In the beginning months of 2016, I was undertaking intense physical training as part of my own personal, education. The training included working with bar bells and running. The drudgery of running has always gotten to me something fierce, so I would often listen to music or audiobooks while I ran mile after mile. I was listening to I don't even remember what, but it must have been internet radio, because some how I ended up listening to celtic music. It was pretty good. Music without lyrics have aways seemed less significant to me, but there is always something manly about a good bagpipe solo. I stumbled into a new kind of music. Thereon though, I got more in depth than the broad term of "Celtic."
Two artists stood out to me specifically: "Mick Maloney" author of McNally's Row of Flats and the "Wolfe Tones." Both artists sang about deeper things than rolling emerald hills, which most Irish music is wont to do, but instead they sang of deep and weighty maters. Here is the Lyrics and the song imbedded from the former. ponder the lyrics carefully:
"Three years ago this very day we went to Governors Isle
For to stand against the cannon in true military style
Seventeen American dollars each month we'd surely get
For to carry a gun and a bayonet with regimental step
We had a choice of going to the army or to jail
Oh it's up the Hudson River with a copper take a sail
Oh we puckered up our courage and with bravery we did go
Oh we cursed the day we went away with the Regular Army O
There was Sergeant John McCaffery and Captain Donahue
Oh they made us march and toe the mark in gallant company Q
Well the drums would roll upon me soul this is the style we go
Forty miles a day on beans and hay in the Regular Army O
The boys along the street cry out "soldier will you work"
We'd ship into the Navy for to plow the raging seas
But cold water, sure, we couldn't endure. Twould never agree with me
We'd join the politicians and we know we'd be well fed
Oh we sleep no more upon the ground but in a feather bed
And if a war it should break out, they call on us to go
We'll get Italian substitutes in the Regular Army O
There was Sergeant John McCaffery and Captain Donahue
Oh they made us march and toe the mark in gallant company Q
Well the drums would roll upon me soul this is the style we go
Forty miles a day on beans and hay in the Regular Army O
With cords upon our heels me boys and bunions on our toes
From lugging the gun in the red hot sun with freckles on our nose
England tells us grenediers, France wears its zu zus
The USA never changes they say but always wears the blues
When we are out to pomperade our muskets must be bright
Or they'll slap us in the guardhouse to pass away the night
And when we want a furlough to the colonel we do go
Go to bed and wait till you're dead in the Regular Army O
There was Sergeant John McCaffery and Captain Donahue
Oh they made us march and toe the mark in gallant company Q
Well the drums would roll upon me soul this is the style we go
Forty miles a day on beans and hay in the Regular Army O"
https://genius.com/Mick-moloney-the-regular-army-o-lyrics
This song as drawn from the experiences of enlisted men during the civil war period and aftermath. Governors Isle refers to a military installation across the water from where the Statue of Liberty would eventually go. Now Governor's Island is a national park. One can go and see the canons the men stood up against. At Fort Jay upon the island they have 13 pounder guns used in the revolutionary war which could fly about a mile. In the civil war though, they had 50 pounder guns! Those could cruise 20 miles and could cover the whole harbor. Many of the men that worked those cannons sacrificed much of their hearing.
I love this song for its historical content; Governor's island is a real place that I have been to. It's gravely amusing to think of the irish immigrants being press-ganged into the Yankee battalions to go subdue Southern, plantation owning Separatists. That particular war, isn't as innocent or holy as your old high school history class makes it out to be.
in the third paragraph, it illustrates the most difficult aspect of waging war: logistics. Once an army is raised, a general has to figure out how to get food, clothes, medicine, and every other life sustaining commodity to the soldiers. The difficulty compounds when you consider that all the farmers and factory workers are the ones on the field getting mowed down. Dry as army Herrings is not very dry at all.
After the war, many changes to government and society were systematically executed. The Federal government doubled in size, and according to this song, the Irish grew in political influence, and were able to use the government to press their advantage unfairly so that "Italian substitutes" would have to fight WWI and WWII. Corruption, it seems, is compounded in every generation. Now days, "lower class" citizens are still fighting our wars. The fastest way our of Brooklyn is apparently to join the army.
Ultimately, this type of music is rich with political undertones (perhaps you could go so far as to call it propaganda!) that is 100% pure fodder for thought. It sparks the patriot in me and rouses my faculties to work harder at the problems that threaten freedom, peace, and prosperity. It's an inspiration to me.
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