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Post by tisbearself on Aug 4, 2023 21:39:08 GMT
I spent a large amount of time in and around Brick Lane some years ago. Friend of mine was living there, I remember a whole group of us going to eat at an Indian restaurant and another time going to some doctor's apartment for vegan dinner and afterwards carousing rather inebriated through the streets. I felt a bit bad because while we (a doctor, a lawyer, a University professor, and someone else with a professional job) were romping about having fun with a hidden bottle of wine, some other poor man who looked a bit less educated than ourselves was getting arrested in the same block. Also fond memory of hitting the famous 24 hour bagel place at 2 am or so. www.mylondon.news/news/east-london-news/brick-lanes-famous-24-hour-19905917I bought some cheap cheesy minidress at the weekend market as well. I'm sorry Sinead didn't stick around and enjoy it but unfortunately some days I feel just bad enough myself to understand. I saw in her recent photos she had a very big Jesus tatt on her chest, I wonder if she kept that when she converted to Muslim.
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Post by theguvnor on Aug 4, 2023 21:55:45 GMT
The 24-hour bagel place is still there but it's not what it was and has gained a rep for rudeness in the last couple of years. A Jewish guy opened a much nicer bagel shop in Stoke Newington recently. No reason she couldn't keep the Jesus tattoo, not all schools of Islam are opposed to images of the human body and given the outfits she was wearing it would be unlikely to be on display any more.
There is actually a surprisingly large amount of art out there that shows Mohammed, Jesus and other prophets. Some areas of the Muslim word were not overly bothered by this. Although it has led to culture clashes within Islam itself over the issue.
I can certainly understand Sinead's low moods. Done that, been there, done that, got the scars (literally and figuratively) and the feeling of waiting to fall into a void is always there. Even if she did commit suicide I would view it as an issue where she has had previous struggles with low moods and suicidal ideation. She would likely have not been in her right mind during the event and was also mourning the death of a son as well.
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Post by theguvnor on Aug 4, 2023 22:55:17 GMT
Mentioning Sinead's religious convictions watch the video to this song. Despite having a verse in the song where she castigates the Church she is wearing a St Brigid's Cross on her lapel: www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZIB6MslCAoThis is a mix of this song that is totally different to the one where it appears on an album as well. I do take issue with this verse mind you:
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Post by tisbearself on Aug 4, 2023 23:59:37 GMT
I remember "Famine", it got played a bit on the radio in US, probably on some alt rock station. What verse castigates the Church? Not seeing one in that song nor remembering one.
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Post by theguvnor on Aug 5, 2023 6:24:51 GMT
The bit that goes on about child abuse - this was taken in Ireland, especially by older people as an attack on the Church. I viewed Sinead as just dealing with the reality of the situation. We had a serious problem and that wouldn't go away by pretending it wasn't there. Which version got played in the US do you remember? The version on the album uses samples from, 'Fiddler On The Roof' and part of a speech by the Irish Taisoeach Jack Lynch from 1970 near the end and a final statement by Teyve from 'Fiddler On The Roof' which states, '"Because of our tradition, everyone here knows who he is and what God expects him to do". The version in the links omits these bits. Sinead's use of those quotes from 'Fiddler On The Roof' strikes me as her making a direct comparison between the persecution of the Jews and the Irish.
The stories Teyve appears in originally are well worth a read. It does apparently help if you can read Yiddish but there are translations. They also tie into the internal tension that were apparent in Imperial Russia as Teyve lives in what is now Ukraine and a lot of the plots focus on the tensions between the major ethnic communities.
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Post by tisbearself on Aug 5, 2023 11:08:36 GMT
It’s hard to remember the exact version after all these decades. Probably it was the album version. I don’t remember the spoken word stuff at the end, it’s likely the DJ would have either had a radio edit version or faded the song out before that because almost no one in US would have recognized the speech or known why it was there. I certainly didn’t recognize it myself just now and had to look it up.
Probably some US people would have been upset by referring to God as a mother rather than a father. But like I said this was an alt rock song, not mainstream, and the listeners of alt rock back then would have just filed it under Sinead being a feminist who has issues with the patriarchy of the Church.
It was also common knowledge at least for me by the time “Universal Mother” came out that the Church in US was full of clergy sex abusers that just kept getting shipped around, because this 60 minutes piece aired in 1993 making clear that abusive priests were showing up in NM from all over the US, and the newspapers were running stories on local abuse cases all over the place by 1994 although without the gory details that came out later. Of course in those days a lot of people were still in denial about such things, but most people in the US, even Catholics, never regarded the Church with the same importance it once had in Ireland.
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Post by theguvnor on Aug 5, 2023 12:05:40 GMT
At the point Sinead put out the song she had distanced herself from the Catholic Church but still viewed herself as Christian. The song just about broke into the lower reaches of the pop charts here in the UK. Jack Lynch is among the most well-regarded of the men who have occupied the office of Taoiseach. Even the premier of Northern Ireland Terence O'Neill regarded him as a honest and reasonable man. Unfortunately O'Neill who favoured reform was slowly forced out of office. Even he however had odd ideas about Catholics as the quote below will show, this is from an interview he gave in the late 60s:
"It is frightfully hard to explain to Protestants that if you give Roman Catholics a good job and a good house they will live like Protestants because they will see neighbours with cars and television sets; they will refuse to have eighteen children. But if a Roman Catholic is jobless, and lives in the most ghastly hovel he will rear eighteen children on National Assistance. If you treat Roman Catholics with due consideration and kindness they will live like Protestants in spite of the authoritative nature of their Church"
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Post by tisbearself on Aug 5, 2023 16:05:47 GMT
That's not odd. It is similar to the things people used to say about poor black people and white people in US. Or poor immigrants of any sort and established US people.
There are fewer Catholics who have huge families when they have options of education and good, non-agrarian jobs. That is one reason why the Church shrinks as economy improves.
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Post by theguvnor on Aug 5, 2023 21:23:10 GMT
No-one was having eighteen kids mind you in late 60s Northern Ireland. Seven or eight yes but eighteen would have been rare indeed. Seen from a 2023 viewpoint those comments take on another light. The nationalist population of the north is now richer overall and better educated and the lack of education is such a problem in some Unionist areas that even Nationalist politicians have identified it as area the needs urgent attention. One more song from Sinead. I'd forgotten about this one, it is about Colin Roach who was killed by police not far from where I live. This was one reason many people in the area distrusted the police then in this area as Hackney's police had a very dubious record with people falling down stairs and stuff like that: www.youtube.com/watch?v=n14lwdpYkAA&list=RDMM&index=24en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Colin_Roach
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Post by tisbearself on Aug 5, 2023 23:55:40 GMT
I was just taking a look at her singing The Foggy Dew at the UFC match in Las Vegas in 2015. I don’t really follow that sport but man she still had quite the set of pipes for Irish music. She had a good manager working on a comeback but unfortunately she had to have a hysterectomy and according to both her and the manager, that’s when her mental health started going downhill from hormonal imbalance so the comeback didn’t happen and she parted ways with her management.
I must say that as Irish singers go I much prefer the voice of Sinead to that Cranberries singer who died a few years back.
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Post by theguvnor on Aug 6, 2023 0:28:13 GMT
Dolores O'Riordan annoys me. I felt sorry for her and her family given her death at a quite young age but Dolores voice is not to my taste. There were some magnificently pseudo-intellectual reviews of her commenting on how she fused the technical style of Irish singing with rock and how new this is. The problem is Sinead had done it long before her and Sinead didn't even claim she was the first to do it because she was aware of other people who had. Also, Sinead worked with a bigger range of genres and the Cranberries don't really excite me as a band. Here's Sinead doing reggae with Sly and Robbie handling production duties. This didn't get great reviews but I'm fond of this album: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq9Ydinu3HUIf you want to see Sinead do a fabulous rendition of a traditional Irish song watch her doing, 'She Moved Through the Fair'. This is a master musician at work here. I can never avoid comparing Sinead to my mother's cousin Catherine at this stage of her career as with the short brown hair they looked very alike and had similar builds. www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWIaP0NnEOQ
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Post by theguvnor on Aug 6, 2023 0:35:20 GMT
And here's Sinead proving her ability by doing an Irish song again. This one is well known and is a rebel song. I've given a translation of the lyrics underneath as well: www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Sje2VYw99AOh-ro You're welcome home, Oh-ro You're welcome home, Oh-ro You're welcome home... Now that summer's coming! Welcome oh woman who was so afflicted, It was our ruin that you were in bondage, Our fine land in the possession of thieves... And you sold to the foreigners! Chorus Gráinne O'Malley is coming over the sea, Armed warriors along with her as her guard, They are Gaels, not invaders(British) nor Spanish... And they will rout the foreigners! Chorus May it please the King of Miracles that we might see, Although we may live for a week once after, Gráinne Mhaol and a thousand warriors... Dispersing the foreigners! Chorus This is the more modern version. The last verse was added by Patrick Pearse and the song was used by the Irish Volunteers as a marching song.
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Post by theguvnor on Aug 7, 2023 21:29:47 GMT
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Post by theguvnor on Aug 8, 2023 3:49:46 GMT
Huge crowds are expected in Bray this morning to give Sinead a final send-off. Bear mentioned how in the US Sinead is seen as a 'one hit wonder' pop star by most. The amount of grief and controversial statements and arguing since her death shows how people's reputations can vary very widely. Here in the UK people saw her death as something of a sad event. However, ultimately it wasn't hugely important and younger people aren't all that clue up as to who she was in many cases.
In Ireland, a sort of strange collective mood of mourning seems to have gripped the nation. This is not something that could have been imagined thirty years ago. However, it is easy to celebrate the dead. Sinead alive was awkward and often what she had to say was awkward and I didn't always agree with her but she always gave the sense of speaking with passion and often she skewered those in power. Let her be at peace now. I will post the footage of the funeral later and let that be an end to this thread unless anyone wishes to say more.
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Post by theguvnor on Aug 8, 2023 4:07:12 GMT
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