By way of Haaretz I learn of a pledge by 150 Irish artists not to perform in Israel. Most of the signatories are nonentities whose undertaking not to perform in Israel is about as meaningful as one by me not to run for president of Azerbaijan would be.
However, some of the signatories are artists of substance. One of them is the singer and musician Christy Moore. During the Northern Ireland conflict he was a consistent supporter of the “armed struggle”. In plain English that means he approved of and encouraged the murder of Protestants who were unwilling to abandon their British national identity. Killing members of the regular British army was difficult and dangerous because they were well protected and well trained. Ordinary Protestants, who were part- or full-time members of the security forces or, better still, were simply workers on their way home, were much easier to kill.
Of course Moore would say that Protestants weren’t blown to bits or riddled with bullets by the side of the road because they were Protestants, he would say that they were killed because they were members of the security forces or because they supported British rule in Northern Ireland and that as far as the brave members of the IRA were concerned they might have as well have been Zoroastrians.
Moore is widely regarded as being a man of the left. Exactly how that works beats me. One of the songs with which he is most closely associated is this charming ditty which speaks of the existence of a pure strain of Irish blood predating the arrival of the Vikings(!!). Tough luck for the pseudo-Irish like me who are not of pure Celtic extraction.
So you can’t fault Moore for inconsistency or class him as a political lightweight. The attempt to terrorize the Protestants of Northern Ireland into abandoning their nationality having failed, he’s now committed to supporting the international campaign to slap down uppity Jews.
Will Christy give back the royalties he got for “A Trip to Jerusalem”, from his great album “The Iron behind the Velvet” ?
He was very pro Israeli in 1978…
I don’t see anything particularly pro-Israel about the song.
http://www.christymoore.com/lyrics_detail.php?id=188
Very interesting - Chrity dropped a whole verse from his site:
http://www.mysongbook.de/msb/songs/t/triptoje.html
“When the promised land came into sight
The customs man gave me a fright
How much money have you got with you Joe
I bluffed and said fifty pounds or so
He said, Shalom and I said, Good day
Grabbed my gear got fast away
Down to the desert then I went
Digging up history living in a tent”
Christie even said: “Joe went to fight in the Six Day War and wrote this song to prove he’d been there. Don’t know if he ever got there. (Christy Moore Song Book 64)”
To me - This song shows how popular Israel was with Christie & his social circle back in the 60-70s.
I wonder how he would react if one of his children would decide to volunteer in a Kibbutz
@an fear beg. Thanks for pointing this out, very interesting indeed.
The ‘Joe’ that Moore refers to as the author of ‘The Trip to Jerusalem’ is Joe Dolan from Galway, one of the founders of the seminal 60s Irish folk band Sweeney’s Men. Dolan had visited Israel before 1967. Early that year the band had its first chart hit in Ireland, but when the Six Day War broke out, Dolan announced that he was off to fight for Israel. The accepted story afterwards was that the war had ended by the time he reached the Middle East. He seems to have stayed on for several months, was replaced in the group and does not appear to have performed ever again. He died in 2008 at the age of 66.
A co-founder with Dolan of Sweeney’s Men, Andy Irvine, is among the 150 signatories of the new boycott call. Irvine is a pleasing musician with a few decent songs to his credit but has the irritating habit of interspersing his numbers on stage with spoken discourses on his political philosophy, which hasn’t changed in 40 years and begins and ends with Woody Guthrie. A lovely example of why the political views of musicians need not be taken seriously.
Moore, however, because of his popularity has done much more harm with his romanticisation of the ‘armed struggle’ in NI. He always managed to escape the censure visited on the much more musically crude Wolfe Tones (christened by some ‘the musical wing of the IRA’ but, like their weapons, since decommissioned). Eamonn is right about the obnoxious consistency he has shown over the years and it’s no surprise that he’s gone where most Sinn Feiners have gone to find new targets for their hate — to bolster the ranks of the Palestinian Solidarity campaign.
Irvine, Moore and another signatory, Donal Lunny, were all members of the hugely popular folk band Planxty in the 70s and 80s.
@Diarmaid That Joe Dolan was from Galway? I didn’t know. Excellent comment
Sad to hear that Irvine and Lunny have gone in for this. Not surprised about Moore. When I was a lot younger I used to sing along with Moore’s Viva La Qunita Brigada, until years on I noticed this bit in the lyrics:
“This song is a tribute to Frank Ryan, Kit Conway and Dinny Coady too. Peter Daly, Charlie Regan and Hugh Bonar, Though many died I can but name a few.”
Frank Ryan gor sprung from prison in Spain with the connivance of Franco’s fascists in order to proceed to Germany where he spent the war working for the Nazis in their military intelligence operations. All in the cause of Irish republicanism, of course. . .