stormont with Ian Paisley the leader of the DUP as the first minister and Martin McGuinness the deputy leader of Sinn Fein as the deputy first minister.

The sad thing is, whilst hamas where still going for thier death to isreal rhetoric *which they had to do so as not to alienate aspects of thier support* they were moving pragmatically towards a tacit acceptance of a two state solution. This was a great opertunity that was missed there, and it will be a long time till it comes back again. IF ever.