I know that subject line probably got a lot of folks’ attention reeealy fast, so I’ll go ahead and talk about the second; Northern Ireland.
In my comp 2 college English class, we’ve been assigned our first “real” paper. All we have to do is find a topic, present or past, that interests us or that we want to learn more about, so I’ve decided to research the conflict in Ireland, but the one thing I do NOT want to do is approach this topic with any bias whatsoever. I am first and foremost a historian and writer (well… below musician anuyway
My second topic is of a less aahh.. serious nature “Star of the County Down” was probably the very first Irish ballad that I ever heard, beyond the couple of tunes I had found at Nate’s site way back when, and since, I’ve been trying to work out the chord progression, with no success whatsoever. I’ve been playing guitar about three years now, so I admit I’m no Carlos Santana
all I know for certain is the first two chords, depending on the key are a minor chord and its compliment: Am to C, Em to G, etc. but I can’t get beyond that without sounding like a cat asleep on a car manifold
The star of the county down isn’t that difficult…hum now how does it go??
I haven’t played it for a while, but, if you can wait till tomorrow I’ll find out for ya when I get home!!!
And, I’m not going to help you with your northern Ireland thing!!! I’m biased. I’m not sectarian but I have seen too many people being killed on both sides because of stubornness up there. It is bad…an interesting topic. It’s going to be tough to get all that into 10 pages though!!
Daniel, since you’re a musician first, historian & writer second, why don’t you structure you’re paper around a few songs? There is no shortage of songs dealing with the situation, both historical and present. Many songs are mainly rallying cries (think Wolf Tones, R.I.P.) but others are more nuanced and deeper. Your professor will be more than happy to have a break from the tedious standard student paper.
If you choose to look at the history though a novel, 2 excellent ones are Morgan LLewelyns 1916 and 1921, populated with Historical figures.
As for tunes there are an abundance, Foggy Dew, Lonely Banna Strand, Rising of the Moon to name a few.
I have been studying Irish history for awhile, as my grandfather had to flee Ireland after the Easter Rising. This may not be the best place to discus the topic as there are quite a few english members of the board who I respect and would not want to offend with my views on the subject. Feel free to e-mail me if you’d like.
TelegramSam, I am not a historian but I understand enough about European history to know that the Northern Ireland conflict is not the simple Protestant vs. Catholic conflict as the media in North America would have you believe. I don’t want to go into details here on the board because I think doing so would inevitably end in a lot of hurt feelings and anger – we’ve seen too much of that lately and I don’t want to be the cause of any more. All I will say is that the present-day Northern Ireland conflict is the result of a long sad tale of oppression, violence, intolerance, cultural genocide, and tragic human suffering. If you are interested there are many great resources available such as the ones that have been mentioned in this thread.
IMO, there are many Irish tunes that you can only truly appreciate when you know a bit of the history.
What you need is a dispassionately written history of Ulster, which relates that ancient kingdom to the history of the whole of Ireland, of which it was a part until about 80 years ago.
I highly recommend you get hold of the following book:
A HISTORY OF ULSTER by Jonathan Bardon. 914 pages.
Published by Blackstaff Press Ltd.
3 Galway Park, Dundonald, Belfast BT16 OAN Northern Ireland, with the financial assistance of the Cultural Traditions Programme which aims to encourageaccep;tance and understanding of cultural diversity.
This book was first published in November 1992 and reprinted in in December 1992, 1993,1994 ad 1996. A paperback coppy printed by Bath Press in England is available.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data: "Bardon, Jonathan
History of Ulster
I.Title
941.6
ISBN 0-85640-466-7 hardback
O-85640-476-4 paperback
O-85640-498-5 ltd. edition
Jonathan Bardon was born in Dublin in 1941, and educated at the High School Dublin, at Trinity College Dublin and at Queens University Belfast. He has lived in Belfast since 1963, teaching history at Orangefield Secondary School and at the College of Business Studies, now the Belfast Institute of Further and Higher Education, where he is head of the Department of Academic and Continuing Education.
Anybody interested in Irish history should read this book, for Ulster is a paradox; while somewhat isolated geographically from the rest of Ireland, it has been more connected to the rest of the British isles and thus been a conduit for migrations of peoples between Ireland and the Hebrides, the Isle of Man and the island of Britain.
wow, thanks everyone! I’m going to check the UAFS library when I get a chance, and I’m almost positive I’ve seen at least a few of these when I did an e-card catalog search monday night (I love technology grin)
On a side-note, BrassBlower, I nearly fell out of my chair when I saw you’re in Fort Smith! I thought the nearest whistler was in Tennesee at best!
Give me a yell if you ever run across a good session, eh? winks
Actually it’s kinda funny cause I just got home from class (we commute Monday and Wednesday nights right after my mom gets off work; myself, mom, and a friend, that is… ANYways. must… stop… rambling)
On 2002-02-27 19:18, garycrosby wrote:
TelegramSam, I am not a historian but I understand enough about European history to know that the Northern Ireland conflict is not the simple Protestant vs. Catholic conflict as the media in North America would have you believe.
This is true to a point. The troubles are much more deep than that.
However alot of the violence exists because of relegion. Keep an eye on the news. Watch all the trouble that is going to start in a few weeks about marching and the Garvahy Road and DrumChroí. It is because both sides are stuborn. I didn’t want to give what seems to be a biased opinion here but the british don’t want to give up the north so not to loose face. It costs them huge amounts of cash to run and administer it. Most of the people in England feel that it should be returned to Ireland so they won’t have to pay their tax money to keep it!!!
I’m finished here for the day…so don’t start a flame war!!
Ireland, a Bicycle, and a Tinwhistle, which is as much about everyman’s view of Irish politics as it is about the music. I pick this back
up and read it through again a couple times a year, and it hasn’t grown old yet.
-Rich
Interesting Rich, I came across the book at some point read the chapter on the Willie week, in which he described going to the session in Coore (where I play). Reading it I concluded he had not been there at all, he was describing a situation that no longer existed, second hand information. The book immediately lost it credibility to me. I decided not to read it.
[ This Message was edited by: Peter Laban on 2002-02-28 13:57 ]
However alot of the violence exists because of relegion.
I didn’t say the conflict didn’t have anything to do with religion - I just said it wasn’t that simple. Of course, religion is one aspect of it. Your point is well taken.
I guess my point was that most people in North America (outside of the Irish communities) just don’t understand the conflict. For example, I have a Canadian friend who visited Northern Ireland this past summer who spent a lot of time in pubs and such - he is a pretty friendly and easy going guy who got to know some Irish folk quite well. When he came back he tried to explain to me how before he went to Ireland he was completely mislead by the media as to the true nature of the conflict. He’s a smart guy and realizes that he has only heard the Irish side of the tragic sitution. But, he is beginning to see the true depth of the problem and that it is not the same as the media over here reports.
In any case, I do hope the situation is someday resolved so that all parties involved may live in peace and harmony
This seems like a lot of topic for a simple research or term paper. Kind of like covering relativity in a single 20 minute lecture. The problem is, if you’re going to do it right, it means going a long way back, like 800 years or so.
I’d THOUGHT I learned a lot about Ireland from TRINITY and 1916, which are both excellently written novels. The problem is that they are fiction and they both pretty much tell the story from a one-sided viewpoint.
There’s a new book on the subject which is about as unbiased as anything I’ve run across. Although it is exhaustive in its coverage, the style is eminently readable. If you really want to understand Ireland from the Normans to the present, I recommend:
Yes, I don’t see how you could do this topic any justice in only 6 - 10 pages. It would be difficult to give anything but a superficial overview in that amount of space
I wasn’t aware of Cronin’s book, thanks Cuck_Clark!
For less than 200 pages, it’s remarkably detailed while still concise. He manages to point out who was bad when without painting horns or a tail on anyone, not even Cromwell. For example, everyone’s aware of the 1916 uprising and the subsequent troubles until partition, but this is the first source I’ve seen that points out that the casualties of the Intra-Nationalist civil war were actually worse than those of the political and sectarian strife from 1916-1921.
I got it from the History Book Club, but I’m sure it’s available at Amazon or Barnes and Noble.
wow. this is a neat topic. I have done a little research on cromwell for western civ. and I have read the first 200 pages of Trinity, (great book by the way and I keep meaning to finish it).
I hope someday there will be peace in Ireland.
hehe. to revive an old topic (because my modem wouldn’t permit a post sooner growls)
I agree completely that the entire history would be REALLY hard to cover in less than 50 to 100 pages, let alone 10. If I follow through on Ireland, I’m thinking the infamous “Bloody Sunday”, since it’s the one date that almost everyone, laymen to Historian, knows something about, and it’s something I’d like to find out more about, myself (Objectively of course =) )
It’s a really sensitive topic, though, so I may end up doing something less volatile We’ll see what happens after Spring Break Nods
