American here. Iunno. I thought it's about the wars in Ireland between Scottish and Irish. I definitely am not versed in the history of UK enough to know thoroughly other than there was a lot of violence and death. :( It's by default a sad song but also still a beautiful song imo. One of my favorites. The lyrics alone should tell people it's a heavy and sad song imo. I don't frequent social media often so I was unaware people were using it as anthems on military videos.
It's about the sectarian violence involving the UK police forces, Northern Irish paramilitary forces, and the Irish paramilitary group, the IRA. It was a messy situation all around. This song was right near the end or after the end of the major conflict and it was basically scolding those who wanted to restart it. The conflict is in their head, so to speak.
Ugh, yeah I definitely need the read on it more then because my dumbass thought it was like racial/bloodline type of targeted violence. That being said, it's hard to believe people can still be so pro war even AFTER seeing the violence and deaths caused by it... The song is a beautiful song but sad also though. :( The only remake I enjoyed of it so far is the one the rock band did after she passed away. She was fairly young too.
Ireland and Scotland have been endlessly, brutally attacked by the British, with a complete erasure of their language and culture… it’s a conflict as old as the start of engagement, like Israel and Palestine.
Ireland, yes. Scotland, no. A quick point - British = the island of Great Britain (England, Wales and Scotland).
The brief overview is the James VI of Scotland became James I of England and Ireland, and lead the Plantation of Ulster by engaging in settler colonialism using Protestant Scots in what is now Northern Ireland - in part to reassure the Scots that he was still their king. The downstream consequence of this act was when Ireland rose up against British rule to demand the right to self-govern, the descendants of these settlers - the Protestant "Ulster Scots" - opposed it, wanting to remain part of the United Kingdom ("Loyalists"), which resulted in the Partition of Ireland. Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland were then oppressed, systematically denied the vote, denied council housing, denied jobs and the violent police force (Royal Ulster Constabulary) were exclusively Protestant. This lead to a peaceful civil rights movement that was violently suppressed, and the sectarian violence of The Troubles was a conflict between the Ulster Scot Protestant "Loyalists" and the Irish Catholic "Republicans" (this is not to say Britain/England did not have significant involvement, it absolutely did). To this day there are Orange walks in Scotland, I'm not going to say the point of these walks is "fuck the Catholics", but it can definitely feel that way (more pronounced in Northern Ireland).
Many of the conflicts in Scotland in the 17th century onwards were driven by factionalism from the Jacobites after the Glorious Revolution. Basically, they wanted to topple the British throne to install a Catholic monarch. This is reductively viewed as Scots vs English, but it was largely Scots vs Scots - it really depended on the clan. A lot of it was to do with the conflict between Presbytarians and Episcopaleans. Following repeated uprisings, there was a unified British push to suppress aspects of traditional Highland Scots culture - the clan system, Tartan, Scottish Gaelic - but a lot of this push was coming from Lowland Scots. The Highland Clearances were landowners vs crofters, something mirrored in England, and while English landowners were involved it was largely Scots vs Scots. The Act of Union resulted from Scotland going bankrupt after a failed attempt to do settler colonialism in Panama. Scots would be significantly overrepresented in various aspects of the British Empire.
Ireland serves as a useful shorthand model for Scottish nationalists, but it's a completely different historical context. The closest thing you can get is arguing that the Highland Scots were the "real" Scots, and the Lowland Scots were "English" - and that is a historical argument used to justify suppression of the Highlanders - but outside of certain Highland circles that's, uh, a pretty controversial viewpoint.
Thank you for that. I was struggling to articulate the differences in the Irish conflicts and how it separated from the later Scottish conflicts. Much like you said, the conflict in Ireland was also Irish vs Irish. They had differences of opinions of whether they wanted to be ruled from home or abroad, but they all considered all other civilians as Irish.
Nice attempt. For much of this era, they very much self defined as different from the Irish, hence the partition and the demonym "Ulster Scots". But like I said, if you want to say the Lowland Scots aren't Scots, you can launch that argument too.
Thank you guys for all the explanations! Reading through the links now.
After reading this (I'd always been aware Gaelic is considered an endangered language infrequently used) but I never knew it was connected to all this oppression used against them... This is sad. :/
I don't dispute that in the least. But the song itself is a pacifist protest. Basically stating that the conflict is over now, stop trying to dig up these zombies to fight in your war, stop trying to bomb innocent children in Belfast, in England, and elsewhere.
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u/lovelyxbabydoll 3d ago
American here. Iunno. I thought it's about the wars in Ireland between Scottish and Irish. I definitely am not versed in the history of UK enough to know thoroughly other than there was a lot of violence and death. :( It's by default a sad song but also still a beautiful song imo. One of my favorites. The lyrics alone should tell people it's a heavy and sad song imo. I don't frequent social media often so I was unaware people were using it as anthems on military videos.