Last night, the Irish National Women’s team had to issue an apology after its players were videoed in the dressing room singing the Celtic Symphony. I am appalled. Not by the action but that they felt the need to pander to the Goons Gallery by saying sorry for it.
What I want to say those women and the Irish FA which released the statement was to understand that this is a mad country filled with people who want to browbeat anyone with brown skin or whose opinions differ from “the mainstream.”
But then they should know this.
There are other songs that come readily to mind, one of them another Republican ballad called “The Men Behind The Wire,” about the Long Kesh internees.
“Not for them a judge or jury nor indeed a crime at all, being Irish means we’re guilty so we’re guilty one and all.”
This is the prevailing attitude.
So some of these Peepul were “offended”? They are offended by just about everything, but they have a particular aversion to the idea that the Irish should celebrate their own history.
They might want to forget that the political wing of the IRA sits atop the government in the Six Counties, just as the ANC did for years in South Africa. Remember how the world greeted Mandela when he walked out of his jail cell?
The Irish War of Independence and the armed struggle under the Provisionals are impossible to comprehend if you’re mentality was formed around ideas of empire and crown.
It always looks different to the oppressor than it does to the oppressed.
Those women sang a song which mentions the IRA. So what?
They’re the Irish national team and if the Irish national team can’t honour its national patriots, then we’re living in bad times, times which we might as well call fascistic and have done with it.
In their shoes I wouldn’t have apologised.
If people were offended well then maybe they’re the problem.
I love the hypocrisy of these people sometimes.
We’re supposed to disavow the Republican movement because “they killed civilians.” Not nearly as many as the British Army has, but every year the whole country is expected to honour them.
As if the debate around this isn’t filled with enough stupidity, Sevco’s orchestra of hate has piped up on behalf of Kyle Lafferty, seeking some moral equivalence between what he has done and faces a ban for – if the SFA can ever be bothered – and what these women did last night. I mean, it’s disgusting the way these people think.
The women celebrated their national heritage and history. Lafferty embraced his inner bigot. There is no equivalence, moral or otherwise, to be had here. What he did was racist. What they did was sing a nationalist song. To equate the two is not just desperate, it’s despicable and to even attempt it reveals an inbuilt racism all of its own.
Lafferty deserves the biggest ban the SFA can impose on him.
These clowns want to focus, again, on the word “fenian”; this is a debate that’s been had already and they were humiliated in it.
If they don’t understand the difference between their use of it and the way others use it I can’t put it any more bluntly than to say it’s the difference between a black comedian using the word nigger and some piece of shit shouting it through a loudhailer at a white supremacist rally. That’s what he did. He used the term in a racist context and anyone who tries to defend that is either crazy or simply trying to justify the bile in their own head.
The Irish women sang a song.
He disgraced himself.
One offended the easily offended, the other broke the law of the land.
Moral equivalence?
Don’t make me laugh.
Don’t often agree with you James on politics, but it’s in a foreign country, singing their songs, don’t have a problem with that.
james…
i live in republic…..you wouldn’t believe the out cry today on “newstalk” radio….
vast majority of callers…from the republic…ridiculing the team and demanding an apology…
as far as i’m concerned…the IRA played a major part in bringing about the peace-culminating in the good friday agreement…the british proxy government didn’t want to know about civil rights…and as usual…the only language the brits understood was the bullet and the bomb…thatcher’s government “wouldn’t negotiate with terrorists”….well they had to in the end…
does this mean “rule brittania” should be banned?….after all, the monarchy’s navy served as protection for the british slave ships to the america’s…..?
is that song not an affront to african american’s….????
fukn brit’s….
so much for some of the dick’s that read this blog and moan about keeping politics out of football….
Agreed i also live in Ireland and embarrassed by the hounding of these successful footballers by newspapers that have an agenda against Sinn Féin. I am not a supporter of Sinn Féin but the hypocrisy of some of my fellow citizens on this matter is depressing. Having grown up in Scotland i put up with sectarian chants and and anti Catholic remarks all the time. And when I stood as a Labour candidate in 1982 during the Pope’s visit the Protestant Crusade against the Papal visit stood against me because I had an Irish and therefore presumably a Catholic. Some of my fellow citizens have no idea what it can be like in the easily most bigoted wee country on the planet
A famous score was repeated tonight, one dear to all our hearts, 7-1 against the huns, oh how we laughed1
Irish players sing a song about an organisation who played a major role in winning independence and creating a republic in their country. Someone better tell the French, Americans et al! Only in wee racist Scotland is this a problem. I’m proud of those female footballers.
Irish players sang a song about an organisation who played a major role in winning independence and creating a republic in their country. Someone better tell the French, Americans et al! Only in wee racist Scotland is this a problem. I’m proud of those female footballers.
Very well put and so true
Comin from scottish-irish roots maself and agree the morons on the other side are the last that should be ‘offended’ by this, ah still don’t see the necessity in singin these songs in a stadium before durin or after a football match. No problem wi these songs in certain pubs, clubs etc. if that’s your thing. Curious tae know what all your reactions would be if say, it was a N.I. ladies team singin ‘up the uda’ or ‘uvf”. Just my opinion.
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Does the english national anthem about their queen (oops forgot) king – not have a line about having Scots to slay? The huns sing that don’t they? Did they play football tonight?