Mods please do me a favour and don't sweep this under the carpet and banish it to the OF section. This is an issue that has reached the SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT so please keep it in here so others can read more on it and have a full understanding of it and understand why it's racist and vile. Now others can see where we're coming from and why it's grossly unfair that we're being mocked for being offended...as the line says if this was aimed at Africans or Asians etc it'd be a different kettle of fish
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The Famine Song could be dismissed as little more than appalling bad taste by a crowd who have a song book that would make Horst Wessel cringe, and while the deaths of 1m people may hardly be a fitting subject for football ground "banter", we can hardly say that the milk of human kindness is a repeated mainstay of football folk songs. So far though the discussion in the media, those sections of the media that have not engaged in a determined Three Monkeys Routine of course, has focused solely on the Famine reference without bothering to look any further at the rest of the lyrics. By doing so the real vicious hatred in this ode to spiritual death is revealed, and the sentiments behind its adoption are laid bare.
In case you have been living on the Moon or working for STV and have never seen the full lyrics, lets have a look at them.
First verse:
I often wonder where they would have been
If we hadn't have taken them in
Fed them and washed them
Thousands in Glasgow alone From Ireland they came
Brought us nothing but trouble and shame
Well the famine is over Why don't they go home?
It is a noted feature of bigotry that those attempting to peddle their wares have to resort to mental gymnastics and historical revision in order to make their bile acceptable for general consumption, this song is no different. Anyone with even a passing knowledge of Scottish history will fall about the floor in hysterics at the claim the Irish were taken in, washed and fed by their welcoming Celtic (with a hard C) cousins. One doesn't have to venture that far back in history, about four months should do it, to find out who exactly is bringing trouble and shame onto the Scottish nation. Ok verse two:
Now Athenry Mike was a thief
And Large John he was fully briefed
And that wee traitor from Castlemilk
Turned his back on his own
They've all their Papists in Rome
They have U2 and Bono
Well the famine is over
Why don't they go home?
The mask hasn't just slipped, its lying on the floor in a pool of
spittle. Athenry Mike was a thief, and by implication so too of course
are the Irish in general. Athenry Mike being the father and husband in the song The Fields of Athenry, who stole from his landlord's fields in order to feed his starving child. The author of this song probably being a bit gutted that Athenry Mike managed to keep the little nit from a deserved visit to death's door by a couple of days. Scottish history of course is devoid of thieves, people such as Johnny Armstrong, Kinmont Willie, Rob Roy and Lord Elgin simply didn't exist. In fact come to think of it as a dedicated Scottish nationalist I can say with some pride that my nation's history is little more than a long bloody scroll of thieving, mayhem, murder and backstabbing.. well at least it wasn't dull.
The "wee traitor from Castlemilk" is, I'm informed, a reference to Aiden McGeady who chose to play his international football for Ireland rather than his native Scotland. Disappointing, but a traitor? It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure out McGeady's real crime was not that he dumped Scotland, rather the identity of his preferred option. After all this is the Rangers support we are talking about, the same people who took to wearing England international shirts, who sneer at anything remotely Scottish while fawning over and tugging their tattered forelocks at anything English. The dedication of the servile Rangers support to Scotland is such that Mordor was the only SPL ground canvassed by the No Campaign during the 1997 devolution vote. So let's put their accusations of treachery into proper perspective. Had McGeady chosen England instead of Ireland there would have been not a peep from these curiously fleeting patriots, instead their silence would have been as deafening as that heard when Brian McLean of Rangers and now Motherwell turned his back on Scotland and put on a Northern Ireland shirt two short years after McGeady first played for Ireland.
The comments regarding Jock Stein and the Papists of Rome really need no further elaboration, just sporting banter according to Martin Bain.
Third Verse
Now they raped and fondled their kids
That's what those perverts from the dark side did
And they swept it under the carpet and Large John he hid
Their evils seeds have been sown
Cause they're not of our own
Well the famine is over Why don't you go home?
As I said previously, when the bigot wishes to spread his disease he invariably resorts to fantasy as reality frequently fails to satisfy their desperate prejudices. The first two lines refer to the crimes of Jim Torbett who was found guilty of "shameless and indecent conduct" with three juveniles between 1967 and 1974 while employed as a coach with Celtic Boys Club. Bad though these facts are they aren't enough for the author who precedes to jazz it all up a bit in what can only be described as a homage to the Freddy Kruger school of creative writing.
Symptoms of a diseased mind perhaps and equally so when it comes to another attack on Jock Stein. Let's be honest here, the Rangers support have gnawed at the open wound caused by Stein's success for decades. A Protestant Scot from darkest Lanarkshire who led Celtic to European glory, who viewed Rangers with contempt and who became a national hero. Something had to be done. The atrocious, vindictive campaign mounted against Stein's memory by the lowest of even the Rangers support is nothing more than a desperate attempt to tarnish the great man's memory and afford these vile creatures some sickening revenge. When Rangers supporters mounted a concerted effort to derail the growing, and in my opinion absolutely pointless, campaign to have Stein awarded a posthumous knighthood, the ringleader declared his only interest was to ensure that the "honour" was only dished out to the most deserving. I found that odd considering the kind of chancers who have ended up having Brenda thump them with her fearsome weapon, where were these worthy protectors of the honour system's integrity then? They simply cannot be honest about their intent as they know how base and loathsome are their true motivations.
"Cause they're not of our own", the fascist master race mentality so ably described by Rangers manager Walter Smith to Graham Spiers: “There is a Protestant superiority syndrome around this club . . . you can feel it.”
The Irish undermensch cannot be expected to act in the same noble manner as the people who filled the wrecked centre of Manchester with their own filth. It's a hopeless task expecting the undermensch to reach such a lofty level of impeachable dignity. Just as the fascists in Germany justified their bigotry by portraying the Jews as subhuman, so too the author and singers of this song attempt to justify their black-hearted bitterness by similarly portraying the Irish and those Scots of Irish descent. It's a ploy that Joseph Goebbels and other fascist propaganda merchants would have found most familiar.
The final verse takes the insanity scale of the meter and delves into a world where reality isn't even given a passing nod:
Now Timmy don't take it from me
Cause if you know your history
You've persecuted thousands of people
In Ireland alone
You turned on the lights
Fuelled U boats by night
That's how you repay us
It's time to go home.
Leaving aside anyone in Britain lecturing another nation on the historical persecution of other people, somewhat akin to the aforementioned Dr Goebbels giving a lecture on anti-semitism, the sheer insanity level of this verse is astounding. The author by wittering on about turning on lights, is no doubt referring to the bizarre myth widely promoted amongst the Children of the Night, that Celtic Park floodlights were kept on at night to aid German bombers during World War Two. Apart from forcing the belief that the authorities failed to notice four huge beacons of light shattering the pitch blackness, floodlights were not installed at Celtic Park until 1959 by which time even the most determined Heinkel pilot would have called it a day. I've checked the public records and there is no evidence of any Luftwaffe bomber raid after the floodlights were installed.
So there we have it, an odious creation dripping with the standard fabrications, embellishments and racism that are an intrinsic part of every bigoted hate anthem adopted by those eaten up with intolerance
and spite. To warp the treatment of the Irish immigrants in Scotland
to that of a benevolent parent suddenly finding out that their adopted child has returned unconditional love by selling the family silver and peeing in the goldfish bowl, stretches credulity beyond any tolerable limits and reveals a level of self-delusion that would shame Victoria Beckham. It takes a considerable amount of nerve, or insanity, to claim that this song as just a 'tit for tat wind-up' as Martin Bain mumbled the other day. I expect no better from the ludicrous Hyacinth Bucket hypocrites at the Rangers Supporters Trust or the moon-howling loons over at Follow Follow, but Bain's attempt to lend some legitimacy to what is in effect naked racism is a new development; possibly revealing just how badly Rangers are being hammered by the behaviour of the Rangers support hence the circling of the wagons. Has Bain actually read the lyrics to this song? I can't believe he has, I don't want to believe he has.
As I said earlier in this article, the fact The Forces of Darkness are using the Famine as a tool with which to proclaim their dark nature doesn't concern me too much, perhaps it should but I never claimed to be perfect - ok I have frequently but this ruins my point. What does concern me though is that as the nation evolves and the loathsome bigotry inherent in the culture of the Rangers support becomes less and less acceptable, we are witnessing a cornered rat mentality producing increasing extremism. The options are rather obvious, evolve along with the rest of the nation or retreat into a bunker mentality shrouded in a climate of ludicrous denial. It is quite evident that elements of the Rangers support are busy promoting the latter option as can be witnessed by their reaction to justifiable criticism. The likes of the RST have for some time now sought to create a siege mentality amongst Rangers supporters, hyping up a level of paranoia that frequently delves into the surreal. The frequent screaming and raging about "the hidden hand of cowardly forces" represents the current belief that a vast clandestine anti-Rangers conspiracy exists touching nearly every corner of the globe, forever striving to tarnish the good name of Rangers while aiding the evil Tims plans for world domination.
The level of paranoia, reality detachment and deceit can be witnessed in the reaction of the likes of the RST and FF to the events in Manchester. The former organisation has spent its time lambasting everyone and anyone involved in the hosting of the final, with not a word of condemnation on its website for those actually involved in turning the centre of Manchester into a **** strewn battleground, while FF went as far as to censor posts by Rangers supporters describing the criminal behaviour of their colleagues in Manchester from its message board.
That the adoption of this atrocious, racist anthem should produce the by now standard reaction of these organisations should be expected, as I said though the difference this time round is that Rangers officials appear to have fully subscribed to the delusional paranoia.
Let's think about that, would Rangers have reacted the same way if their lovely support was calling for Africans or Asians to go home, would they be so supportive if this standard racist refrain was directed at asylum seekers or indeed any other minority. The excuse peddled by the apologists that this merely a 'wind-up' brought about by the instance of Celtic supporters flouting their Irish heritage can be dismantled in a few seconds once the track record of the apologists concerned and the full lyrics of the song are examined. The laughable claims of injured Scottish pride or outraged patriotism are nothing more than a deceitful facade from a bunch of Unionist lackeys who at any other time treat any symbol of Scottish nationalism with little more than undisguised distain.
The truth is obvious, once again Rangers supporters have engaged in their favourite pastime, anti-Irish and anti-Catholic bigotry, all the disinformation and outrageous deceit will not change that fact. Those organisations and individuals encouraging extremism within the Rangers support by promoting ludicrous theories of pan-Fenian, anti-Rangers conspiracies would do both their club and support a far greater favour by embracing the fact the world has moved on from the 1950s. Instead of fighting tooth and nail to retain anti-Papist, anti-Irish theology as a core element of their "culture", the self-declared spokespersons of the Rangers support could join the rest of the 21st Century and realise that toleration of bigotry is no longer on the agenda. It may be though that pandering to sectarian hatred for nigh on 70 years has landed Rangers with a significant element amongst their support who are simply so far gone down the road of intolerance that they are unable to change, to evolve. In that case hoping that some commonsense will manifest itself may be nothing more than wishful thinking and as time and the world moves on, we shall see more examples of the cornered rat mentality and a deeper descent into the moral abyss. Fine, just don't cry foul when natural revulsion is the inevitable outcome.
And then this says it all...
http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=2OkIC1iN9fMComments now please
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hey I'm on the tools you know, I'd be driving "da der ship"
