The emergence of "Zombie" by The Cranberries as an Irish sporting anthem

StringerBell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121154115#Comment_121154115

I think its more about degrees isn't it?

Like if you kill one innocent person you are obviously far from clean, but are you cleaner in act than a person who has killed 10 innocent people?

Nobody has to be "good" in a scenario and of course you don't have to distinguish between them if you don't want to, but in general society does distinguish by degrees.

Become Death

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121154912#Comment_121154912

Nah. Anyone excusing the actions of the British Army, and anyone excusing the IRA are both odious pricks.

StringerBell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121154928#Comment_121154928

Think that goes onto a separate point tbf and as I'm not going to go back to read the posts I'll stick to the original.

HerrKuehn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121154912#Comment_121154912

We generally don't with murders though do we? I am not sure that in any other situation people go out of their way to try and say one murderer is "cleaner" than another.

Back to the rugby, isn't it a bit ironic that the so-called "partitionists" are the ones supporting a 32 county team?

downthemiddle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121154563#Comment_121154563

I have accepted nothing you have said.

Putting me on ignore shows your inability to make any point. It’s cowardly, but what would you expect from an apologist for the murder of innocent people.

In your head, Zombie.

Panthro

Great that we beat the South Africa Rugby team though, hah?

downthemiddle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155172#Comment_121155172

A very enjoyable game.

Lillyfae

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155172#Comment_121155172

Can we get a vote for "The Monkees - I'm a believer"??

Francis McM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121154983#Comment_121154983

I have always found most if not all N.I. rugby to be friendly and compromising and amienable. Good sports. I think in return we should be nice to them too. Zombie is a great song of peace and reconciliation, and it says the Warrington bombers etc were not in our name..

bend_sinister

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121154196#Comment_121154196

Do you...do you think you invented the term "broads" for females??? 😂

boetstark

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121153982#Comment_121153982

Alot of bitterness there boet , it might help to talk with a professional.

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155280#Comment_121155280

I get that.

I mentioned earlier that I was ok with singing Zombie as an anti-IRA protest song at a sporting event.

Come to think of it though, in terms of 32 country inclusivity, I don't think it works for the rugby.

I think you'd have to either drop it, or sing something alongside that's similarly critical of Loyalist atrocities.

It seems most people aren't singing in a political context anyway. More as a perhaps misguided homage to Delores, or to tastelessly goad the opposition.

Francis McM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155489#Comment_121155489

Nobody condones the loyalist atrocities. You do not have bands up on a stage in front of thousands or tens of thousands singing uh ah up the UDA or uh ah up the Shankhill butchers. You do not have a leader from a mainstream political saying there was "no alternative" to loyalist paramilitaries.

The Irish team is playing under the Irish tricolour, that is the dominant flag used at the matches. It makes sense and shows respect to all that pira atrocities done under the flag of the tricolour were not in our name. Do not forget three northerners on the Irish rugby team were nearly killed by a pira bomb during the troubles ( one never played again ).

Downlinz

The takes on this are wild.

Zombie has been a popular song for both Limerick GAA and Munster Rugby in recent years starting as a commemoration to local treasure Dolores. It's a catchy song to sing and works well in a crowd for everyone else to join in, it's a song of peace and resolve and it means nothing else other than having pride in Limerick. It's been sung for years in both the Gaelic Grounds and Thomond and I've never heard of it anyone consider it even remotely divisive.

Maybe the song should just should just stay in Limerick if people outside are going to do these kind of mental gymnastics every time it's heard in a stadium.

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155675#Comment_121155675

It's nothing to do with anybody condoning Loyalist atrocities.

It's about condemning one side and not the other.

Either leave the politics out of it, or condemn both.

Besides now your making it sound that it's less to do with the what happened in Warrington and more current point-scoring with SF supporters.

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155699#Comment_121155699

If it is being done in the name of peace, there's tons of songs that are only about peace and don't reference specific events.

One of those might be better suited for a 32 county organisation.

Francis McM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155699#Comment_121155699

Correct and well put. "It’s only people who believe every atrocity, bombing and shooting of the IRA was justified who are having to jump through hoops here."

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155780#Comment_121155780

Condemning those who bombed kids in shopping centres is, or should be, inclusive to everyone. It was not in our name.

growleaves

Its a good song imo.

Musicrules

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121154702#Comment_121154702

Were you out protesting when most of Ireland were celebrating those who fought during the Easter rising? They killed civilians. Were they scumbags in your eyes? It's not whataboutery, it's finding out if you are a hypocrite.

RoTelly

So just to add to this.

The sound of the song is great IMO and the words are a bit meh but they go with the sound so it gets a pass.

The meaning of the song I always felt came from a Southern Irish Rock Band that didn't really understand any of the issues. Yes you can say it is a song against war, and in particular the Warrington bombing, but its largely one against the nationalist, they are not saying

"In your head Britannia is still ruling ... in your head"

Do I think it is an anti-War song?

No, It is unfortunately comes across as a tiresome FG TD saying do we really have to deal with the nationalist in the north look at what they keep doing, rather then recognizing that both sides were doing much the same to one another.

Though I am sure the cranberries would take a differing view. However, all in all its a good catchy rock anthem.

Musicrules

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121154769#Comment_121154769

You are making derogatory comments about those who suffered huge mistreatment and suffered the loss of loved ones. If that's what you are then own it, don't hide.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121150808#Comment_121150808

Huh?

Don't remember the British Army planting bombs in shopping centres and killing children. You can't get any lower than that, and the PIRA went there by themselves.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155862#Comment_121155862

A rock anthem condemning all violence in NI would have been rather lazy and very predictable. One singling out the IRA for criticism was more provocative and 'out there', especially for a band from the Republic.

HerrKuehn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155862#Comment_121155862

The tiresome FG TDs were putting NI to the forefront during Brexit negotiations while the SF ones were doing god knows what

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121154563#Comment_121154563

The PIRA were not the good guys in any situation. They were thoroughly bad, rotten to the core.

Musicrules

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155912#Comment_121155912

You will need to do some basic reading up on the war, they planted bombs and killed numerous children. They teamed up with their loyalist buddies to have many more killed.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155934#Comment_121155934

Indeed, Sinn Fein only became popular in NI after the Good Friday Agreement was signed and peace had become established. The idea that they and the IRA were the representatives of the nationalist community and that any criticism of them (i.e. Zombie) was an attack on the nationalist community is a total rewriting of what was actually going on in the 80s and 90s.

Musicrules

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155934#Comment_121155934

He was calling the victims families mopes. A derogatory, sneering term used by loyalists.

cms88

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121150507#Comment_121150507

That ''SweetIrishGhirl'' is one of the biggest fools i seen on Twitter, and that's saying something! She's always very fast to trow things out there but never happy when people don't agree with her. Something very comment when it comes to her like from the North.

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155915#Comment_121155915

Really? For whom? It's the kind of rhetoric that I grew up with in the Republic. It is as lazy and as predicable as

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155930#Comment_121155930

Seriously it suited them, if it didn't they'd be the first to put customs at the boarder.

BTW I am not SF supporter.

HerrKuehn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155990#Comment_121155990

Why did it suit them? I think it is a good example of a time when ROI parties have put NI interests first. The UK parties like SF (yes, SF are a UK party, they use the UK rules around donations rather than ROI rules as it suits them) didn't do anything for NI nationalists during Brexit negotiations, they just did what they always do when something needs to be done, disappear. We would have had a hard border if we had to rely on SF.

Snooker Loopy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155704#Comment_121155704

The only people who take offence to Zombie are the cretinous simpletons who supported the bombing of Warrington.

I'm still laughing at them, trying to censor a song that correctly called out scumbags who were lower than Robert Thompson and Jon Venables.

Snooker Loopy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155983#Comment_121155983

These thickos are all very quick to go abusive when the essential preposterousness of their position is called out. There's a cohort of self styled "woke" young people who are utterly blind to the hypocrisy of their positions. You can't genuinely claim to be woke if your default reaction is to whatabout or mock victims when the victims of Provo atrocities are brought up - because that's what the far right does.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155940#Comment_121155940

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bombings_during_the_Troubles

The British Army planted bombs???!??

Of all the revisionist historians in all the revisionist histories, how did you come up with that one?

trashcan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121154392#Comment_121154392

What makes it a great song in your view, apart from the fact that you seem to think it pisses republicans off ? It’s a dirge of a tune, annoyingly sung, with lyrics a sixth former would be embarrassed to produce.

kippy

The country is a f***king mess in many ways and the big news the past few weeks has been around two songs.

People need to cop the fck on and focus on the real issues.

L.Ball

Are people really crying about this or is it just shinners and ra heads?

Snooker Loopy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121156081#Comment_121156081

What's wrong with the lyrics? They're straight and to the point and they work. The fact that 30,000 Irish people immediately joined in when it came over the PA is proof it is a great song that connects on a visceral level.

Are you one of these miserabilists that goes around analysing the lyrics She Loves You by Wonderwall by Oasis or I Can't Get No Satisfaction by The Rolling Stones going "pah, a primary school child could have written that?"

Snooker Loopy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121156085#Comment_121156085

People objected to one of those songs because that song glorifies terrorists. Not unreasonable. Not remotely unreasonable.

The same people who were rabid in their support for the singing of a song that glorifies terrorism are now having a hissy fit over a song which rightly castigated their murdering heroes.

Both of these absurd spectacles demonstrate the reality of what Sinn Fein is - a cult that seeks to elevate the murderers of three year old children to sacred cow national hero status through a sustained campaign of Disneyfication and ethnonationalist propaganda masquerading as "anti-imperialist". These bastards were about as anti-imperialist as Putin.

Downlinz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121156025#Comment_121156025

I've heard people last weekend interpreting it as everything from being pro-IRA to being pro-British army and everything in between.

Dolores has said herself it's a humanitarian focused song promoting peace and exploring the sadness of experiencing the loss of innocent lives, it was never meant to carry a politically aligned message on Northern Ireland.

Everything else is just people inserting their own politics into it and hearing what they want to hear.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121156129#Comment_121156129

Also, the music video arguably shows the British Army in a bad light - armed soldiers patrolling the streets of Belfast with children playing in the background in what looks like a war zone. Are they there to keep the peace or as oppressors of the nationalist community? Nobody comes out of the song or the video looking good.

Annabella1

It’s an anti war song and a reminder that the IRA murdered 2 innocent children

musically it’s a belter to play after a match -I was in Paris and I have never experienced such intensity plain to see in the recordings

it’s here to stay !

Snooker Loopy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121156129#Comment_121156129

The song carries an explicit message in regard to the Troubles. The song was written in response to Warrington. Implicit in the song is an opposition to all violence in the North - "their tanks and their bombs and their bombs and their guns".

Warrington was the event that prompted the writing of the song because it was done by bastards who were claiming to speak in OUR name, the name of the Irish people.

A common narrative in Europe around Islamist massacres, rightly or wrongly, is that Muslims in general do not do enough to speak out against mindless nihilistic murder carried out by people claiming to speak in the name of Islam.

Well here was an instance, like Bono's "**** the revolution", where a great Irish artist used their platform to speak out vehemently that these terrorists were NOT speaking for us, the Irish people, that we were bitterly opposed to this mindless nihilism.

Was the singing of Zombie a political message by Irish rugby supporters? No, because the song just happened to be played in the stadium, and it's a n absolute banger of a tune to which we all know the words of the chorus at least.

But the song does carry an explicitly anti-PIRA message and is a call for peace to break out, and we all know this, which is why the Shinners hate it.

Long Sean Silver

time for people to let it go and move on. happily the vast majority of people are, but there's a small rump of republicans who cannot.

they were defeated militarily so in fairness i suppose it's difficult as they continue to wallow in bitterness.

Sleepy

The **** delusion from some on this thread. Let's state a few facts:

• The Provisional IRA were a paramilitary. Definition: an organization whose structure, tactics, training, and function are similar to those of a professional military, but which is not part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces.
• They were not appointed, recruited or endorsed by the Irish state and did not represent the vast majority of the people of Ireland who were horrified by their terrorism, murders, kidnappings, violence and other assorted criminal activities. The popularity of the song at the heart of this "debate" reflects that horror.
• While they may have viewed themselves as freedom fighters, the terrorist campaign waged by the Provisional IRA was not a war by any definition. Wars are conducted between sovereign nations. Paramilitaries may be engaged during war by governments (e.g. the Azov paramilitary battalion in the current war in Ukraine) but they can't declare wars as, by definition, they're not a legitimate armed force and don't have the mandate to do so.

cms88

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121156048#Comment_121156048

If she's doesn't get her way she's also very fast to play the gender card as well as always being the victim.

Snooker Loopy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121156165#Comment_121156165

And riddled with British agents, possibly including Martin McGuinness, depending on who one believes.

growleaves

'These thickos are all very quick to go abusive'

So are you. You call people "thickos" and "rabid" when you don't like their point of view.

Snooker Loopy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121156197#Comment_121156197

When somebody claims to have a position which is centred on the primacy of the victim and then abuses anybody who calls them out on their support for the mocking of Troubles victims, yes, that makes them a rabid thicko.

As thick as thick can be.

downthemiddle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155940#Comment_121155940

There is a particular irony that someone who posts under the moniker of Musicrules finds the lyrics of a song condemning the murder of innocent children objectionable.