Scottish and other Rebels Songs, British Soldier go on home

I read with interest the entertaining and informative article by Paddy McMenamin concerning Irish Rebel Songs sung at Celtic Park. Before I go any further, I must confess to your readers a dark secret of mine, and that is that very often in January I have been known to put on my kilt ( I am a very handsome man in my kilt, you know) and go out to sing REBEL songs.

Yes rebel songs, sung with a passion in respectable places like Fife golf pavilions, posh hotels, Churches and Church halls of various denominations (nothing sectarian about me!) and oh, the subversive lyrics that I sing like “By oppressions, woes and pains, by our sons in servile chains… Lay the proud usurper low.. Liberty’s in every blow” or “Sic a parcel o rogues in a nation” or even “Carry the lad that’s born to be king over the sea to Skye… Mony’s the lad fought in the day, weel the claymore did wield. When the night came, silently lay, dead on Culloden field”.

Culloden

OK, there is usually haggis and whisky around (I like both of them as well) but they are undeniably rebel songs,(are they not?) with as implicit or explicit a desire in them to remove the House of Windsor as you would find on the fields of Athenry or on that lorry that approached the border town on yon New Year’s Day in 1957.

So logically, those who criticise The Boys of the Old Brigade must also wish to put an end to Burns’ Suppers, proscribe the Scottish National Party and even stop rugby Internationals at Murrayfield where they want to send old Edward and his army home to think again! And be a nation again!

The Celtic boys have one like that too, do they not, about a nation once again! Oh, these rebels! They are all over the place. That sport of rugby is riddled with them. Even the French have got into the act with that rebellious old Roget de Lille calling on the revolutionaries to rise up beat up the Royalists of Austria. “Le jour de gloire est arrive. Aux armes, citoyens!” then something about tryranny being against us and impure blood in our furrows!

And then there is the most famous rebel song of them all – The Star Spangled Banner “and the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there!”

Even the Yankees did not seem to like the Royalists either! And then these workers all over the world have a red flag, martyred dead and are going to live and die beneath its folds!

And what about the Scotsman who was shot in a chair in Kilmainham in Dublin because he was so ill that he could not stand! How could anyone with any self-respect NOT be a rebel against that?

So rebel songs are all around us! Let us not feel ashamed of rebellious feelings. Goodness knows, there was and still is a lot to be rebellious about. If you are not a rebel, you have no heart! Now what was that someone said about telling these British soldiers to go home?

David Potter

ALSO READ…The Debate Around Rebel Songs At Celtic Park, A Former Republican Prisoner & Celtic Fan Has His Say

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About Author

I am Celtic author and historian and write for The Celtic Star. I live in Kirkcaldy and have followed Celtic all my life, having seen them first at Dundee in March 1958. I am a retired teacher and my other interests are cricket, drama and the poetry of Robert Burns.

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