Wolfe Tone Whingers Should Be Careful What They Wish For
Three weeks before they played at Electric Picnic, the Wolfe Tones played another huge Irish gig which was attended by upwards of 10,000 people. As happened at Electric Picnic, many of those in attendance sang along with the Wolfe Tones as they belted out their favourite rebel songs and republican ballads.
The following morning there was footage aplenty of this first Wolfe Tones gig on social media, including videos of a vast sea of people singing ‘Ooh, aah, up the ‘Ra’ - the chorus line of Celtic Symphony, a Wolfe Tones anthem that was released in 1989 to mark the centenary of Glasgow Celtic Football Club being founded.
For those who were curious, these videos provided a sneak peak of what the Electric Picnic gig was going to look and sound like. To all intents and purposes the two gigs were carbon copies of each other - huge crowds, lots of tricolours, mass audience participation and a generous dose of ‘Ooh, aah, up the ‘RA’.
The big difference between these two gigs wasn’t what actually happened at them, but where they happened and the establishment’s reaction to them.
The Ballad of Joe McDonnell is sung by thousands at the Wolfe Tones gig in Belfast on August 13th. (Credit - Chris Scott Media, YouTube).
The first gig took place in West Belfast on the final night of the hugely successful Féile 2023 festival. In the days that followed there was some criticism of the gig from the usual suspects including unionist politicians and most notably, RTE’s Joe Duffy. Criticism, but of a predictable, well-rehearsed and oft-aired type. Full of faux shock and outrage at republicans singing republican songs in republican West Belfast.
The criticism that followed the Wolfe Tones gig in West Belfast was as nothing when compared to the frenzied, hysterical, apocalyptic reaction to the same band’s performance at Electric Picnic. And this time there was nothing fake about the outrage that spewed from politicians, print journalists, broadcasters and other establishment talking heads.
For them it was personal. This was Electric Picnic in Co. Laois, not some dodgy republican festival in West Belfast. Electric Picnic - the premier festival of the Irish summer, a showcase of progressive, modern, trendy, middle-class Ireland. The sort of people that went to Electric Picnic were ‘their people’.
And yet here they were, thousands upon thousands of ‘their people’ singing rebel songs, republican ballads and the dreaded ‘Ooh, aah, up the ‘RA’.
The tent at Electric Picnic was unable to host the many thousands of people who wanted to see the Wolfe Tones perform at Electric Picnic on September 3rd.
The Wolfe Tones had barely put their guitars and banjos down before the establishment had their B52s in the air and en route to blanket bomb the Irish people with moral indignation and ‘explanations’ for the outrageous scenes that had emerged from Stradbally. Monday couldn’t come quick enough.
Joe Duffy was back on the job for RTÉ. The Irish Independent and Belfast Telegraph let Sarah Carey take the lead. The Irish Times dug Bertie Ahern up for the occasion. And just about everyone in Newstalk was doubling-down on the Wolfe Tones.
Among the tidal wave of criticism one common theme quickly emerged - the crowd at Electric Picnic was made up of young southerners who didn’t understand the true nature of the conflict in the Six Counties. Thus age and geography provided convenient explanations for their errant behaviour. They weren’t bad kids. They just hadn’t lived through the conflict like Joe Duffy, Sarah Carey and Bertie Ahern.
Despite the assertions of Sarah Carey, the crowd at Electric Picnic didn’t just come to sing ‘Ooh aah up the ‘RA’. They came to passionately sing dozens of rebel songs, including ‘Grace’ in memory of Grace and Joseph Plunkett. (Credit - Robert Gough Media, YouTube).
Ahern spelled it out when he called on young people to ‘educate’ themselves on the ‘facts of what happened during the troubles’. What Ahern and his ilk actually mean is that young people should accept the establishment’s version of what happened during ‘the troubles’ without question.
They hanker back to a time before social media, to the era of Section 31, to the witch hunts for republican ‘fellow travellers’ in RTÉ and the rabid anti-republicanism of the private corporate media. To a time when the British and Irish establishments had effective control of information and narratives emerging from the Six Counties.
But those days are gone and gone forever. The youth of today have access to far more information about the conflict than their parents had when the conflict was actually raging. In the twenty-five years that have passed since the Good Friday Agreement, much that was hidden about Britain’s dirty war in Ireland has been brought into the light.
And most importantly the stories of the many victims of British state violence have now been heard in a way that was impossible during the black days of intensive censorship.
The footage that triggered a meltdown across the southern political establishment. Thousands of young people singing ‘Ooh, ahh, up the ‘RA’ at Electric Picnic on September 3rd. (Credit - Robert Gough Media, YouTube).
The young, and not-so-young, people of Ireland now have access to a wealth of biographies, history books, documentaries, podcasts, inquiry reports and other sources of information that have been published since the Good Friday Agreement.
They can now learn about the Great Abandonment of 1921, when the southern political establishment turned their backs on 400,000 nationalists and republicans in the Six Counties, leaving them to endure life as second-class citizens in an Orange state.
They can learn about the decades of sectarian discrimination and murderous pogroms that were inflicted on nationalist/republican communities in the Six Counties from the time of partition until the late 1960s.
They can learn about the murderous response of the Orange state to the civil rights movement that emerged in the late 1960s - a civil rights campaign that sought not constitutional change but basic civil rights within the British state.
They can learn about Bloody Sunday, the Ballymurphy massacre and the many other incidents where Britain’s official death squads murdered innocent Irish civilians. And how the British government blackened the names of their victims and denied all wrong-doing until long after the Good Friday Agreement.
The Civil Rights march in Derry before it was attacked by British paratroopers on a day that would become known around the world as Bloody Sunday. It took the British government forty years to admit wrong-doing in this most blatant and documented incident of mass state murder.
They can learn about the thousands of civilians who were maimed and murdered by unionist death squads that were controlled, armed and directed by the British state. And how it took decades of campaigning by the relatives of the dead to get the first, limited, official recognition of collusion between the British state and its unofficial death squads.
They can learn, through recently published biographies and first-hand accounts, about the young people who joined the armed republican resistance to British rule. About the factors that motivated them to take up weapons and their perspective of the battles that they fought on the streets and in the jails.
They can learn how Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the wider political establishment did far worse than stand idly by while the civil rights movement was crushed and the British government unleashed their murder squads on the nationalist/republican community.
The dogs on the streets of the Six Counties knew that collusion between British forces and unionist death squads was widespread throughout the entire conflict, but it is only in recent years that documented, undeniable proof of collusion has emerged.
They can learn about the role that RTÉ, The Irish Times, Irish Independent and other media outlets played during the conflict. About the official state censorship of Section 31 and the more insidious unregulated climate of censorship that was rampant among the the self-declared defenders of free speech.
Irish republicans have nothing to fear from young people learning about the most recent phase of conflict. The actions of republicans during the conflict have been well documented and publicised for decades. People may disagree, and many do, with the actions of the IRA and other armed groups, but the facts of the actions committed by those armed republican groups is not in dispute.
As recently as this week, Westminster passed the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill - legislation that provides an amnesty to the British military, police and unofficial death squads. It will also limit the scope of existing inquests into conflict deaths and prevent the establishment of new inquests, civil cases and other investigations that would reveal more information about Britain’s dirty war in Ireland. This new legislation seeks to bury the truth about the dirty war forever.
It is the British state and their allies in Ireland who have the most to lose from young people learning about the Orange state and the conflict that engulfed that state from the late 1960s to the mid 1990s. The more young people learn about their own history, the better. Bertie Ahern and the other Wolfe Tone whingers should be careful what they wish for.