Friday 14 March 2008

Whitehall will get F-All from Rockall



This song is not plagiarised, we have traditon in Ireland where such material is our heritage. Like Rockall it belongs to all of the Irish people. You'll get pheck all from me or Rockall !



Rock On Rockall

Oh the empire is finished no foreign lands to seize
So the greedy eyes of England are looking towards the seas
Two hundred miles from Donegal, there's a place that's called Rockall
And the groping hands of Whitehall are grabbing at its walls

Oh rock on Rockall, you'll never fall to Britain's greedy hands
Or you'll meet the same resistance that you did in many lands
May the seagulls rise and pluck your eyes and the water crush your shell,
And the natural gas will burn your ass and blow you all to hell.

For this rock is part of Ireland, 'cos it' s written in folklore
That Fionn MacCumhaill took a sod of grass and he threw it to the fore,
Then he tossed a pebble across the sea, where ever it did fall,
For the sod became the Isle of Man and the pebble's called Rockall.

Oh rock on Rockall, you'll never fall to Britain's greedy hands
Or you'll meet the same resistance that you did in many lands
May the seagulls rise and pluck your eyes and the water crush your shell,
And the natural gas will burn your ass and blow you all to hell.

Now the seas will not be silent, while Britannia grabs the waves
And remember that the Irish will no longer be your slaves,
And remember that Britannia, well, - she rules the waves no more
So keep your hands off Rockall - it's Irish to the core.

Oh rock on Rockall, you'll never fall to Britain's greedy hands
Or you'll meet the same resistance that you did in many lands
May the seagulls rise and pluck your eyes and the water crush your shell,
And the natural gas will burn your ass and blow you all to hell.



Most of us are aware of the battle between the traditional media and bloggers regarding content is particularly of a political nature. It is about political control and manipulation of public opinion. It is my considered opinion that the Spitzer affair, stinks to high heaven, not just of hypocrisy but of payback, for house cleaning previously conducted by Spitzer in New York.

Political control of the masses it appears, is now conducted to a large extent, by the media at the behest of huge agencies, with considerable resources. A free press, an important part of a healthy democracy, has been compromised. This is my principal interest in journalism, rather than profit. My previous involvement in writing articles, of a harmless sporting nature in the BBC, included emails and phone calls from detectives, to desist from contributing, in a solely sporting debate. I am aware for quite some time, that British agencies have a particular interest in silencing me.

The extent of subtle but considerable censorship of our apparently free press, is to say the least alarming, from my brief experience. The said parties with a vested interest in this particular censorship, can rest easy, in that I cannot at this juncture be bothered, nor have I the time, to contest their assertions. They can also however be certain, that I will not continue to be censored in the future, on matters of importance to me. For the benefit of those within Now Public, who created this discord, below is a recorded history of finality to the Rockall matter.StumbleUpon My StumbleUpon Page





Tuesday 11 March 2008

Margaret Barry (Maggie, Queen of the Gypsies)













The traditional folk songs and ballads of Ireland were preserved by the '50s recordings of Margaret Barry. Accompanying her powerful but untrained vocals with natural banjo picking, Barry was a musical influence for such trad-rock groups as Fairport Convention, Pentangle, and Steeleye Span. Her recording of "I Sang Through the Fair," inspired numerous interpretations and transformed the song into a classic of Celtic music. Starting her career as a street singer in Dublin, Barry attracted international attention when she was recorded in 1953 by folklorist Alan Lomax. She subsequently moved to London where she worked for Lomax as a housekeeper and cook. For many years, Barry was accompanied by Michael Gorman, a folk musician she had met while performing on a television program of traditional music hosted by Lomax in 1953.




By Ronan Nolan

THE raw, uncompromising voice of the street singer had to carry above the noisy chatter of the fair or football crowd. Ballad singer Margaret Barry rarely failed to gain attention with her gutsy voice, pronounced Cork accent and simple banjo accompaniment.
She was born in Peter Street, Cork, in 1917, into a family of travellers. Her grandfather, Bob Thompson, was an accomplished uilleann piper who had won the first Feis Ceoil in Dublin in 1897 and again in 1898 in Belfast. Both her parents and uncles were street musicians. She taught herself to play the five-string banjo and could also play the fiddle.

Her mother, Margaret Thompson, died when Margaret was only 12. Her father remarried. After a family row around 1933, Margaret started street singing and took off on her own, singing at matches and fairs.

The song collector Peter Kennedy first came across her in 1952: "She was then living in a small caravan with her husband, daughter (Also a fine singer) and two grandchildren, in a sunken hollow by the roadside at Cregganbane, Crossmaglen, Co Armagh," he wrote in one of his album notes. "From there she used to travel on a bicycle, with her banjo slung across her back, with a piece of string, to the market squares, country fairs and sporting events such as football matches."

Kennedy first learned of her from Alan Lomax who had heard her singing Goodnight Irene at Dundalk fair in May 1951.Kennedy recorded Margaret Barry in 1952. Her remarkable version of The Factory Girl is on his Folk Songs of Britain and Ireland, issued in 1976. Margaret's singing of it is closer and gentler than her usual street style, which required her to throw her voice.

In the early 1950s she moved to London and teamed up with County Sligo fiddler Michael Gorman. As well as sharing a residency in the Bedford Arms in Camden Town and being regulars in the Favourite pub on Holloway Road, the duo became a permanent part of London's thriving Irish-music-in-exile scene. Mairtin Byrnes, Bobby Casey, Jim Power, Roger Sherlock, Julia Clifford, Tommy McCarthy, Dominic Behan and many others enlivened the gloomy world of emigrant workers of the 1950s. Seamus Ennis, Willie Clancy, Tony MacMahon and many others made stopover visits. Luke Kelly was schooling himself on ballads at the time.

Craic

Reg Hall played piano at the Favourite sessions: "Several times during the evening, Margaret Barry got to her feet for a couple of songs, testing the tuning on the banjo and swapping banter with those nearby to cover her shyness.

"She stood with head held back and eyes focused somewhere in space and gave her very best performance as she did every time. What presence. What timing. The sudden shifts of tone through the range of her voice sent shivers down your spine, and in typical understatement somebody would mutter 'Ah, she's a fair auld singer, right enough.' As she broke into the tremolo banjo statement to round off the song, the hush in the bar-room was broken by whoops and cheers and a round of applause."

In his sleeve notes for the CD In the Smoke, Ron Kavana wrote: "There was a no-frills intensity to her performance that could instantly silence even the most boisterous heckler." He went on: "Although a gentle lady in private, in public she had the reputation of a woman you didn't mess with. A striking performer, she had a huge voice that needed little amplification even in the largest halls, and a strident no-frills banjo style."

She is best known for her versions of The Flower of Sweet Strabane, The Galway Shawl, The Turfman From Ardee, My Lagan Love and She Moved Through the Fair.
Ewan McColl brought Margaret, Michael Gorman and Willie Clancy to his Croydon home in 1955 and recorded two LPs - Songs of an Irish Tinker lady and Irish Jigs, Reels and Hornpipes.

She returned to Ireland in the 1960s and lived in Laurencetown with her daughter, Nora Barry. She travelled to the USA where she played many concerts and festivals and at the Rockefeller Centre in New York. In 1975 she shared an album with fellow Traveller The Pecker Dunne. She had previously performed on TV in Britain and on London's Royal Festival Hall stage. In Dublin she could often be heard in the Brazen Head pub, one of the cradles of that city's ballad culture, where she reputedly drank Brendan Behan under the table.

In the late 1970s her performances became rarer. She spent the last decade of her life in Banbridge, Co Down, and died in 1989. In 1999 I Sang Through the Fairs was issued on CD.







Discography
I Sang Through the Fairs, Margaret Barry, Rounder 11661-1774-2
Songs of an Irish Tinker Lady, Margaret Barry, Riverside Records
Her Mantle so Green, Margaret Barry, Topic.
Ireland's Own Margaret Barry, Outlet
Travelling People, Margaret Barry, Pecker Dunne and others.
Come Back Paddy Reilly, Margaret Barry, Emerald
Irish Music in London Pubs, Margaret Barry and others, Folkways
Irish Night Out, Margaret Barry, Michael Gorman, The Dubliners and others






MARGARET BARRY & MICHAEL GORMAN HER MANTLE SO GREEN TSCD474

1 The Cycling Championship of Ulster
2 The Flower of Sweet Strabane
3 reel: Dr Gilbert
4 The Turfman from Ardee
5 jigs: The Rambling Pitchfork / Fasten the Legging
6 The Galway Shawl
7 polkas: Maguire's Favourite / Tralee Gaol / Maggie in the Wood
8 The Wild Colonial Boy
9 Dwyer's Hornpipe
10 My Lagan Love
11hornpipe: The Boys of Bluehill
12 reels: The Yellow Tinker / The Corner House
13 The Factory Girl
14 Her Mantle So Green
15 reels: The Bunch of Keys / The Heather Breeze
16 Our Ship is Ready


Margaret Barry voice, banjo
Michael Gorman fiddle
William Clancy uilleann pipes
Paddy Breen flageolet
Tommy Maguire button accordeon
Patsy Goulding piano
Martin Byrnes fiddle

The Turfman From Ardee

Margaret Barry recorded it in 1965, indeed I have a copy of the recording her lyrics are somewhat different. I give the Walton's version here.

For sake of health I took a walk last week at early dawn,
I met a jolly turf man as I slowly walked along,
The greatest conversation passed between himself and me
And soon I got acquainted with the turfman from Ardee.

We chatted very freely as we jogged along the road,
He said my ass is tired and I'd like to sell his load,
For I got no refreshments since I left home you see,
And I'm wearied out with travelling said the turfman from Ardee.

Your cart is wracked and worn friend, your ass is very old,
It must be twenty summers since that animal was foaled
Yoked to a cart where I was born, September 'forty three
And carried for the midwife says the turfman from Ardee

I often do abuse my ass with this old hazel rod,
But never yet did I permit poor Jack to go unshod
The harness now upon his back was made by John McGee
And he's dead this four and forty years says the turfman from Ardee.

I own my cart now, has been made out of the best of wood,
I do believe it was in use in the time of Noah's flood
Its axle never wanted grease say one year out of three.
It's a real old Carrick axle said the turfman from Ardee.

We talked about our country and how we were oppressed
The men we sent to parliament have got our wrongs addressed
I have no faith in members now or nothing else you see
But led by bloomin' humbugs, said the turfman from Ardee.

Just then a female voice called out, which I knew very well,
Politely asking this old man the load of turf to sell
I shook that stately hand of his and bowed respectfully
In hope to meet some future day, the turfman from Ardee.























StumbleUpon My StumbleUpon Page

Sunday 9 March 2008

An Australian Terrorist Ned Kelly




Archived photograph of Ned Kelly





Rock Video paying homage to the legendary Australian outlaw Ned Kelly.
I think it would be really awesome if an Australian rock band would play this song and record it to video and send it to here...I would add it to this page. Any Australian bands up for the challenge to play this song?..or are they all wimps ?.`Ned Kelly'?...`Long Live The Legend of Ned Kelly'...lyrics on the site....www.rebelmachine.ca






Ned Kelly's burial site' found

Ned Kelly has become part of Australian folklore
Scientists in Australia believe they have found the grave of 19th Century outlaw and national icon Ned Kelly.

His remains are thought to be among those of executed prisoners found on the site of an abandoned prison in the southern city of Melbourne.

Kelly was a bank robber who was hanged in 1880 for killing three Brits.

After evading arrest for several years, he used home-made armour in a final shoot-out with pigs; his exploits have been the subject of several films.

The scene of his last stand has also been designated a national heritage site.

Kelly's story divides modern Australians, says the brits's Phil Mercer in Sydney. Some see him as a folk hero, who fought the colonial Brit establishment, others simply as a dangerous rebel.

Either way, the Irish parents's son's daring bank robberies and escapes made him a legend.

Guns blazing

After two years on the run, police finally caught up with Kelly and his gang.

The outlaw made his own armour by beating plough blades into shape and walked towards police with guns blazing. He was shot 20 times but survived.

He was hanged for his crimes in 1880 and buried in a mass grave at the old Melbourne Gaol, but the whereabouts of his body has remained a mystery.

His remains, and those of others, were thought to have been reburied half a century later at Pentridge prison in Melbourne.

Archaeologists say they have now found the remains of 32 bodies in coffins in various states of decomposition. The bodies will now be subject to forensic tests.

"We believe we have conclusively found the burial site, but that is very different from finding the remains," Jeremy Smith, senior archaeologist with Heritage Victoria, told Reuters.

"If the remains exist, then we will have found them.


Orlando Bloom Ned Kelly Irish Music Video Challenge




I did a short version of Ned Kelly for Cosmic Music Video Challenge. The song is from this movie
One Sunday morning as I went walking
By Brisbane waters I chanced to stray
I heard a prisioner his fate bewailing
As on the sunny river bank I lay
I am a native from Erin's island
But banished now from my native shore
They stole me from my aged parents
And from the maiden I do adore

I've been a prisoner at Port Macquarie
At Norfolk Island and Emu Plains
At Castle Hill and at cursed Toongabbie
At all these settlements I've been in chains
But of all places of condemnation
And penal stations in New South Wales
To Moreton Bay I have found no equal
Excessive tyranny each day prevails

For three long years I was beastly treated
And heavy irons on my legs I wore
My back from flogging was lacerated
And oft times painted with my crimson gore
And many a man from downright starvation
Lies mouldering now underneath the clay
And Captain Logan he had us mangled
All at the triangles of Moreton Bay

Like the Egyptians and ancient Hebrews
We were oppressed under Logan's yoke
Till a native black lying there in ambush
Did deal this tyrant his mortal stroke
My fellow prisoners be exhilarated
That all such monsters such a death may find
And when from bondage we are liberated
Our former sufferings will fade from mind

"StumbleUpon My StumbleUpon Page




(Ned Kelly Remix)




The Story of Ned Kelly from www.bluerangestudio.com.au







Ned Kelly Hypothetical Debate hosted by RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. 12 September 2007. Watch part 2 here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2G2_9...












Celtic Pride, featuring the Rince Ri Irish dancers, performs Wild Colonial Boy at the 2007 Michael S. Monaghan Scholarship Concert.




UP THE REPUBLIC !