The Last Nigth of the Proms

Suddenly was everything over; the Exams past, the semester is over and my stay in Dublin have come to an end. Even as the two last week have consisted of visits from Norway, rude German student advisors, Ministers taken at gun point and a rather unplanned cold during the mentioned examination period, I haven’t been writing too much here. The cold and the five four exams in four days in a row explains much of that.

However, now I’m free, and now I’m leaving back home to Bergen, which I from time to another have missed. I have not missed the rest of Norway, but Bergen, absolutely. Hence, I can’t really say that I’m home before me and Scaramouch is sitting at my dig sharing a pizza and a couple of bottles of vine talking about the world passing.

I’m really not in mood for a deeper writing now as I’m a bit, quite, very, sad about leaving my new home in Donnybrook, the other guys at UCD, Liffey, the coffee at Starbucks, the GPO, Saint Stephen’s Green, the Bus who never comes, the rain, the food at the Pubs. The breach in the Wall were I have to get through in the mornings to get to the Campus, the pipes overlooking Dublin Bay, Wicklow Mountains in the morning; I could have been writing for hours about everything. As usual I will not do that, and would rather again dedicate a song to the situation without any sentimental speeches and symbolic manifestos over the time that have past and would come in the future. SO, to all of you from UCD, I’m off now, and..yeah..take care. I’ll be back.

My Heart Is In Ireland
By The Wolfe Tones

In the East End of London, I met an old man.
He kept a bar called the Horses and Tram.
My parents were Irish. They loved that dear land
The Cockney, he smiled, then he shook my old hand.

My heart is in Ireland, it's there I long to be.
Her hills and her valleys are calling to me.
Though born here in this land, my heart is in Ireland.
The land of the old folks is calling to me.

Near a coal mine in Wales, by a roadside cafe,
A young girl came smiling, and to me did say,
Well, my folks are from Ireland. My Da', he hopes one day
When he leaves the mines, sure we'll go back to stay.

My heart is in Ireland, it's there I long to be.
Her hills and her valleys are calling to me.
Though born here in this land, my heart is in Ireland.
The land of the old folks is calling to me.

Then I went through the Midlands, through each city and town.
I found there were Irish in each place I roamed.
And I drank and I sang at a pub they call the Crown.
With the Birmingham irish, we sang songs of home.

My heart is in Ireland, it's there I long to be.
Her hills and her valleys are calling to me.
Though born here in this land, my heart is in Ireland.
The land of the old folks is calling to me.

Then I went north to Scotland, to Glasgow on the Clyde.
I met with some young lads. They said, Celtic's our side.
All our folks are from Ireland, the island of the green.
A country we love, but a place we've not seen.

My heart is in Ireland, it's there I long to be.
Her hills and her valleys are calling to me.
Though born here in this land, my heart is in Ireland.
The land of the old folks is calling to me.

Let the People Sing!

While staying here in Dublin I had decided to have as little as possible with News and such from Norway, but from time to time have I just popped by some of the online newspapers to see what’s up back home. Normally, following the headlines, bad have turned worse and the Kingdom is at the edge of collapse into anarchy and it seems like the government knows too many people and speak to too many, that the prices still are too high, that Oslo cares less and less of the remaining 80 % of the population, that the soccer gets even worse and the regular feeling that the Civil War is just around the corner do indeed comes to me. The Defence buys the wrong fighters; Labour continues their treason against the working class without that the class seems to notice, the Conservative politicians are able to ask you to go to Hell in such a manner that you will enjoy the way; suddenly the global warming have made the winter better and it is still somebody who thinks Rosenborg have a possibility against European top-clubs. But, today was different. Today had some of the journalists in Dagbladet had a look across the sea and read a non-Nordic newspaper and made a comment about Dido’s last album. Oh, well, more precisely, the content of her songs(It should be mentioned that the headline were that the manager for the woman handball national team had given the goalkeeper a short instruction during the last match)

She has, as far as I know, quoted a sentence from “Men Behind the Wire” in one of her new songs. The first I noticed in this article were how simple it was written: "A song about Irish people captured by the British". "Captured"; that's sounds odd...what about INTERNED, without trail, judge or jury, that’s more like it. Does that change the story a bit? That the song unfortunately has been captured by the Real IRA (RIRA) and Continuity IRA (CIRA), that’s another storey, but the journalist should not forget that this songs and ballads are rather common here in the Republic. I'm not a extremist, and I seriously doubt that any other of those other 300 who took part at the Wolfe Tone concert at UCD in September are extreme Republicans eighter, nor the people in Galway. Or Carolls Irish Gifts Inc. The people over here has song this songs for decades, and the Barleycorn are just another way for cultural expressionism, footed in quite a serious part of the Irish history. Compared to a lot of other people in Falls Road (lovely place with a quite good view of Central Belfast) they did choose a rather constructive way of express their viewes and frustrations; many others joined the Officals and fought in the streets, which become clear during the Curfew. The English editon of this article was actually shorter I thing, but at least there you got a picture of the Barleycorn, but why it says Tallagh at the cover (why leave West Belfast just to move to Tallagh?), I have no idea, however, they do at least adress the song as a rebel song, which is more correct than Dagbaldets approach.

Gregory Campbell, Democratic Unionist Party , who are one the Protestant hard liners who fight against Irish as a official language in the North (which makes Northern Ireland the only territory in the EU where a official language isn’t able to use at public documents), have said that Dido have acted “thoughtless” and that the song were about people that were murderers and terrorists. My question then: is it less thoughtless to allow UVF continue functioning as a Society, and at the same time refusing to accept that the IRA (Provisionals) are gone? Is it less thoughtless promoting the importance of a public celebration of the British Army as they returns from Afghanistan (and the Remembrance day)or salute John Hermon, who recently passed away, as a great public serviceman, is it less thoughtless of Campbell addressing the All-Ireland Football Cup as an “international event” and stressing the point that Tyrone was a British team? I guess not.

So, to Dagbladet: please do not address Irish Folk songs as “IRA-songs”, it just sound a bit narrow minded and indicated a black/white perspective that the media seems to adapt. May I just remind ye that the new Max Manus movie is about a man who basically did exactly the same against the germans as the IRA did against the Brits, and that we have tendency to embrace the old Norse traditions, just think at the Saint Olav Drama (A tall, blonde Christian guy fighting a pagan army), which indeed are the very same the National Socialists did embrace some 70 years ago.
To Gregory Campbell: you are minister for the ENTIRE North. Not only the protestant part of the population. You have Stormont, the rest of us have the songs. Live with it.

Go Dido! Next time you should sing the entire song!

- Proud we march behind our banner. Firm we stand behind Dido.

Very first, Mik, thanks for leaving a comment! It’s a sham that we didn’t think about this earlier, but, at least we have several lines for communication! Have put a bit extra work in the blog since I’m a hard line anti-Facebook, so every positive feedback is a craic! About the Norwegian part: sorry, just a bit in lack of time to do the English proper, and you know how it is in December, time isn’t what we have enough of. But thanks for reading, and guess I see you at the next breakfast!

To Rick, who thought that I were Irish; apologies, I’m only living here in Dublin, and do some correspondence back home to Norway, hence, the Dublin Correspondent. Anyway thanks for reading my blog, I have been totally lost in work the recent days so it has been rather limited writing at the blog. Anyway, you are right; at this Emerald Isle it is the Irish who is the Catholics and the Protestants in Ulster who has a Scottish heritage, known as Ulster-Scots (it is 12 US presidents who had their ancestors in what is the North of Ireland today). However, it is some 100.000 Irish in the Republic who are Protestants as well, so the ethnical boundaries between them are not that clear-cut as it may look like. When it comes to the NWO I do find it more like an interesting theory, with, what do you say, remarkable many evil coincidences to the real life. My favourite indicator that something is wrong:

In the wake after the Irish rejected the Lisbon Treaty in the referendum the in July this year it was a lot of discussion between the defeated Pro-Treaty campaign about how it was possible that Sinn Féin and Declan Ganley had managed to defeat the overwhelming Pro-Treaty attitude in the Dáil (SF holds 4 seats out of 166). One of the reasons who was pointed out as the most crucial was that the voters where misinformed(Irish Times 10.10.08) and points out that One of the main reasons for the result was that "The internet was almost exclusively used by No campaigners" and that they’re in need for “the creation of a new communications culture in the commission and the need for "misinformation to be targeted by activating a rebuttal function in the member states and/or directly from Brussels”. I think that’s quite interesting that an EU official, the Vice-President of the Commission, blames the judgments of the people for the failure and want to create a mechanism to dictate, or licensing them self, to hold “the Truth”.

At nearly the same time Marianne Mikko, member of the European Commission on Cultural Affairs presents her ideas of how to stop the pollution of the cyberspace and, surprise, surprise, stop misinformation and ensure the “quality” of the interactive media. I call that I rather suspicious coincidence. I do not trust them, neigther if it is a proposal for registration of the bloggers, de facto us, even if they says it is to secure the property rights. So there you go Rick.

Anyway. I'm alive, just wanted to point that out after my abscense the recent week scince people had posted comments here I want to show them the respect by answer the.