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Street ballads as historical evidencebased on Songs of Irish rebellion. Irish political street ballads and rebel songsG.D. Zimmerman, Four Courts Press, 2 nd ed. 2002 (first published 1966), 1-85182-629-7, pp 9-13Survival of political songs in IrelandIn most European countries, songs were inspired by political events, but few of them, if any, were retainedby tradition.Sometimes, however, particularly when a fight for independence had been a long and hard one coincidingwith a strong current of folk singing, a certain number of such songs or ballads survived. Ireland is oneof the countries where patriotic and political songs have been for a long time peculiarly popular, andperhaps influential.History and sociological documents - reflecting popular feelingsSuch songs gave utterance to the opinions and feelings of an important part of the Irish people inpolitical, social, and religious matters. They reflect two main trends:1. the struggle of the peasantry to take possession of the land; and2. the nationalist yearnings of the middle class, often intermingled with the efforts to obtain emancipation fromthe religious disabilities imposed on the majority.The habit of writing and singing such political songs in English developed in the cities in the eighteenthcentury, and later on in the countryside, when the English language began to replace Irish among thepeasantry. A number of these so-called rebel songs are still popular to-day.As with ballad makers throughout history, Irish ballad makers often relied heavily on sarcasm, the onlyweapon the oppressed had against the powerful. This was well illustrated in Irish anti-enlistment andanti-conscription ballads during World War I which specialised in lampooning politicians and authorityfigures who encouraged Irishmen to fight in ‘foreign wars’.PurposesThese songs, which were within the reach of the virtually illiterate, were not only1. an expression of the singers’ and listeners’ feelings or opinions but also2. a form of propaganda.‘Curious melting pot’When printers became interested in them, they became almost an industry. Their heterogeneous characteris evident: part literature, part folklore, they belong mostly to that less respected mass of printed materialof a journalistic type which was sold on the streets. They have borrowed elements from every side,sometimes reproducing them with strange alterations.1. Traditional folk patterns intermingle with forms and themes adapted from upper-class culture.2. Other features arose from the function that the street ballad had to fulfil, namely to exploit the popular tastefor stories and for sensationalism in appealing to basic emotions, in a simple text which was shouted on thepublic square.3. These ballads are also composite in that they are related both to the Gaelic Irish and the English folk orpopular traditions.They are thus a curious melting pot for different kinds of literature or subliterature.Common characteristicsThe popular political songs of Ireland can nevertheless be considered as a whole. With all their diversity,they share common characteristic features. Though they depended on current events for their subjectmatter,they show an ever-recurring body of themes and motifs and a fairly complex system of symbols.1. Stock situations are usually phrased in the same words.2. As for their heroes, even when they are named and stand for real people they tend to conform to types.Precision of date, place and other circumstance does not hide the fact that they are less individuals of fleshand blood than conventional characters.IiS, Irish history in song 1 & 2, page 14
The concept of ‘rebel song’ was vigorous enough for the Irish, but never clearly formulated; the audience,and the police too, could identify the genre in spite of all its formal and thematical variations.Historical significanceWhile the political street ballads had some influence on the attitude of the Irish people, and therefore onthe course of Irish history, we cannot say precisely to what extent.1. They were effect and cause at the same time: expressing strong collective emotions, they could profoundlyaffect the climate of opinion.2. They were effective in shaping a common memory of some events and in binding the Irish together.Promoting action, confirming attitudesIn every period before an expected rising, nationalist movements published violent songs which must havehelped to raise the public to a high pitch of excitement and to prepare the minds for coming disturbances.Through them the desire was born in some young men to conform to the popular idea of a national heroand perhaps to die a martyr’s death. More than in initiating action, however, they seem to have beeneffective in confirming people in their own already existing attitudes; they excited deeply only those whowere already convinced.Substitute for actionIt must be noted that the vogue of political songs might also have had a negative influence: it wassometimes denounced as an easy way to pose as a patriot and to pay lip service to the cause. On 19thFebruary 1848, for instance, John Mitchel’s revolutionary newspaper The United Irishman complained thattoo much energy had been wasted in songs. On 15th October 1881, the newspaper of the Land League,United Ireland, had to remind its readers that ‘singing songs is by no means the highest kind of service toIreland’. The famous Fenian O’Donovan Rossa, himself an occasional poet, observed that songs were asubstitute for action.Evidence of popular attitudesThese street ballads were a nearly collective expression of commonly held beliefs or prejudices and ofpopular aspirations, and we may regard them as a running commentary on Irish political life seen ‘frombelow’.Historical events are converted into two-dimensional pictures, foreshortened and distorted by partisanspirit; but the very point of view is in itself interesting. The anonymous authors knew instinctively that,to be successful, a text had to be as close as possible to what was commonly accepted and expected. Theballads are therefore one of the few means at our disposal to know the popular mind in a period duringwhich the body of the nation was profoundly transformed.On 14th January 1843, the editor of The Nation rightly noted: ‘We receive at least twenty songs every week,full of bitter complaints of the fallen condition of our country, or hopes of her speedy resurrection. Everyone of these we reckon of more value, as an evidence of the condition of the popular mind, than a dozenspeeches or a score of petitions.’The texts I have studied reflect the passage from a time when the Gaelic, Catholic country people playedvirtually no part in the political life of Ireland to the moment when their great-grandsons were in materialpossession of the land, and within reach of national independence.Disconcerting traitsThe simplest texts preserve original and often disconcerting traits. The ballads seem to have becomeimbued with a national character by passing through so many minds. We observe1. a strange blending of inconsistency and fixed ideas, of conservatism and of the will to protest;2. a disposition to anger or derision, but also to sentimentality;3. an admiration for riotous rakes and a taste for good fights, which barely conceals an all-pervading sadness;4. an alternation of verbosity and taciturnity;5. deep religious convictions among every creed, but often with more faith than charity; and6. an obsession with failure, and an apparent acceptance of misfortune, together with an irrepressible beliefthat the nation would rise again some day and regain the place it was supposed to have held in a formerage of glory.IiS, Irish history in song 1 & 2, page 15
Page 1 and 2: ‘Ireland in Schools’Irish histo
Page 3 and 4: Hunger02. The Famine Song (The Prat
Page 5 and 6: 04. The Fields of AthenryPatrick Sa
Page 7 and 8: 06. The Foggy Dew Written in 1919 b
Page 9 and 10: Conflict in Ireland - perspectives0
Page 11 and 12: 10. Through the Barricades Inspired
Page 13: ‘Ireland in Schools’Irish histo
Page 17 and 18: Irish history in song 1: songs of h
Page 19 and 20: A case study - from home rule to in
Page 21 and 22: The ballad maker has also recorded
Page 23 and 24: on Cromwell ironically appropriates

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