Re: [acornlive] (Fwd) WHY2K?

Connemarah@aol.com (acornlive@dublinwriters.org)
Thu, 23 Mar 2000 09:12:22 EST

John,
I was involved in a Summer Session at Boston College last year, Known at 
Gaelic Roots Week.  There, I took a seminar called Irish poetry, tales and 
music, and someone in my class asked the instructor, who was a Dublin Man, 
your exact question.  He smiled, and said that they were right, and it was 
for two reasons:
(anyone can disagree with me here, I'm just repeating information)
1.  People who have begun to prosper tend to think a lot of the old days, and 
during the famine and the troubles, which were hard, there were English laws 
which forbade them to speak about such hardships, and so they put these 
poetry and song to music...which were outlawed.  However, after being freed 
from England, The people were able to finally express their songs, and their 
words, and they were full of tales of war, famine, trouble, drinking fathers, 
etc....these songs were never able to be expressed before.
2.  In recent times, there have been a lot of "war" songs as a result of the 
problems in the North...Irish tend to sing or write about things that trouble 
them, and this happens to come up a lot.  I have heard songs of rebellion and 
insurrection about the Orange Men, the Fenian Men, and even other ancient 
warriors whose names I can't spell :)

I hope this helps...and that I don't sound too pridefull for an American 
girl...
-Conne

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