I heard a great radio programme this morning about Irish elections of the past. When they were talking about the early 1980s, they played a bit of the Wolfe Tones' fondly remembered Arise And Follow Charlie, a hymn to then Fianna Fáil leaders Charles Haughey, who was running a highly personalised election campaign. Lyrics for this seem to be unavailable on the internet, but you can probably find it if you are one of those downloaders. They also played a bit of a less well remembered Fine Gael theme song, which turned out to be amazingly jaunty. I can't believe this was not a hit at the time, it sounded like the kind of song that would have swept to victory in the Eurovision. The lyrics went something like this:
Fine Gael, Fine Gael
[something that rhymes with Gael]
the world is changing so fast
don't look back to the past
Fine Gael, Fine Gael
I wish more political parties did songs. I would love to hear one about the Progressive Democrats or the People Before Profit Alliance.
You may be able to listen to this radio programme here: Bowman Sunday Morning
I think the missing line is something like "they are the ones we all hail", or similar.
ReplyDeleteI heard some of that programme too.
Seriously, is it me, or is this election over-covered?
Whereas not enough is being said about twenty year old elections. I have just discovered that Arise and follow Charlie is adapted from an old Jacobite tune about, you know, Bonnie Prince Charlie. But I am still struggling to find lyrics.
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