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Years ago fiba awarded John Lennon & Yoko Ono Best Film
Awards for 1968
Che
Guevara's Basque and Irish Roots
The
John Lennon Online Library
The
Bloody Sunday Inquiry
Ireland's
Great Famine 1845-1849
From
the National Archives of Ireland: The Great Famine 1845-1850
- Introduction
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Well it was Sunday bloody
Sunday
When they shot the people there
The cries of thirteen martyrs
Filled the Free Derry air
Is there any one amongst you
Dare to blame it on the kids?
Not a soldier boy was bleeding
When they nailed the coffin
lids!
"Sunday
Bloody Sunday" written by John Lennon and Yoko Ono in
the aftermath of the massacre by British troops of
civil rights protesters in Derry, Ireland during
1972
In my opinion, John Lennon
should be recognised as the greatest Irish singer ever: his
California-based biographer Jon Wiener after all said that
Lennon "thought of himself as Irish." The Irish roots of the
two main members of the Beatles, Lennon and Paul McCartney,
has not yet been fully acknowledged, despite the fact that
Lennon, like McCartney, also had two Irish Grandparents.
Incredible then, considering how well known the Irish roots
of the world's most popular duo of songwriters - they are
for some strange reason, not listed for example in The
Guinness Book of Irish Facts and Feats by Ciarán
Deane (Guinness Publishing, Enfield, Middlesex, 1984).
The Beatles came from
Merseyside - an area around the city of Liverpool which has
the largest Irish population in England, mainly as a result
of the exodus of people from Ireland during the Great Famine
in the 1840's. Early in their career, the Beatles had played
in Ireland three times: in Dublin and Belfast in 1963, and
once again in Belfast in 1964. It was after the split of the
Beatles in 1970, that both Lennon & McCartney began
releasing songs about the Irish question - all of which were
all banned by the BCC: McCartney wrote Give Ireland Back
to Irish which became a hit single in 1972, and Lennon
wrote Sunday Bloody Sunday, and The Luck of The
Irish, both of which were on the album Some Time In
New York City that was also released in 1972.
On one hand The Guinness
Book of Irish Facts and Feats informs you, for example,
that the Socialist anthem, The Red Flag was written
by Jim Connell from Co. Meath in Ireland (d. 1929), and
under the heading "Top-selling contemporary Irish and
Irish-related popular music artists" it lists only U2, Van
Morrison and Bob Geldof. Under the heading "The London
Irish", it lists John Lydon from the Sex Pistols (whose
father is a Gaelic speaker from Co. Galway), Boy George,
Elvis Costello and The Pogues - but nowhere is either Lennon
& McCartney, or the Beatles mentioned - but then again
neither is another world famous Irish singer - Mary O'Brien
- commonly known as Dusty Springfield.
Lennon - like another famous
son of Ireland, Che
Guevara Lynch - was
more Irish than for example than either President Kennedy or
Ronald Reagan, but l suspect that the main reason why the
Irish state has not given these two proper recognition is
because they were both regarded probably as dangerous
revolutionaries and atheists - in Lennon's case, for
example, he once sang about his opposition to the Catholic
Church in Ireland, and expressed outright sympathy with the
Irish Republican movement in his song Sunday Bloody
Sunday:
Repatriate to
Britain
All of you who call it home
Leave Ireland to the Irish
Not for London or for Rome!
Lennon's grandfather, John
(Jack) Lennon was born in Dublin in 1858, and like many
Irish people after the Great Famine of the 1840's - when
Britain allowed over a million Irish people to die of
starvation - emigrated to Liverpool to seek better prospects
of employment. There Jack married an Irishwoman called Mary
Maguire and started a family. Sadly, their children,
including Alfred, were orphaned early on and grew up in
Liverpool orphanages. As his father Alfred Lennon walked out
and left him at the age of 5, Lennon never knew either of
his Irish grandparents or anything of his Irish roots. This
is probably because he was raised by his mother's family,
the Stanleys, were Welsh. In later years he became
increasingly interested in his Irish ancestry. In 1975, John
give his second son the name Seán, the Gaelic version
of his own name.
Like many Irish people, John
Lennon came from a musical family, in this case a long line
of minstrel singers and crooners. His grandfather had earned
his living as a minstrel singer, and his great-grandfather
was also a known singer in Ireland. Alfred Lennon had also
earned extra money singing as a young man also. The Lennon
family tradition of crooning, which started back in Ireland,
continued with John Lennon, and later through his own son
Julian, who released his highly acclaimed debut album
Valotte in 1984.
The Irish Question
However, while Lennon and
McCartney had not focused upon their Irish roots during
their years as members of the Beatles, it definitely
attracted their attention after the break-up of the group.
This had coincided with the emergence of a civil rights
movement in the North of Ireland, which was to prove the
catalyst for both Lennon and McCartney to write songs about
the Irish question. What triggered this was the massacre by
British troops of 14 unarmed civil rights protesters in
Derry in 1972, which became immediately known as "Bloody
Sunday". McCartney, who had just formed his new group Wings,
released their hit single Give Ireland Back to the
Irish just four weeks after Bloody Sunday on February
25th 1972. The BBC immediately banned the song, and as a
result of the controversy and censorship, some Wings
concerts in the UK were picketed, and the brother of Wings
guitarist Henry McCullough, a native of Derry, was beaten up
by loyalists. Shortly after this, Lennon recorded his song
about the incident, Sunday Bloody Sunday, which
appeared on his Some Time in New York City
album:
Sunday Bloody
Sunday (Lennon-Ono)
Well it was Sunday
bloody Sunday
When they shot the people there
The cries of thirteen martyrs
Filled the Free Derry air
Is there any one amongst
you
Dare to blame it on the kids?
Not a soldier boy was bleeding
When they nailed the coffin lids!
Sunday bloody Sunday
Bloody Sunday's the day!
You claim to be majority
Well you know that it's a lie
You're really a minority
On this sweet emerald isle
When Stormont bans our
marches
They've got a lot to learn
Internment is no answer
It's those mothers' turn to burn!
Sunday bloody Sunday
Bloody Sunday's the day!
Sunday bloody Sunday
Bloody Sunday's the day!
You anglo pigs and
Scotties
Sent to colonize the North
You wave your bloody Union Jack
And you know what it's worth!
How dare you hold to
ransom
A people proud and free
Keep Ireland for the Irish
Put the English back to sea!
Sunday bloody Sunday
Bloody Sunday's the day!
Well, it's always bloody
Sunday
In the concentration camps
Keep Falls Road free forever
From the bloody English hands
Repatriate to Britain
All of you who call it home
Leave Ireland to the Irish
Not for London or for Rome!
Sunday bloody Sunday
Bloody Sunday's the day! . . .
From the album
Some Time In New York City (1972)
It was during this period that
Lennon began to identify himself as Irish, rather than
British or Welsh and began to openly support both the Troops
Out movement and the Civil Rights movement in the north of
Ireland. For instance, in his 1974 Walls and Bridges
album, Lennon included a booklet contained a history of the
Lennon name, in the form of the entry from Irish
Families, Their Names, Arms and Origins by Edward
MacLysaght. The name Lennon is an anglicised form of 'O
Leannain' which historically has been common in counties
Fermanagh and Galway. The entry ends with, "No person of the
name Lennon has distinguished himself in the political,
military or cultural life of Ireland (or England for that
matter)", under which John wrote in this own handwriting,
'Oh yeh? John Lennon!'. However, in an updated version
More Irish Families (Irish Academic Press, Dublin,
Ireland, 1982), MacLysaght writes:
"(0)
LENNON: Since the 4th edition of Irish
Families was published John Lennon, an outstanding member
of the Beatles group, assassinated in 1980, has become
well known outside Ireland not only as a talented
musician but also for his connection With the peace
movement."
The FBI files on Lennon's
Irish political links
In February 2000, the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released files that indicated
that they had investigated links between Lennon and New
York-based Irish Republican activists in the 1970s. These
are part of a 300-page Lennon file which the FBI had
resisted releasing since his murder in December 1980.
Altogether, 80 pages were released after a court settlement
with Professor Jon Wiener, a California-based Lennon
biographer and author of Come Together: John Lennon in
His Time (Univ. of Illinois Press, 1984). Wiener said
that the files include "the first solid evidence" that the
FBI had an interest in Lennon's involvement in Irish issues,
as prior to that he had not been aware of the FBI's
connecting Irish Republican activists to Lennon in New York.
It goes without saying that both MI5 and MI6 would have also
had an interest in Lennon and his political activities, and
would have shared information with the FBI and the CIA in
this regard. In fact, Wiener says a further 10 documents
still held by the FBI were "almost definitely" compiled with
the help of MI5. The FBI claims that these 10 files are
"national security documents" which originated with "a
foreign government" (i.e. Britain). Wiener thinks that this
probably has something to do with surveillance of Lennon's
political activities in the UK as well as his arrest for
possession of cannabis in 1968.
Lennon had got involved in
Irish politics before Bloody Sunday in January 1972. He
supported activists protesting against the policy of
internment without trial, which was launched by the British
army on 9th August 1971, and resulted in 342 people being
arrested without charge in brutal dawn raids that netted
very few IRA members, but for example led to the detainment
of several members of the civil rights movement. The net was
cast so wide and recklessly that within 48 hours 116 people
had been released. However, 14 were "selected" by the
British army and the R.U.C. to undergo a series of
"experiments" in sensory deprivation and other forms of
torture. It resulted in Britain being found guilty of using
torture by the European Court of Human Rights for the second
time - the only country in Europe which has this distinction
(the other occasion was the torture of Greek Cypriot
resistance fighters in the 1960's). Internment and the
massacre at Bloody Sunday were the main reasons for many in
the Nationalist community taking the decision to join the
IRA and fight back. Lennon appeared at an anti-internment
rally in London in August 1971, where he was photographed
holding a sign that read: 'Victory for the IRA against
British Imperialism !'" When asked how he reconciled his
support for nonviolence with his sympathy for the IRA,
Lennon stated:
"If it's a choice
between the IRA and the British Army, I'm with the IRA.
But if it's a choice between violence and non-violence,
I'm with non-violence. So it's a very delicate line."
The FBI files also include an
informers account of a meeting on February 6th, 1972, at the
Irish Institute on W. 48th Street, New York, just seven days
after Bloody Sunday. According to the FBI informer, some of
the proposals included procuring weapons for the IRA, whilst
another called for the boycott of British goods. But one
thing that caught the FBI's attention was the willingness of
Lennon to offer to perform at an "mass demonstration"
organised by the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). The demo
however, occurred sooner than expected - next day (February
7th, 1972) in a rally in Manhattan organized by the Transit
Workers Union. Lennon joked at the rally how "the police
were particularly cooperative as most of them were Irish".
He then said that "The purpose of the meeting was to show
solidarity with the people who are going to march tomorrow
in Northern Ireland" Referring to his Irish ancestry, Lennon
told the crowd, "My name is Lennon and you can guess the
rest." He added that his native Liverpool was "80% Irish."
Then along with Ono he sang "The Luck of the Irish," which
was his second song written in reaction to Bloody Sunday:
The Luck Of The
Irish (Lennon-Ono)
If you have the luck of
the Irish,
You'd be sorry and wish you were dead
You should have the luck of the Irish
And you'd wish you was English instead!
A thousand years of torture
and hunger
Drove the people away from their land,
A land full of beauty and wonder
Was raped by the British brigands!
Goddamn!
Goddamn!
If you could keep voices
like flowers
There'd be shamrock all over the world.
If you could drink dreams
like the Irish streams
Then the world would be high as the mountain of morn
In the Pool they told us the story
How the English divided the land,
Of the pain, the death and the glory
And the poets of auld Eireland
If we could make chains with the morning dew
The world would be like Galway Bay
Let's walk over rainbows
like leprechauns
The world would be one big Blarney stone
Why the hell are the English there anyway?
As they kill with god on their side!
Blame it all on the kids and the IRA!
As the bastards commit genocide
Aye! Aye!
Genocide!
If you had the luck of the
Irish
You should have the luck of the Irish
You'd be sorry and wish you were dead
And you's wish you were English instead!
Yes you'd wish you was English
instead!!
From the album
Some Time In New York City (1972)
At the time of the rally,
Lennon was already in contact with the office of Irish
Northern Aid, in New York, an organization which raises
money for the families of IRA prisoners and supports Sinn
Féin. Furthermore, he assigned all the royalties from
The Luck of the Irish to Irish Northern Aid.
Although it has been claimed by the former MI5 spy David
Shayler that Lennon secretly funded the IRA at the time,
this was denied by Yoko Ono, who was said to be upset by
newspaper reports that MI5 allegedly had "proof" that Lennon
had given money to the IRA according to The Sunday
Times (February 22nd 2000).
Whatever the controversy about
Lennon's involvement with the Irish Republican movement and
his support for Irish freedom, the fact is, he considered
himself Irish and therefore should be recognised as such. As
The Guinness Book of Irish Facts and Feats points
out: "Irishness is not limited to the Island of Ireland".
The Great Famine in the 1840's forced out millions of people
over the decades that followed it - including Lennon's
grandfather. From these people, there are over 60 million
people worldwide who consider themselves Irish by heritage
(43 million of which are in the USA). Lennon has recently
been nominated in Britain the greatest songwriter and
performer of the 20th century - it is a shame that Ireland
has not bestowed this honour on him as one of it's most
famous sons from the Irish Diaspora.
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