Rebel Song

The signing of the Good Friday Agreement on April 10, 1998, marked the beginning of a new era of peace and stability in Northern Ireland. As the public has overwhelmingly rejected a return to the violence of the Troubles (1968–1998), loyalist and republican groups have sought other outlets to continue their struggle. Music has long been used to celebrate cultural identity in the North of Ireland: from street parades to football chants, and from folk festivals to YouTube videos, music facilitates the continuation of pre-Agreement identity narratives in a “post-conflict” era. Sounding Dissent draws on original in-depth interviews with Irish republican musicians, contemporary audiences, and former paramilitaries, as well as diverse historical and archival material, including songbooks, prison records, and newspaper articles, to understand the history of political violence in Ireland. The book examines the hagiographic potential of rebel songs to memorialize a pantheon of republican martyrs, and demonstrates how musical performance and political song not only articulate experiences and memories of oppression and violence, but play a central role in the reproduction of conflict and exclusion in times of peace.

REBEL SONG is a collection of poetry, essays, stories and meditations that reveals a depth of social conviction and the honesty of sincere spiritual struggle. Writing from an Orthodox Christian foundation, the author provides words of necessary challenge and transcendent hope. This is a compilation of philosophical prose, revolutionary verse, and mystical reflections written by a visionary of peace, love, and human rights. Herein are prophetic insights that will stir apathetic minds and arouse slumbering hearts. Provocative, incendiary, and perhaps controversial, this book ultimately resonates with redemptive truth. Through candid self-reflections and his clarion call to the Gospel of Peace, GEBRE MENFES KIDUS reveals the soul and consciousness of a true spiritual rebel.

Rebel Song is a collection of pictures and words of some of the most important musicians who changed the face of Irish Music to the international force it is today. As Irish musicians began to find international fame in the second half of the 20th century, there was a growing swell of bands like the Fureys, the Pogues and the Dubliners who transformed traditional rebel music into something with an energy and intensity that was more direct and outspoken than ever before. Irish folk music had expressed the pain of generations under colonial domination. This blossomed into a nation's resistance and rebellion, and spilled over into rock and pop, and then into a fusion with punk. Filled with passion and politics, the tunes of rebellion moved from a rallying call to resistance, and onto a global stage that continues to push back and assert Irish identity and love of life. Artists like U2, Sinéad O'Connor, Bob Geldof and the Pogues have often taken an outspoken stand on matters of global politics, while always maintaining a direct connection back to Ireland. Featuring pictures by legendary music photographer Andrew Catlin that include many taken very early in the careers of the artists, often while at their creative peak, with photographs that span more than thirty years. The book explores the connection between the traditions of Irish music, the history of Ireland, and the extraordinary power and intensity of some of the greatest songwriters and performers of the last 50 years.

This book uses a genealogical manuscript discovered in 2004 to argue for the historicity of the scholar-rebel-advisor Li Yan who helped overthrow the Ming polity in 1644. It invokes a spiral theory to elucidate his significance in Chinese and world history.

Can love exist where there can be no forgiveness? Crushed at Culloden, driven from their Highland crofts and transported to Australia, the Douglas family knows injustice. Encounter Bay, on the wild, windswept southern coast of Australia, is at the very edge of civilisation, but at least Bonnie Douglas and her father have their freedom. However, their life on the frontier is about to change forever. Sergeant Rowan Elliott is determined to bring this lawless outpost under his control, and imprisons Bonnie's father on the charge of murder. Penniless and desperate, Bonnie is driven to bushranging, and she takes to it with relish, fighting injustice and taunting the troopers at every turn. Pursued relentlessly by Sergeant Elliott across trackless lands, Bonnie escapes to the wilderness of the Coorong, where no white woman has been before. Beneath her determination to right this injustice, and alongside every vengeful thought she has had about Rowan, there lies an attraction that neither can deny. But how can she love this man she cannot forgive? Justice, forgiveness, or love – where do her true allegiances lie? This historical romance is perfect for readers of Judy Nunn, Diana Gabaldon and Colleen McCollough.

The immigration man read my deportation order, looked at it and handed it back to me. 'Are you Irish?' he asked me. 'No' I said 'as a matter of fact, I'm Yemenite Arab.' Two detectives came forward who were evidently there to meet me. 'Apparently he is Brendan Behan,' they said. The immigration officer shook my hand and his hard face softened. 'Cead mile failte romhat abhaile.' (A hundred thousand welcomes home to you.) I could not answer. There are no words and it would be impertinence to try. I walked down the gangway. I was free. First published after Brendan Behan's tragic death, Confessions of an Irish Rebel picks up where Borstal Boy left off. Not only is it the last instalment of a unique and unorthodox autobiography, but of a unique and unorthodox life that was as touched with genius as it was with doom.

The relationship between language and music has much in common - rhythm, structure, sound, metaphor. Exploring the phenomena of song and performance, this book presents a sociolinguistic model for analysing them. Based on ethnomusicologist John Blacking's contention that any song performed communally is a 'folk song' regardless of its generic origins, it argues that folk song to a far greater extent than other song genres displays 'communal' or 'inclusive' types of performance. The defining feature of folk song as a multi-modal instantiation of music and language is its participatory nature, making it ideal for sociolinguistic analysis. In this sense, a folk song is the product of specific types of developing social interaction whose major purpose is the construction of a temporally and locally based community. Through repeated instantiations, this can lead to disparate communities of practice, which, over time, develop sociocultural registers and a communal stance towards aspects of meaningful events in everyday lives that become typical of a discourse community.