Lady GaGa waves Irish flag at Belfast concert
Posted on Monday, November 01, 2010 at 01:00 PM
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At her Belfast concert last Saturday, Lady GaGa waved an Irish flag; causing debate about the emblem's meaning, while invoking the rebel Irish strain in rock rebellion.
David Bowie made similar controversy at a Dublin concert a few years back, when he shouted Tiochfaidh Ár Lá (chukee owr law) on a live recording of "Rebel, Rebel." He stubbornly released the live-in-Dublin DVD including Irish phrase "Our Day Will Come," as a nod to the mantra of the Irish Civil Rights Movement and Republican struggle.
Paul McCartney's classic song "Give Ireland Back to the Irish" and John Lennon's two songs "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and "Luck of the Irish" are but a few famous moments in the marriage of Irish spirit and rock renegadism.
Bono's song "Sunday Bloody Sunday" was sung like a rebel song, but also as an anthem of peace. Bono consciously invokes Luke Kelly as a prime influence, and knows he must carry the Irish song tradition into rock with a heavy burden. Like Seán MacBride--the IRA man who went on to found Amnesty International--the rebel wants what is better than what is allowed, but above all, he wants peace and justice for an oppressed people.
Since the Belfast Agreement, the Irish flag as with "the wearin' o' the green," is no longer prohibited in Belfast. The Irish flag is the flag of the Republic, but also the flag of the Irish people. We fly it in New York--GaGa's hometown; and everywhere else that the Irish live, including Belfast. The Irish flag was once prohibited around the British imperial world, but the prohibiton and the empire are no longer. Bowie astutely rejected knighthood in the order of British empire (OBE) in recognition of the end of British domination.
The Irish flag, the tri-color, is a reminder to the Irish that the green and orange traditions in Ireland are bound together on an island, but by the white stripe, the emblem of peace. Peace is all Bono, Luke Kelly, David Bowie, John Lennon, Paul McCartney or Lady GaGa ever meant by tapping into a rebel tradition that has gone on to erect a neutral republic and peace agreement as its legacy.
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DrTrelawney | Nov 07, 2010, 10:29 AM EST
Hang on. Sorry, you have offered no information on the details of his -- presumed, but, I admit likely -- rejection of honours. Aside from anything else, Britain has not been in a position to "dominate" the world in Bowie's lifetime. Also you seem to be mixing a knighthood (KBE or GBE) up with an OBE. The two awards are quite distinct. If he turned down an OBE, (the lesser gong) they would almost certainly never have offered him a knighthood
I would guess -- and I admit to just guessing -- his objections were to the honours system and its inherent connection with the monarchy.
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Realist | Nov 06, 2010, 12:32 PM EDT
Here's something else Bono said in 1987 in the wake of the IRA's Enniskillen Remembrance Day Massacre, "Well let me tell you something! I've had enough of Irish-Americans who haven't been back to their country in twenty or thirty years come up to me and talk about the resistance; the revolution back home, and the glory of the revolution and the glory of dying for the revolution. Fuck the revolution! They don't talk about the glory of killing for the revolution. What's the glory in taking a man from his bed and gunning him down in front of his wife and his children? Where's the glory in that? Where's the glory in bombing a Remembrance Day parade of old-aged pensioners, their medals taken out and polished up for the day? Where's the glory in that? To leave them dying, or crippled for life, or dead under the rubble of a revolution that the majority of the people in my country don't want." I quite agree.
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BrendanPKeane | Nov 05, 2010, 02:31 PM EDT
David Bowie shouted "Toichfaidh ár lá" on the Rebel Rebel track of his live-in-Dublin dvd. He rejected the OBE on the same grounds a lot of great Englishmen have rejected it.
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BrendanPKeane | Nov 05, 2010, 02:17 PM EDT
Bowie rejected the OBE, because he rejects British world domination.
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DrTrelawney | Nov 04, 2010, 03:19 PM EDT
"Bowie astutely rejected knighthood in the order of British empire (OBE) in recognition of the end of British domination." What on earth does this mean? Where has he said that he did anything "in recognition of the end of British domination"? If you're going to make up stuff at least do so in something approaching decent English.
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