The Evolution, Themes, and Paradoxes of Irish Rebel Songs | Verity Limond

The Evolution, Themes, and Paradoxes of Irish Rebel Songs

By Verity Limond

‘The words of the bards come down the centuries to us’ – Patrick Pearse [1879-1916]

Ireland’s long and difficult relationship with Britain is littered with both violent rebellions and peaceful protests motivated by political and religious concerns. That much is well-known, but what is perhaps less often appreciated is that music and song have consistently been important in Ireland’s conflicts with its larger neighbour, acting as the expression of political ambitions and collective historical memory of oppression. Irish rebel songs are generally ballads and form a sub-genre of Irish folk music, using the same techniques and instruments but with distinctive subject matter, and are unequivocally associated with its national struggle. Irish rebel songs and nationalist/ republican sentiments became co-constituting to a large degree, with songs encouraging nationalist activities but also being shaped and determined by those same violent events. Song lyrics have dealt with contentious subjects such as rebellion, political and religious martyrdom, remembrance, and recruitment to the cause of Irish nationalism for an assumed young male audience.

Modern Irish republicanism has its origins in the late eighteenth century, when it was inspired by more established republican movements elsewhere in Europe. The Irish Rebellion of 1798 was ill-fated but became a reference point for later republicans, partly because the revolt provided material for rebel songs. ‘The Memory of the Dead’ by John Kells Ingram [1823-1907], published as a poem in 1843 and set to music in 1845, famously opens:

‘Who fears to speak of Ninety-Eight?

Who blushes at the name?

When cowards mock the patriot’s fate

Who hangs his head for shame?’ (John Kells Ingram, 1842) The patriot in this song stands for figures involved in the rebellion such as Theobald Wolfe Tone [1763-1798], who committed suicide while under arrest after the uprising failed, and Lord Edward Fitzgerald [1763-1798], who was shot while being arrested before it began. More obliquely, it may also be understood to encompass the subsequent and even less successful 1803 insurrection organised by Robert Emmet [1778-1803] in response to the 1801 Act of Union. The Act of Union had led to the submerging of the Irish legislature into a union parliament in London and was the most tangible outcome of the rebellion of 1798. The song laments those who forgot or dismissed the early attempts at self-determination. Paradoxically, however, the popularity of ‘The Memory of the Dead’ throughout the nineteenth century suggests that there were strong residual sympathies for the nationalist cause. ‘The Memory of the Dead’ praises republicans of the past and condemns people of the time for not sharing the same ardour, but it lacks the visceral quality of other ballads that recount the events of 1798, such as ‘Dunlavin Green’, which emotively depicts the execution of 36 participants in the failed rebellion.

The nineteenth century in Ireland saw a cultural re-awakening that paralleled romantic national political movements elsewhere in Europe, though patriotic Irish songs struggled between celebrating the physical-force approach of 1798 and allowing it to drift into hallowed memory in favour of the peaceful parliamentary nationalism advocated by figures such as Daniel O’Connell [1775-1847] and Charles Stewart Parnell [1846-1891]. Later in the nineteenth century, rebel songs took on a distinctly romantic quality that echoed the concerns of national movements with tradition, heritage, and culture. This change in sentiment occurred on the back of the belief that some progress had been made in the form of Catholic Emancipation (the removal of socio-cultural restrictions based on adherence to Catholicism) in 1829, principally campaigned for by O’Connell. In this way, overtly political rebel songs could still be regarded as expressions of nationalist aspirations, while the performance of other, more romantic compositions with similar themes was acceptable at charity and middle-class concerts by the mid-nineteenth century.

Many of the popular rebel songs of the midnineteenth century were published in the newspaper The Nation, which was launched in 1842 as the official publication of the Young Ireland movement. The Nation concerned itself with ballads because they were perceived to be the original poetry of the people, something providing continuity from the past through to the present and future. After the Young Ireland rebellion of 1848 failed, and despite the decline of The Nation, rebel songs were important for filling the hiatus between 1848 and the formation of the Irish Volunteers in 1913. By this point, the romantic nationalism of the nineteenth century had been replaced by overtly militant tunes, reflecting the serious revival of aspirations to armed rebellion. The 1916 Easter Rising was the next major republican act

that both provided material for new rebel songs, such as ‘The Foggy Dew’, and cemented the popularity of existing works, most obviously ‘The Soldier’s Song’.

Having charted the moments at which new generations of rebel songs arose, I will now consider their significance. I have already noted two paradoxes: these songs were not formally or legally supressed, and they appealed both to politically committed, even violent, nationalists and to romantic cultural nationalists. But there are further paradoxes that can be uncovered. Even the relationship between songwriters and rebels was complex, with writers of rebel songs committed to the cause in varying degrees. Sometimes the soldier and the songsmith were one and the same, but at other times songwriters were meeting apolitical commercial demand for romantic nationalist ballads rather than advocating for serious political commitment to the cause.

Rebel songs were widely circulated among working class audiences both in Ireland and abroad, and despite their violent associations, they were seen as more positive depictions of Ireland that counteracted national stereotypes. Many songs have strong religious overtones, but there is contradiction between those songs that remember deceased nationalists as martyrs, such as ‘God Save Ireland’ (1867), which immortalises three Irish Fenians who were publicly executed, and those that represent nationalist fighters as reborn and transcending death. One thing remains consistent throughout the contradictions, however: the protagonists and subjects of such songs. These were exclusively male, with a few notable exceptions such as ‘The Ballad of Ann Flood’ whose female narrator murders a British soldier who attempts to sexually assault a girl. Rebel songs were meant as a call-to-arms to young Irish men, while women were merely passive onlookers, especially once the trope of the grieving republican mother became firmly established by the mid-nineteenth century.

Moving forward in time, the modern uses of these songs raise questions about how to remember the history of these conflicts. Rebel songs’ meanings and contexts of production are generally more complex than twenty-first-century consumers may be aware. The modern versions that live on as covers by bands including The Wolfe Tones are particularly popular among diaspora communities in the USA and Scotland and, through audience ‘add-ins’, often become more simplistic, explicitly violent, or sectarian than in their original forms. The classic example that endures in Irish twenty-firstcentury popular culture and politics is ‘The Soldier’s Song’ (called Amhrán na bhFiann in Irish), which began life as a rebel song celebrating violent conflict and is now the national anthem. Written sometime in the early twentieth century by Peadar Kearney [1883-1942], with music by Patrick Heeney [18811911], ‘The Soldier’s Song’ celebrates Gaelic Ireland’s participation in violent conflict against ‘Saxon’ (i.e. Norman/English/British) invaders. After enjoying popularity as a marching song for the Irish Volunteers before and during the 1916 Rising and subsequently as the anthem of the Sinn Féin political party, it was adopted as the national anthem despite criticism of its militaristic lyrics.

‘Tonight we man the bearna bhaoil [gap of danger]

In Erin’s cause, come woe or weal, ’Mid cannons’ roar and rifles’ peal,

We’ll chant a soldier’s song.’ (Peader Kearney, c. 1909) Although originally written in English, since 1926 it has been used in its Irish translation by Liam Ó Rinn [1886-1943]. Given that few Irish people speak the language to any meaningful degree, this perhaps has the effect of sanitising it and making it more acceptable for official purposes, as people are not conscious of its militant message while singing it.

Irish rebel songs have played a prominent role in nationalism and republicanism since early attempts at rebellion. Although intertwined with the movement as a whole, rebel ballads have a co-constituting role with armed nationalism. The themes of political and religious martyrdom or rebirth were important in increasing public interest in the ideals of nationalism, while events such as rebellions and executions provided the content for ballads throughout the nineteenth century. The importance of rebel songs to the nationalist movement is demonstrated by the continuity of production and consumption from the early nineteenth century to the present day, when republican music continues to play a part in shaping attitudes and influencing Anglo-Irish relations.