Opinion

Newton Emerson: Republican rebel songs becoming the new loyalist target

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson writes a twice-weekly column for The Irish News and is a regular commentator on current affairs on radio and television.

The Wolfe Tones performing at the Ardoyne Fleadh
The Wolfe Tones performing at the Ardoyne Fleadh The Wolfe Tones performing at the Ardoyne Fleadh

Loyalists would like to open a new front in the culture war, against republican rebel songs.

The idea has been building for some time - its potential was certainly noted three years ago, when a rebel band told the Ardoyne Fleadh that British soldiers and their “Orange friends” should “f*** off back to England.”

Fleadh organiser Eddie Copeland, whose official job title is ‘Prominent Republican’, initially defended this as “free speech” but quickly issued an apology.

His change of heart coincided with unionist questions about the Fleadh’s public funding.

Little more was heard about rebel songs after that - the sectarian remarks at the Fleadh had actually been spoken, not sung. Then last month a perfect storm broke out over the ‘Celtic Fanzone’.

Belfast City Council had planned to fund this facility at a west Belfast bar during a Linfield-Celtic game. It cancelled the cheque after unionists learned the warm-up act would be singer Damien Quinn, whose repertoire celebrates the bombing of Lord Louis Mountbatten’s boat, in which two children died.

Because this row coincided with the council’s move against Eleventh-night bonfires, loyalists sensed a sweet and symmetrical victory.

Jamie Bryson, whose official job title is ‘Loyalist Blogger’, has now raised the issue of rebel songs at the West Belfast Festival, posting a video of the crowd at a Wolfe Tones performance chanting “ooh ah up the Ra.”

Bryson asked if this was being “taxpayer funded” and compared it to republican complaints about “unionist bonfires.”

He also cited the incident at the Ardoyne Fleadh.

It is telling that all these unionist and loyalist complaints focus on public funding. Partly, this is zeroing in on the obvious political pressure point. However, it must also reflect the fact that this is the only way most unionists can be affected.

Rebel music is remarkably unobtrusive for an apparently widespread and ingrained cultural practice.

I have spent half a life-time here without ever being knowingly subjected to it, live or on air - with one exception.

In 1990, during the Troubles, I was with an English friend in a pub in Ballycastle, listening to some traditional Irish music. A woman at the next table overheard his accent, threw us a dirty look and broke into a pro-IRA song. Her companions and a few others in the room joined in. I recall that someone - a barman, I think - apologised to us as we beat a retreat.

No doubt everyone involved would have denied I was the target of their hostility. It was the Englishman they were after.

However, as at Ardoyne, that excuse would have been duplicitous - was I not his Orange friend?

At some level, the whole of nationalist Ireland must recognise this duplicity. Why else would rebel music be such a coy phenomenon, almost never performed or broadcast to a general audience? Any other genre as popular and indigenous would be everywhere - and there would be outrage of it was not.

This cultural cringe seems unlikely to be taking place due to respect for unionist feelings - it is equally prevalent in the Republic. So rebel music must be a source of embarrassment among nationalists themselves. But as the effect is to spare unionists, the question in Northern Ireland becomes - to paraphrase the old saying - if a bigot sings in the forest and nobody hears, does it make a sound?

The main lesson loyalists should draw from rebel music is just how many sectarian tunes you can get away with if you do not play them while marching in circles outside somebody else’s church, for example.

The clip Bryson posted from the West Belfast Festival is undoubtedly depressing - the crowd is young, the IRA chanting is moronic and for it to be led by individuals mature in age, is pathetic.

The apparent inculcation of hatred, even without the presence of its victims, goes very much against current norms.

But if loyalists want to make a culture war battle out of this, what would victory look like?

On parades and bonfires, republicans have sought dialogue with residents and restrictions on anti-social behaviour and pollution.

The only parallels for rebel music, beyond stopped sound drifting from concerts like toxic smoke, would be demands to moderate the lyrics - an almost laughably censorious pursuit, given that unionists are not hearing the lyrics anyway. If this was successful, the end result would be toning rebel music down enough to put it before a wider audience.

Is that what loyalists want?

newton@irishnews.com