The Blindboy Podcast - The Wolfetones

Episode Date: January 15, 2020

Two part podcast. Part one, some historical context and a hot take on the commemorations of the RIC. Part two, a chat with Brian Warfield, lead singer of Irish rebel band, The Wolfetones Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Pull up your trousers, you tarnished Antonies. You've just sharted on your roller skates. Welcome to the Blind Buy Podcast. Hello. Don't forget to like the podcast, subscribe to the podcast, and maybe write a little review on the Apple Podcast apps, whatever the fuck it's called, and share it with a friend. Alright, how are you getting on? I've been, do you know what, it's two weeks into the new year, and I've had a surprisingly nice new year so far. And I'll tell you why. I've been doing dry January.

Dry January, which I know most of you are also doing, is... Dry January is when you abstain from alcohol. You abstain from drinking. For the month of January. Because. December can be quite an excessive month. Christmas parties and family get togethers. So you drink a bit more in December. And you spend a lot of money.

Not everybody has a huge amount of money left. Come January. So I said fuck it. I'll try dry January. For the laugh. I said I'll try it. Mainly to see if I could do it. I was just curious to see.

Because I was thinking back. I've been. I'm gigging. Jesus nearly 12 years. And since I've been gigging. I don't think I've gone. A month. Without some little bit of alcohol. Because I've definitely done one gig a month for the past 12 years, probably.

So, out of curiosity, I said to myself, do you know what I think it was? I think I needed to see if I could. Because I don't really drink that much. I drink once a week, so that's four times a month, and I drink between six and eight cans, so that's, you know normal that's what most Irish people would drink around that much so I was thinking fuck it I don't really need need to do dry January but I'd like to try it so I'm 14 days into it and the results are actually quite surprising uh for the positive honest to god um i'm definitely getting better sleep i'm getting like eight hours of sleep like here's the thing so drinking six cans once a week is you know it's not that much so you'd think sure fuck it how could that much. So you'd think, sure, fuck it,

how could that have any influence or impact on your life? And I didn't think it did. But now that I've had no drink in 14 days, I am actually noticing the effect it had. So the first thing I notice is definitely getting better sleep, more regular, so my sleeping routine isn't disturbed, I'm waking up now early, like I work from home obviously, so I don't have to get up at a certain time every day,

but now I'm waking up at like half seven in the morning, going to the gym early, and having this regular routine day, and it's because, if you get drunk on a Saturday, you stay up a little bit later, and it fucks up your routine, what else am I noticing, as you know, I'm a very active person,

I do a lot of exercise. I exercise maybe between five and six days a week. Three days going to the gym and three days running 10 kilometers. So that's a lot of exercise. I also eat quite healthily. You know, I prepare all my own food from scratch and I keep an eye on portion sizes yet I'm continually about a half a stone overweight according to my BMI so body fat is flying off me I thought it was because I'm in my fucking 30s I was going Asher this is the crack

now it doesn't matter how much exercise I do or how much i watch what i eat i'm gonna have a bit of dad bod but like 14 days off alcohol and eating properly and exercising regularly is now showing which i didn't expect at all um what else, I noticeably have more time, like when you drink on a Friday or a Saturday, even if you make all the hangover preparations and drink a lot of water, and you're not suffering an intense hangover the next day the next day is kind of a write-off you're not fully on form you're not emotionally on form or mentally on form even if you try and maintain your routine so normally for me I'd drink on a Friday or a Saturday, the next day I'm kind of, my mood is deflated, my energy is deflated and when your mood is down you just want instant gratification, so the day of a hangover I'm eating a takeaway, not even a nice one, just like shit chicken curry and also fucking up my sleep pattern so yeah fucking hugely positive results of 14 days with

no alcohol and i'm just really surprised that it's like wow i didn't notice the subtle negative effects that even drinking once a week was having on my body so it's quite enlightening and i'm gonna get to the end of the month now as you know in february i'm going on a tour i'm gigging in australia new zealand thailand then i've got a fucking an english tour in march so i'll probably be having a drink in Thailand or in Australia do you know but this month of no drinking I'm really really glad I've done it and I think going forward it's it's caused me now to reappraise I always speak about any substance right any substance whether it be drink whether it be fucking hash whether it be chocolate whatever the fuck it's not the substance that's important what's important is our relationship with the substance

so these 14 days of no alcohol have now caused me to reappraise my relationship with it so reappraise my relationship with it so i'd say going forward i'm probably i i'd like to think i'd like to hope and try that i might cut down my entire alcohol consumption by about 75 percent do you know like really only have drink as a as a I used to have it as a reward so if I work hard all week I'm allowed have a few cans at the weekend because that's a reward but the thing with that is there was a routine around it so I think I'm gonna stop having it as a reward and now it becomes more of a special occasion or a treat thing. Because I'm really enjoying these 14 days of no alcohol. And I'm not craving it. I don't really think about it. And the only possible negative, the only negative I can think of is...

Because I was weighing it up. Like, where are the negatives here? The only negative is I'm not getting drunk once a week. But who gives a fuck? Also like. You know fooling myself into this. This idea that. In order to relax and wind down.

I must have a few cans. Not at all. I'm now. What did I do on Saturday night? I had a fucking great Saturday night I sat in I had it's caused me

like I love tea but it's caused me to really love tea now so I drank loads of tea and I went down a beautiful Wikipedia hole reading about the history of grave robbing you know and I had a great Saturday night drinking tea,

learning loads, reading, chilling out, relaxing, enjoying myself, and then 12 o'clock at night happens, and I'm tired, and I'm in bed, I'm up on Saturday the next day, bright and early, and I'm in the gym, and then on Sunday I'm running, and yeah, fuck it, it's great, I'm in the gym and then on Sunday I'm running and yeah fuck it it's great I'm really happy with it so that's my update on dry January so this week it's a very very long podcast this is a it's a two part podcast to be honest the first part is his history i want to give you some history i want to give you historical context i want to give you a hot take to to explain where the second part exists as such so the first part is is a hot take for about an hour and then the second part is an interview with a guest um so just to gonna to let you know that if you want to either listen to the whole thing or decide i'm gonna listen to part one today and part two tomorrow some people jesus lads the amount of

you that message me and just say will you make them longer will you give us five hour podcasts because i'm in work for five hours so for those people you're in luck it's not going to be five hours but it's a long podcast in two parts but it's a podcast so how much you listen to is entirely up to you you can listen to this much today this much tomorrow it's entirely up to you all right so this week um what is this week's podcast going to be about i have an incredibly interesting and important guest who i'm going to be chatting to and that person their name is brian warfield and they're the lead singer of a legendary Irish band called the Wolftones, who are kind of an Irish traditional music, but who specialise, their work is rebel songs and ballads.

And I'll tell you why I am doing that this week, and why it's relevant and pertinent. Because this conversation with brian warfield i actually recorded about three months ago in vicar street it was a great night but events have happened in the irish news uh this week which basically mean that this is the week to put this interview out basically and i'll explain to you what that is and I'm going to simplify it down as well because I'm conscious that there's a huge amount of listeners for this podcast I think look 60% of the listenership of this podcast

isn't in Ireland so I'm going to simplify it down so it's 2020 in Ireland we are coming very close to celebrating the 100th anniversary of the independence of the Republic of Ireland from British rule. By which I mean, on the island of Ireland, we have the 26 counties which are the Republic of Ireland, complete independent freedom from 800 years of British rule.

And then on the north of Ireland there are six counties that are still under British rule. So in 1922 Ireland gained its freedom as such through a war with the British. And this war was fought by the IRA against forces of the British Crown. And these forces of the British Crown were known in the umbrella term of the RIC. The Royal Irish Constabulary. Which constabulary means a police force. So. Our government that's in power at the moment. Fine Gael.

Decided about a week or two ago. That they were to commemorate. The dead. The IRA dead. Of the Irish War of Independence in 1922 that they were to commemorate the IRA dead but that they would also commemorate the dead of the RIC, the Royal

Irish Constabulary and this made people very angry because it's a strange, odd move it's like Ireland and the IRA fought for independence and freedom from great brutality physical and systematic oppression and they fought the RIC so why would you commemorate the opposition as such why would you commemorate the people that were against the freedom of Ireland? So Fianna Gael announced

they would be commemorating the RIC and a lot of people disagreed with this. A lot of people got very, very angry because so let's get into the history of I'm going to try and do this

with the nuance that it deserves because it's complex so the Royal Irish Constabulary they were set up around 1836 right and

set up as according to the Brits as a police force they were simply police a constabulary they were they were police by name only they were set up much more closely as a military force they were organized in barracks they They had rifles, pistols, machine guns. They were a military force, a very militarised force, paramilitary force, that were called a constabulary or a police force because if you change the language it makes them seem a little bit friendly, okay? They would have been, the structure of the RIC would have been at the lower levels your average bobby on the beat they would have been there was two actually there was the RIC which would have

been rural Ireland like Limerick fucking Cork and then you had the Dublin Metropolitan Police which were just for Dublin the pale which would have been very British. So the RIC was composed of kind of regular Irish Catholics, who would have been an oppressed group in 1836, a highly oppressed group. So regular Irish Catholics in the lower levels, but then the higher echelons of the RIC would have been British or Irish Protestant with Unionist leanings. So there was, even within the RIC, there was a power structure that was sectarian in nature. The average Irish Catholic wasn't going to climb very high in the RIC. in the RIC and what's important

to remember is that the RIC were they enforced British rule they enforced and British rule in Ireland in 1836 1836 is 10 years before the worst of the Irish potato famine which was

a genocide on the Irish people let's be honest and the RIC who would have been policing rural communities heavily armed they enabled and upheld

often brutally the force of the British Empire which was not fair it was a Empire, which was not fair. It was a colonial system which was designed to oppress and eradicate the Irish people and extract our resources and our land for the benefit only of wealthy people in Britain or wealthy colonisers that lived in Ireland so the RIC they were not

they were a police the only fucking police in the RIC did it wasn't really for the benefit of the average Irish person it was much more to protect the interests of who was ruling Ireland at the time. And that was British people. And what you'd call wealthy Protestant Anglo-Irish people. In 1836 and onwards. They protected property. They protected landlords. The interests of landlords and the property class.

That's who they protected. Okay. Okay. you know, let's like, put it this way, if you're a starving Irish Catholic in the famine right, which is only a couple of decades after the penal laws

the penal laws were a systematic incredibly racist system of oppression against Irish Catholics. That meant an Irish Catholic couldn't own land, couldn't receive an education, all that shit. If you're a starving Irish person and your family is dying all around you because there's a famine, and if you steal grain from a landlord who arrests you, the RIC arrested you. What did they do? They shipped you off to Australia.

They shipped you off to fucking a penal colony in Barbados. Whatever the fuck you want. Alright? The RIC enabled the British Empire in Ireland. enabled the British Empire in Ireland. Now, the nuanced look at it is, it was also one of the few outlets for a poor working class Irish person to

earn a living. You know, there's a famine going on and you want to feed your family, so you get a job with the RIC and throw out your job. Yes, you are maintaining a force of oppression against your own people but you're living. And all of us, myself included, have relatives with 90% certainty have relatives that were members of the RIC so that's where it becomes tricky now you start moving up to the Irish War of Independence which kicked off in I believe around was it 1919 I think the first shots of the

Irish War of Independence which were fought by the IRA against the RIC. The RIC, one important thing to take note of too, when the Irish War of Independence happened the IRA sent a very clear signal to all the RIC barracks in the country clearly stating you are not safe, there's now a war, if you're a member of the RIC we don't give a shit if you're an Irish Catholic or not, Clearly stating, you are not safe. There's now a war. If you're a member of the RIC, we don't give a shit if you're an Irish Catholic or not. You are a target. So by 1919, a lot of native kind of Catholic Irish RIC members actually deserted. Because they didn't feel safe. And some of them ideologically did not agree

with what was happening they agreed more with what the IRA were doing they didn't want to enforce British law in such cruel fashion anymore so what happened in 1919 onwards is the Brits will say Winston Churchill was one of the brainchilds of it. And then the other fellow was called, fuck what was his name, Viscount Hamar Greenwood. Who's actually the actress Cara Delevingne, her great grandfather, Viscount Hamar Greenwood, they invented a group, two groups known as the Black and Tans and the Auxiliary Forces, right? So this is where it starts to get messy. So the Royal Irish Constabulary, who are quote-unquote a police service, they're not doing too well in the fight against the IRA, who want Irish freedom, circa 1919. So the Brits, Churchill and Hamar Greenwood,

decide, okay, we need to add more forces to this RIC. We need to make them more powerful, more brutal, more vicious. So two forces were created. The, I don't know the official fucking name but we call them the black and tans the no the ric special reserve who we refer to as the black and tans because the ric special reserve were ex-british soldiers from World War I, right? They were taken from... They were... Often working class English,

ex-English soldiers who had fought in World War I, who would have suffered shell shock. Some black and tans were actually taken from English prisons. They can be viewed as mercenaries as such. They weren't drafted. The advert was put out that basically the Black and Tans were offered very, very good

money for the time. I think it was like a shilling a day. The closest modern analogue is, we'll say, private security forces that operate in Iraq who receive massive, massive amounts of money to do what the black and tans are doing except now

in Iraq but they were a mercenary force so they weren't drafted we say like they would have been for World War 1 it was voluntary and it's like here's a lot of money and they were soldiers who had seen the brutality of World War 1 and survived and they were given a job seen the brutality of World War I and survived,

and they were given a job in the RIC Special Reserve in Ireland with the express purpose of terrorising the civilian, murdering and terrorising the civilian population of Ireland in order to turn regular civilians against the fight for freedom, basically. The Black and Tans were terrorists. British state-funded terrorists. And there's no other word for them, them. And they were in the RIC. They were the RIC Special Reserve. Why did we call them the Black and Tans? Because Britain didn't have enough uniforms to give the RIC Special Reserve an actual uniform. So they picked whatever bits they had left from uniforms around the place. So the RIC Special Reserve might have had black pants and maybe a tan jacket or vice versa.

So the people of Ireland began to call them the Black and Tans and they became associated with absolute horrific horrible brutal violence against civilians they were the irish equivalent of the ss then you had the auxiliaries who were the auxies were a little were like posh brits they again some of them were x were were one others weren't but they were of the officer class. So the Oggsies, they would have been more upper-crust, posh Brits, and they would have been kind of telling the Black and Tans what to do. The Oggsies were a show of cunts as well, but they did it with a posher accent. But we remember the Black and Tans as being the most brutal, the most violent, the most horrific, and they existed exclusively for that purpose.

The Black and Tans, it wasn't like a mistake that Churchill and Hamar Green would make, made. They didn't like accidentally go, oh no, we didn't think that they'd be so brutal. It's like, no, they were told to be terrorists and we'll pay you well with British tax money to terrorise and kill and murder the Irish people. So that's who the Black and Tans were. But they were all in the RIC. So what happened this week in Ireland is our government, Fianna Gael,

decided it would be a good idea to commemorate the RIC. Commemorate alongside the dead who fought for Irish freedom freedom and it caused a lot of anger and confusion because some people then thought well if you're commemorating the ric you're also commemorating the black and tans because they were in the ric and you're also commemorating the auxiliaries it means that you recognize and even when they were stepping away from it and going no no we're not commemorating the black and tans we just want to commemorate the catholic members of the ric who were killed in their duty upholding the law but then you go what law was that that was the law of british rule then you have the issue of well the regularIC some of them weren't that nice they they killed strikers during the

1913 lockouts who ordered the killings of these RIC officers well Michael Collins did and isn't he one of the founding members of Fianna Gael so it was a very poorly thought out exercise that the people of Ireland last week absolutely fucking rejected and it made Fianna Gael look like fools they used the excuse of well it was the Gardaí Síochána the Irish police force who requested that the RIC be recognized to commemorate and remember the importance of police duty and policing and upholding the law. But the average Irish person was just like, fuck that. And, you know, where do I stand on this? I'm against this. I am against it for two reasons.

Number one, like I mentioned earlier, because I was against it online and people said to me, you know, my grandfather was in the RIC or my granduncle was in the RIC. Are you saying he did a bad thing? And it's a tough one because here's the thing. I guarantee you I have a relative who was in the RIC. I guarantee you, and same with you, if you're an Irish person living in Ireland now, I probably have a relative who was in the RIC. I guarantee you, and same with you, if you're an Irish person living in Ireland now,

I probably have a relative who joined the RIC to feed their family, to just exist, to just live. And in order for them to do that, they had to do unconscionable things. They had to uphold British law against their own people okay and i recognize that i'm able to look at it in a nuanced fashion and kind of appreciate okay they made these choices to eat that's fine but i also have relatives who didn't I have relatives who instead chose poverty and the poverty and the certainty of death by joining the IRA and fighting against the powers of Britain for the freedom that I enjoy today fighting against the powers of Britain for the freedom that I enjoy today. And when I weigh that up, it's like, okay, I get it, I probably had a fucking, an RIC relative

who did their thing, but I also had a relative who went against all of that in a principled fashion, put their life on the line, lived poverty and won and come out of it as heroes i remember the ric relative i recognize it but i don't want to fucking commemorate them i want to commemorate the relative who afforded me the freedom that i have today through their fucking hardship that's the whole point of commemoration that's what I want and it's I think it's what most other Irish people want as well um so what happened was everyone said fuck that and a campaign was started there's a song called come out you black and tans by a band called the wolf tones and a campaign was started as a protest to get this song to number one in the charts and it worked

and come out you black and tans which is the lyrics are come out come out you black and tans come out and fight me like a man it is anti-colonial because it mentions you know british oppression in africa all around the world it's it's a fuck you to the black and tans so it was a clear message to the irish government no do not commemorate the ric and come out you black and tans was number is number one right now in the irish itunes charts and it's number one right now in the Irish iTunes charts. And it's number one in the British iTunes charts. This fucking song that contains the lyrics. Come out you black and tans, come out and fight me like a man.

Show your wife how you won medals down in Flanders. Tell them how the IRA made you run like hell away. This is now number one in the Irish iTunes charts and in the British iTunes charts as a protest and to add insult to injury the Wolvetones who recorded the song announced yeah we're very happy with it and we would like to give

all of the proceeds to the Peter McVerry Trust which is a homelessness charity in Ireland because our current government Fianna G, who wants to commemorate the RIC, are at the forefront of one of the worst housing crises and homeless crises that we've ever seen in Ireland. So here's my hot take on the issue. So firstly, this is why I'm going to have Brian Warfield speaking, even though he doesn't speak about this because it was recorded two months ago. Here's my hot take on the issue so firstly this is why I'm going to have Brian Warfield speaking even though he doesn't speak about this because it was recorded

two months ago here's my hot take on the whole issue honestly do I give a do I really give a fuck about a monument commemorating someone not really you know it's it's it's a monument

it's a piece of stone with names on it I think it's wrong to it's a monument it's a piece of stone with names on it i think it's wrong to commemorate the ric it irritates me but ultimately what effect on my life does it have if there's a fucking a slab of marble that has the names of dead men that died 100 years ago you know i'm not gonna to get that bothered about it it's not hugely important there's much

greater things happening in Ireland greater injustices in Ireland right now for all of us to be passionately angry about that if we change those things it will affect our lives but some names on a slab not that important

however and here's my fucking hot take and this is why I do care about it so what I'm interested in is the bigger picture the bigger picture of not what is happening not like

there's a commemoration of the RAC what I want to look at is why Not like there's a commemoration of the RAC. What I want to look at is why. There's a theory of understanding how power works in society by a French philosopher called Althusser. And the theory is it's repressive state apparatuses and ideological state apparatuses. So how power is enforced within a state. Let's just take the RIC the RIC when Britain ruled Ireland would have been part of the repressive state apparatus so the repressive state apparatus is

police, the army the court system jails, kind of the physical how power is enshrined and there's good and bad things if your car is getting robbed you're going to call the police but like the thing is is that repressive state apparatuses they tend to follow clear structures of power okay so we'll say the RIC during the Irish famine acting as the repressive state apparatus when someone was starving and dirt poor their landlords

were were kicking them out of their homes and putting them out onto the into the fields with nowhere to live to die the landlord wasn't calling down to that person's house and kicking him out it was the RIC the Royal Irish Constabulary who were a military force evicted the starving during the Irish famine they acted as the repressive state apparatus the ideological state apparatus is the so if the repressive state apparatus acts visibly, the police are visible, the army are visible, the courts are visible, jails are visible, we can see these things, you can see them happening. is a narrative or ideology, you know, a system of beliefs about society and about class and about power that enforce through thought, through how we think about ourselves, how we think about our neighbours, how we think about our politics. The ideological state apparatus does the same thing as the repressive state apparatus

except with ideas and words and rituals okay so in the time of the famine you know what was the fucking what was the ideological state apparatus it was whatever britain was saying you know it's fucking royalty it was britain at the time had a huge horn for liberal economic policies they believed fully in non-intervention so the british believed that okay there's hundreds of thousands of people starving to death in Ireland, because we believe in the free market, we must not intervene. We must not offer them food. We must place all our belief in the economic system to work itself out.

Therefore, we must not intervene. That's an ideological state apparatus. If you want to see it in action right now, you know, fucking, if you're looking at the British news and you're wondering now you know fucking if you're looking at the british news and you're wondering you know megan martle and harry are about to leave the royal family and it's the most important headline in british news and you're on the outside looking in going why the fuck is this important harry and megan just want to fuck off to canada Who cares? Why is this the biggest thing in British news?

Even more so than, we'll say, the protests in Iran. Or the fact that Iran was almost attacking the British embassy in Iran last week. Yet, Harry and Meghan leaving the royal family is the most important thing in the British news. Because that's the ideological state apparatus in order for British class structure and power to remain how it is in order to justify what Britain is they need the fucking royal family now if you're listening and you're thinking Jesus blind by this sounds like conspiracy theory I need to to make it clear, like,

a bunch of people don't sit around and rub their hands together at people in power and say, all right, lads, what's today's ideological state apparatus? No, that's conspiracy theory. What this is instead, it's a way of analysing the outcomes of what happens under capitalism. It's as simple as that. Capitalism is a structure and a system and it has outcomes and something, you know, phrases like ideological state apparatus.

It's merely a way of analysing how that complex system works and what the outcomes are that's all it is it's like fucking when i talk about psychology you know when i speak about something like transaction analysis or cbt you know it's you're measuring kind of the outcomes of human behavior you know the many complex forces at work and just simply offering language to understand something that you feel and know but now you have words for it. And that's all this is.

So, who enforces the ideological state apparatus? The government, the religious institutions. In the case of Britain, it's the monarchy. And then the media the media communicate ideological state apparatus to you and me so that's what's happening with the brits right now so here's the thing with the commemorations of the ric and why i'm cautious of it i believe right who called for the ric to be commemorated the Irish police, the guards and Fianna Gael it doesn't make sense

everyone's going why would you do this this is ridiculous why would you even introduce to the conversation that you might commemorate someone as brutal as the RIC why would you even bother it makes no sense here's the thing. I believe that it's part of an ideological state apparatus to normalise increased militarisation in the Irish police

and to normalise things like evictions and heavy-handedness to benefit the power structure of landlordism that we're currently seeing in Ireland we have a huge housing crisis people in Dublin can't barely afford their fucking rent no one's buying a house Dublin is all of Ireland is being made unlivable because of incredibly high rents. And what's happening is that the structure, the system of property in Ireland is no longer, it does not benefit the people. It benefits the owners of property. It benefits landlords, vulture funds. it benefits landlords, vulture funds. If you look at current solutions that Fianna Gael,

that the government have, and not just Fianna Gael because this was happening before them, will say solutions to homeless, quote-unquote solutions to homelessness in Ireland. They're not building council houses. They're not housing anyone. What they're doing is emergency accommodation they are putting faith in the private market no i won't even call it putting faith what they're doing is if you are a homeless

family in ireland right now and you're lucky enough to get any assistance beyond living in a tent on the street what happens is you go into a thing called emergency accommodation what is this it means that you live temporarily in a hotel room you could have a family of five people you live in a hotel room no cooking facilities no nothing same with fucking asylum seekers and refugees they live in direct provision centers often in hotels what's happening is it's a for-profit system people organizations and people who own hotels in ireland they have full occupation every night of the week our tax money is paying these people to to fill up their hotels with homeless people who are trapped in this inhumane system where they will never they'll never be given a council house because they don't exist or are given access to affordable housing instead they're in a continual system of living in hotel rooms and people are making

money off this so the people who are making money are the people with power the landlords are making a huge amount of money from the rent crisis okay rents are going up and up and up people are being left with no choice so what you have is a power structure in ireland right now that benefits hotel owners people who own second properties, vulture funds, large corporations, okay? So this kind of defines the ideological state apparatus. Last year, the housing crisis got so bad that activists tried to take over a derelict building in Dublin in Frederick Street. They peacefully took over this building as a protest for about three weeks. The owner of the building was being accused

of being a slumlord, all right? Also, like, laws exist in Ireland against things like dereliction, against things like, you know, tenants' rights exist in Ireland, but they're not being enforced that's an important thing too about both the repressive state apparatus and the ideological state apparatus laws exist but they're not being enforced like last year a law was brought in to cut down on

like one another thing is airbnb very powerful corporation their headquarters are in dublin airbnb is contributing to the rent crisis because people instead of renting their properties out are putting them out as short-term lettings which means you're not offering people homes you're offering temporary accommodation for tourism and but basically last year our minister for housing said that he brought in a law that de-incentivizes people to do short-term lettings right that stops people abusing the system and we all went brilliant they've brought a law in but it's not being enforced it's not being enforced tenants rights are not being enforced slumlords are not being enforced. Tenants' rights are not being enforced. Slumlords are not being punished.

Buildings that are going derelict are not being punished for dereliction. So the laws exist, but they're not being enforced. So that right there, it's the repressive state apparatus and the ideological state apparatus working only in favour of the property owners. The people who have property have got power right now in Ireland. So as I mentioned last year there was a protest at Frederick Street with peaceful protesters who'd stayed in the building for a week. It was an unoccupied building. No one was living there. They did it as a protest. What happened? The Gardaí, the Irish police, who were the ones who called for the RIC to be commemorated,

the Gardaí arrived. The Gardaí arrived to stop the protesters. They stepped back while masked men, men in balaclavas who were not Gardaí, they were private security, violently manhandled the protesters while the gardaí stood back and it was fucking shocking because what you have there is it's it's it's like it's sneaky shit it's like the guards wouldn't put their hands on the protesters but they'll step back while these masked masked men who i believe are from the north of ireland

manhandled people in front of them with a van that didn't have a license plate and they did it in clear view and that right there is a violent aggressive eviction which most irish people sought and said what the fuck do we do now? This is no longer policing within what we understand to be the rule of law. They've done something different now. They've bent it. They're operating on the sidelines. The situation in Ireland isn't getting any better. We have the...

Rents are getting higher. Homelessness is increasing. It's not improving we don't know when there's going to be a next the next fucking recession another thing that's driving the issue in Dublin is instead of homes being built

instead of apartments being built hotels are being built and everyone's left scratching their head going but we these hotels aren't even sustainable there's not even enough tourists for all these hotels why would they do this i'll tell you why they'll fucking do it because come next recession when there's more homeless people these hotels don't have to worry. These hotels are recession proof because the government will use our tax money to fill up every single room with full occupation of homeless people instead of offering solutions. I believe that the commemoration of the RAC, it's a deliberate, thought out, think tank kind of move to enforce the ideological state apparatus that normalizes evictions and violence if you look at the history of the RIC and what they did they have a history of brutality evictions and militarization if you're the government

or the Irish police at the moment and you condone or not condone if you condemn the RIC if you take a stand and say we will not commemorate the RIC why not because the RIC represent oppression violence evictions if you condemn that then you have to look at your own behavior and now you have to moderate how you behave going forward. But if you turn around instead and you start calling the RAC a police force, you start rehashing the ideological state apparatus that the Brits were using 100 years ago or before

and you start saying the RAC were just police, the RAC were just doing their job, the RAC were murdered in the streets while just doing their job and you commemorate them it reinforces an ideological state apparatus that normalises violence

police brutality and evictions and militarisation and the Garda have a magazine called Gardaí have a magazine called Garda Review and like this month the January cover of Garda Review is because we don't have armed police in Ireland we do have armed police but they're like a special branch of armed police

but the average Irish Gardaí is not armed the front cover of the Garda review this month of January 2020 is guards with machine guns and bulletproof vests with balaclavas on looking like the SAS so that's why I'm concerned about

the commemoration of the RAC it's not about names on a fucking slab of men who died a hundred years ago don't mind that if you're going to get pissed off about that if you want to get pissed off about jim larkin statue outside burger king you know a great socialist outside fucking burger king and o'connell street no what concerns me is it's evidence of the ideological state apparatus. It is normalising evictions brutality and the enforcement of law to benefit exclusively the property class

at the expense of everyone else. And that's my hot take around it. And you can roll your eyes at that if you want. It's a hot take. It's an opinion. It's how I see what's happening right now. It's me voicing my concerns on a fucking podcast. If you disagree with that, that's fine. Alright?

So, with that in mind, all that shit led to the Wolftones getting to number one, iTunes charts with Comouchy Black and Tans, and them giving the money to Peter McVerry Trust. So. I will be. After the Ocarina pause.

I will be. Playing my interview that I did in Vicar Street. With Brian Warfield from the Wolftons. And. Why am I doing this? I'll tell you why. Because the Wolftons. They're an Irish rebel band. they've been around for 55 years

they've had several number one singles, they've had number one singles and they weren't being played on the radio when they were number one because of a sense of shame and fear around rebel songs and what

it represents you know this was happening as well around the time of the 60s and the 70s in Ireland when you had what was called The Troubles up north so we'll say there's no real decent documentary

about the Wolftones for a band that have existed for 55 years I grew up with the Wolftones music in my that have existed for 55 years I grew up with the Wolftones music in my house a lot of fucking people listening to this podcast know the Wolftones music from growing up, if you're at a sesh

the Wolftones is played it's important music to Irish culture it's ubiquitous music and they deserve to be to be recorded and remembered absolutely because

RTE aren't doing it TV3 aren't doing it there's been no decent Wolftones documentary so that's why I brought Brian Warfield on to talk as a kind of a, I suppose the Alan Lomax in me,

who wants to make sure that I'm, recording and preserving, someone who whether you like him or don't like him, are, of cultural importance, to Irish music and Irish culture, and there's no denying that, there's no denying it.

Okay time now for the ocarina pause you may or may not hear an advert this is this is where an advert gets inserted digitally on April 5th you must be very careful

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in Hamilton at 7.30pm. You can also lock in your playoff pack right now to guarantee the same seats for every postseason game and you'll only pay as we play. Come along for the ride and punch your ticket to Rock City at torontorock.com. Okay. okay um just a quick announcement of some gigs all right blind by a live podcast australia and new zealand tour i believe there are tickets left for this is happening in february 2020 so that's

next month tickets left for Auckland and New Zealand Sydney and Melbourne I believe my tour of up and down England and Scotland there are tickets left for is it Birmingham

and Birmingham and... Birmingham and Liverpool. There are tickets left. Again, just type in Google Blind Boy Live Podcast Tour Britain 2020. What else am I doing? March. I'm in Drogheda in the TLT Concert Hall.

Fucking... I'm in Monaghan sorry Monaghan made me cough just mentioning it I'm in Monaghan, I'm in the Cork Opera House in fucking what is that March I'm in Vicar Street in Dublin

I'm in Ulster Hall I'm in the Glore Theatre in Ennis it'd be great if I had a fucking website with all my, there is a website, but I don't run it, I don't know who runs it, some, a fan of mine is operating a blind buy website, I don't know what the fuck, if you're listening to this, will you update my gigs, will you, and give me a shout, so look, I've got live gigs coming up, you know the crack I'm shit at promoting them, shit at promoting them em, this podcast

is supported by you the listener alright, it's a free podcast you listen to it for free I make it for free, but some people are patrons of this podcast, so if you like what I'm doing, if you're listening and you want to support

me financially um patreon.com forward slash the blind boy podcast give me the price of a pint or a cup of coffee now that i'm doing dry january i'm gonna be drinking a lot more coffee and tea so look suggest a donation every fucking month coffee or a pint whatever you want patreon.com forward slash the blind boy podcast alright

let us now go into my interview with Brian Warfield from the wolf tons this is a long podcast I've spoken for a fucking hour and you're about to

now get an interview but a lot of you mail me and say you love the really long podcast especially those of you who have boring jobs or long commutes so here you go god bless and and all i can say about this is brian has got an interest in history and he's a very eccentric character so i'm going to bring out my guest now in a minute and kind of what I want to

this last night's gig and this night's gig they're part of a festival called Music Town which is it's about music which means that the guests that I have on are musical guests

and my guest tonight is they're kind of they're legendary that I have on are musical guests. And my guest tonight is... They're legendary in the field of rebel music and Irish ballads, right? But it's a genre... The reason I'm doing it, it's my curiosity as someone who adores music and someone who adores culture. The band, the Wolftones, everyone knows about them, but they've never been played on the

radio, they're never on television, but still you just know about them, do you know what I mean? So my guest is Brian Warfield, who is the lead singer of the Wolftones and the songwriter. Come on out, Brian. Great to be here with Brian Boy. What's the craic? And I'd like to tell him about my book. Straight out with the fucking plug. It's not the late show, man.

Go on. You have a book out. Yeah, I have a book out. And it's 55 years of the Wolf Tones. It took me two years to write it. So it'll only take you five minutes to buy it. And that's essentially your biography. Because you've had a musical career.

I mean, the Wolftones' first album was 1964. Yeah, our first album, we started a group way back in 1963. And in 1964, we were probably one of the first Irish bands to get a record contract. And it was with Fontana Records. And they were a very big label at the time. Were they British or American now, Fontana? They were British,

yeah. And they were headquarters. They were British. And by the way, they loved the Wolf Tones. More than I can say about some Irish people. But we got our first contract, and it was for five years, for five records.

We completed the contract, and since then, after all those years, we've gone through 50 records. Wow. Wow. So, like, this is to a mostly Irish audience here, but when the podcast goes out, it's to a global audience. There's going to be Greeks listening and people from Argentina.

So what I want to start with is just some really, really simple questions, such as, what is ballad music? What is rebel music it's all the one and it's all telling the story of Ireland and you know the Irish people are very noble and great wonderful resilient people and you know when they were downtrodden and left to left to starve during famines and everything else. They rose up, and we had great people who gave everything they had. They gave their reputation, their money, everything they had for the people they loved.

There's very few examples of that across the world, and I'm very proud to tell the story of those. We never, ever portrayed the drunken Irish image across the world. Because I felt that was downgrading the Irish people. They wanted to see that. The English people wanted to see that drunken paddy image. And we never portrayed that. We told the story of a noble people fighting for their rights,

fighting for their rights across many, many centuries. And eventually, hopefully, within my lifetime, we will see that completed. One thing there, actually, Brian, that's quite interesting is, so a lot of people today will come across the music of the Wolftones, usually via YouTube, okay, listening to it on YouTube, and often what I see is, Wolftones music will get suggested to someone

under the title of Irish drinking songs. Mainly Americans will, this genre of Irish drinking songs, they're songs that you don't engage with the lyrics, you don't, they're just background music for playing up to that stereotypical Irish drunk paddy thing. Like, how do you feel about that? How do you see the Irish drinking song versus the rebel song or versus the ballad?

And do you dislike Irish drinking songs? No, I like a drink myself, and I like drinking songs. And there's nothing wrong with them. And they're great songs and great stories about Irish way of life. Also, it's very important when you look at the whole

global feel of Ireland and that Irish identity, that you don't leave out the rebel song. Yeah. And the unfortunate thing is about a lot of people in Ireland, they feel that, you know, you can tell the love ballad, you can tell the

story about drinking and getting drunk, but you cannot tell the story about drinking and getting drunk, but you can not tell the story about an Irish hero. Now, just for instance, over the years, the Wolftones, we're here for 55 years, we've told a story of great people like Wolftone,

Bowdenstown, Churchyard, great and wonderful songs. And we've told a story and song and spread around the world about these great and wonderful songs. And we've told that story in song and spread around the world about these great and noble people. Despite that, here in Ireland, in our national radio and television station, they have ignored the fact that we contributed so much

to the memory of these great men. I heard on the Late Late Show when Rod Stewart did Grace quite recently. We'd been doing it for years. But, yeah, and the host of the show, what's his name? Pat Kenny. Ryan Tuberty. Ryan Tuberty, yeah, Ryan Tuberty. Yeah, he was going on and on and on about this.

Oh, thank you very much. Thank you.ty, yeah, Ryan Toverty. Yeah, he was going on and on and on about this. Oh, thank you very much. Thank you. Oh, yeah, you're wonderful. Oh, yeah, Roger, a great guy. Oh, thank you very much for telling the story of Ireland. We've been telling it for bloody years and he never said that. What an asshole he is. I can't believe, you know know the honesty of Irish people

I don't mean Irish people I mean him what I'd like to know is like like obviously what you're doing you're carrying on a tradition it's within the canon of Irish traditional music but it's this specific genre of the rebel song um singing about people who like a lot of it is singing about people who have died it's like it's they're almost like uh remembering

someone's death almost like a a narration at their grave and it's like their life carries on through these songs would that be correct well i think you know when you when you look at people like james connelly yeah when you look at people like podrick pierce you look at people like joe plunkett and you look at these wonderful people who are all very very well educated people and uh they they had they had a love for Ireland that we could never understand. There was no greed for money like there is today. These people gave their money. They gave their money and spent their money away for the people they loved.

So I feel that they should be remembered. That they should be remembered with pride and the dignity that they deserve. And the Wolf Tones go out and do that every single night of the week we don't forget the wonderful people that gave their lives and gave everything they had and it is important

that even today when we look at people today and the greed that is around Ireland and the drug culture that we have, where Irish people are killing Irish people for greed and for wealth and for a little bit of power in a struggle for selling drugs, to other Irish people who are killing those young people day by day, I think it's horrific.

And I think if these people understood their history, if they understood what Ireland really is, with noble people as examples and not the drug culture that we have today. I couldn't believe it. I knew the man who blew up Nelson's pillar, Liam Sutcliffe. Liam Sutcliffe said to me there

before he died he blew up the pillar and I hated him for it by the way just for someone who doesn't know what that is because that sounds overtly sexual if you don't know the context where the Dublin spire is now used to be Nelson's pillar Admiral Nelson

and the official IRA I believe it was, blew it up for the crack. No, it was a group from Drimini in Dublin called Ser Erla. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Is anybody here from Drimini? Ser Erla from Drimini and Liam Sutcliffe

was one of that faction you might say. But they felt for 1966 they would blow up the pillar. But they did and they made a good job of it you might say. But I was very angry with them because

one of the treats we had when we made our communion was to go up the pillar and take a task and go up there to the very top it took us ages and ages oh not another step we count them as going up and everything else and we had a great time we looked down over the city of Dublin and it was a wonderful thing and you know I didn't care who was up there they could have blew off the statue and I said that to Liam blow the bloody statue off and put up uh put put up Padraig Pearce

you know, outside the GPO where it would be a wonderful, wonderful thing to do. But instead of that, he blew the whole bloody thing apart. And he said when they put up the spiral in Dublin he was raging that he blew up the pillar.

That's a good point, because... Because he said, this bloody thing, this bloody thing looks like a... It's a needle. It's like a monument to drug addicts. What kind of stuff is this? That's a good point. I can understand his gripe with Nelson,

but I can't understand his gripe with columns. Do you know what I mean? It's just a pillar. Pillars are great gripe with columns. Do you know what I mean? It's just a pillar. Pillars are great. They hold up buildings, you know? Let's take it back to like, to you being a kid, right? So you would have been like a child in the fifties. So you would have been hearing on the radio, like Elvis, Buddy Holly, things like that. Pop music was there for you. Where were you first hearing rebel songs? Like in Dublin? Or just Irish trad or Irish music?

How did you end up picking up an instrument and deciding this is what I want to do? Like your earliest experience of it. Well, it was always in my family. And we grew up at the time of only radio. We didn't have television until I was about 15 or 16. So we grew up with the radio, and that's all we heard. And that was in Inchicore?

In Inchicore in Dublin, yeah. And a great place, a wonderful place. And all my family going back generations were from Inchicore. But we grew up listening to the music and having our parties at night. Every Friday night we went down to our grandmother's where a big sing song would ensue. And all the uncles, aunts and everybody would all gather there and everyone would sing a song. My grandfather, God bless him, Paddy Cunningham. And Paddy was a great entertainer and he was in demand all over.

And she'd come to the parties, in the pubs, singing along, he was great. But when we were singing, he'd get us up and sing, to sing songs, we'd go up to the door, whatever it is, the hallway door, coming in, that was the stage and he'd ask you to sing

a song, we'd sing a song. But if you sang an Irish song, you got sixpence. If you sang a rock and roll song, you'd sing a song. But if you sang an Irish song, you got sixpence. If you sang a rock and roll song, you only got a penny. And when did you pick up an instrument? Well I started to play an instrument, I bought my first guitar in Waltons in Dublin. I was about 14 years of age and it was a guitar made, it was made in Germany, a Kessel guitar. It was a classical guitar. I loved it. I had it for many years and then I passed on to my

brother who took it over, my brother Bernard. And did you have any relationship at the time with like the Behins? With the Behins? The Behins, like, isn't is Comanche Black and Tans, was that written by Dominic Behance? It's in his book which I have at home, but whether he wrote it or not, I don't know, but Comanche Black and Tans, you know my mother was born in

1916 and she was she was probably just a young girl when the Black and Tans were around in she core. And she was probably just a young girl when the Black and Tans were around in Chicor. And she remembers them very well. And she remembers taunting them with songs. And one of the songs she used to sing to them was the Boers. They were fighting and the British couldn't fight.

Boers took out their rifle. And they'd sing these songs to the Black and Tans as they came around to taunt them. The children, the children were intimidating the Black and Tans. So, you know, it made them, it made the fact that they weren't very welcome. But they were notorious because they'd born in the city of Cork, they'd born in Balbricken, and many, many other towns.

They raped and plundered away around Ireland. So they weren't liked by the Irish people. Get out, you black and tans! It's true. They were not welcome. It's one thing that I do. Like, some people would be... If I share that song online, British people in particular would get angry.

And I'd say to them, no, you need to understand that the black and tans were specifically created by Winston Churchill, right? Their only job was to intimidate civilians. That was their only job. They were effectively the SS, you know, and in West Cork, my granddad was in Tom Barry's flying column. And in West Cork, the head of the RIC at the time, he brought in a rule that said that any man in West Cork who has his hands in his pockets is to be shot dead.

That was a rule that was brought in. And the Black and Tans were the ones who were, they were the ones doing that, you know? So for a song like that, it's like they were the SS, you know? So I don't have an issue with something like that, with saying, of course, fuck off. You can't go, they were the SS you know, so I don't have an issue with something like that with saying, of course fuck off, you can't go

no thanks, can you leave please when did you start, like when did you become the Wolf Tones and when that happened what were your first gigs well, it goes back a long time. In 64, we were picked up by a Canadian television company. How did that happen?

Yeah, we were busking down at Killarney and we were outside the pub and after the pub was closed and a big crowd of people around us and this guy came up. He's a producer from a Canadian company he said, will you come on and do a couple of songs for us, we're doing

a documentary in Ireland and I said, oh that was fine why not and we were only kids at the time but we went on and we did those shows we were busking around Ireland for about two weeks. And I came back with about five times more money than I left with.

I don't know how that happened, but the busking must have gone well. But we got that television show and it made us feel like, you know, we are worthwhile and we must be good. We have something that people liked. And so after that, you know, I emigrated to England and I lived over there in England for a year. And over there, I went to the folk clubs around Essex, around... And did you go there as a musician? You went to England to work?

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, well I had to work Now I went there and I had all kinds of jobs making chewing gum I was expecting Pricklaying or something like that Well I tried that once I went over to England to make chewing gum, fuck off I tried that once and I went over to England to make chewing gum. Fuck off. I tried that once and I went out

to one of the... Were you working in a chewing gum factory or was it just me, Brian Warfield, I'm making my own chewing gum in my flat. Do you want some of this? It's in my pocket. This is before the chewing gum factory. I went out to one...

I got a job picked up by a gang and brought out to a work site. And when I was out there, there was all these burly guys from Kerry and Cork and all the rest. And here was I, a little timid fellow from Dublin. Hey, Dublin, you're not suited for this. Get out of here. If I was you, go back there and get a job in the nappies.

They were used to the shovel and everything else. It wasn't easy, believe me, I tried it. They sent us out to break down a bit of hardcore. Do you ever hear of hardcore? Not in the context of it. Well, I can tell you. It's not that kind of hardcore. It's all kind of shit there on the ground

that's left there, rubble all mixed up and concrete and everything. One thing I'd like to know is, even in my own career with Rubber Bandits, we started to get kind of popular around the last recession. So what was quite important to us as gigging musicians was the Irish diaspora like

half my friends left for Australia so we had to do a lot of gigs in Australia we had to do gigs in England we had to do gigs in Canada to follow where the Irish were going because it's just simply around 2011 2012 we couldn't do gigs in a lot of smaller towns in Ireland because there was no fucking young people there and if they were they certainly didn't have gigs in a lot of smaller towns in Ireland because there was no fucking young people there. And if there were, they certainly didn't have money in their pocket to go to a gig. Did you find that the heavy amounts of emigration that would have been happening in the 60s was beneficial to the start of the Wolf Tones career?

Well, you know, if you were to depend on Ireland, you'd never make a living. Because Ireland is too small. And its population are too small. For you to go out there every single week and, you know, sing your songs, the people get fed up with you. Yeah.

But, you know, what we did from the early stages, we played England and we played America, we played Australia, we played across the world. We are very popular across Europe, in Germany and France and Holland. And, you know, that's... In those countries there, I'm guessing in Germany and France, you're not necessarily playing to Irish people, you're playing to French and German people who like Irish traditional music. Yes. And, you know, I don't think people understand how popular the Irish song and story was across Europe.

And we played there, you know, at the biggest festivals in Europe. We played there at a great festival recently in Skagen in Denmark. It's one of the great festivals of Europe. And, you know, we sang the song Joe Macdonald and that song got a 10-minute standing ovation by the people of Denmark and they understand the story of Ireland you see the story of Ireland is not the story that comes out of England and the propaganda that goes across the world and they have the ear of the world remember that they do have the ear of the world we don't we're smaller but the irish ballot and the irish story and the ballot singers going across

the world have told the story from a different perspective and they have just told the story where the people of these worlds hear it for the first, and maybe for the second time, and they begin to understand that there are two sides to every story. And that's how the wuv tone spread across the world, the real story of what was happening in Ireland. You know, we supported the people of Belfast and of Derry from the early days of the civil rights movement. And we felt it was important that we did

because nobody else was. They were being run down, not alone in England, they were being called terrorists and everything else, but in Ireland, they were afraid to support the people of the six counties. But the Wolvetones were never afraid, and if I had it all over again, I'd do it again. Because

yeah, that's the thing, something that I find interesting is, so you would have started in the early 60s so in the early 60s before the period that we'd call the Troubles, the IRA were just blowing up pillars. You know, they weren't really...

It's nearly fair to say that in the 60s, the IRA were almost a nostalgic thing. They didn't exist. Yeah. But then, so you start off in the early 60s, essentially in a kind of safe enough climate. But then what happens when the troubles kick off? Because all of a sudden then, as a musical act now, you become dangerous, you become controversial. You know, RTE are going,

we have to distance ourselves from this type of thing. How was that for you as an act? And I imagine your life was in danger a lot. Well, it was. And, you know, when we started off, when the Troubles came around and we were still playing as we did, we played the Ulster Hall.

I played the Ulster Hall in Belfast just after Ian Paisley had had his church meeting. Yeah. I played all the places around the six counties, as we call it. And, you know, the troubles came along. That was OK until the troubles came along, and then it got more dangerous. Yeah.

We played in Kilkeel at one stage, and we were playing at a GAAA club just outside Cale. What year would this be? This would be in the 70s. Yeah. Yeah. And it was just before the Miami killing. Yeah. And we were playing in a big marquee which is part of the GAA field. And the committee were bringing us down to a pub to have a pint before the gig or a sandwich. And on our way down, they said, no, you can't go into this pub.

The RIC or the RUC and the UDR and all were drinking in the front bar. So they were drinking in the front bar, so we had to go into the kitchen and have a pint. So we went into the kitchen and had a pint and a sandwich, then went back and done the gig. There was a lot of to and fro, and I heard screeching of brakes and everything else through the night,

and I was wondering, what the hell is going on here? But after the gig, I came out, and the organiser said to me, you can't go home to Main Road. And I said, why is that? He said, because there's a blockade waiting for you down there. Wow. So he said, we're going to take you over the mountains of Moran,

which they did. We went up the mountains of Moran, and we had an old Comer truck, old Commer van at the time. We went up the mountains of Morne, up the hill, and we reached the very top. When we reached the top, they said, now, that's the way down, straight into Warren Pint, and you should be OK.

So we followed instructions, and on our way down, the car exploded with steam coming out of the engine because it overheated with going up the hill but anyhow we had to get bog water and pee into the thing and everything else to get us down into

Warren Pint to get away from the UBF we got down anyhow to Warren Pint and then back to Dublin. On the day we got back to Dublin, the special branch said that the Wolvetones were not to go north again.

That our lives were in danger. On the following Wednesday the Miami was shot. I believe, I believe the massacre of Miami was set up for the Wolf Tones on that night. I believe that the Glen Anne gang were drinking in that front bar. The UDR, the RIC and all those RUC and all those people were in that front bar getting locked out of their mind ready to pick up the Wolfftones on the way home.

And that would have been our fate had it not been for the information we got that night and up the mountains we went to safety. So I believe that's true. But ever since then we never ever drove our own cars up through

the north of Ireland because we always felt in danger. We were told we were in danger. But it brought us in to concerts in hay trucks, in armoured cars. We travelled in Gerry Adams' armoured car. We travelled in loads and loads of different ways.

And we never all travelled together. It was two and two. But anyhow, that's the danger we were in. We travelled in loads and loads of different ways. And we never all travelled together. It was two and two. But anyhow, that's the danger we were in. It was not easy. And people have accused the Wolf Towers of not playing in the north of Ireland during the Troubles. We never, ever stopped playing during the Troubles.

We walked into horrible situations and we survived them, thank God. I've got two... I've got one question that was asked by a British person, right? Online. And it's deliberately's it's deliberately antagonistic you know what I mean it was a deliberately antagonistic question but I decided it'd be a good question to ask so first off someone said how do you feel about being called

the musical wing of the IRA and secondly I can't find the question now, but yeah. So this, an English person who was quite angry said, what is it like to be an Irish version of an ISIS battle hymn? But I think that's a good question

to ask. Do you know, it's very loaded and whatever, and I was going to go, I'm not asking that, but it's like, no, fuck it. How does it... A British person thinks that you're doing ISIS battle hymns. How do you

feel about that? I've heard it all before. You know those awful, terrible wolf tones? You know them rebel fellas, them wolf tones. I'm going to tell you something. Only for them fellas. Only for them fellas will be no troubles in the north.

I'm going to tell you something about them rebel wolf tone fellas. They started it all. He said they started it all he said they started it all they forgot about 800 years of history that went on before the Wooktowns ever started ask the English fella about that what I'd like to know too is

like in the early 60s as well like Irish traditional music was doing kind of well like the Clancy brothers were fucking flying it over in America, you know? Were you gigging with the likes of the Clancy brothers? What I'd like to know is were ye accepted by the Irish traditional scene or were some trad artists scared to be associated with ye?

No, we were all very, very good friends. And, you know, with the Clancy brothers, I loved them. They were very, very beautiful, wonderful people. I met them many times in America.. I met them many times in America. I played with them many times in America. I could not say a bad word about one of those brothers. They were fantastic people. And there was no jealousy.

There was no, what would you say? There wasn't a battle between groups or anything like that. We are all friends. We are all doing the same thing. We are all telling the story of Ireland. We are all promoting Ireland across the world. They were lovely people, and I regret that they're all there today,

but my God, they were great people to me and great friends to me, and I could tell you stories about, you know, when I went to America at first, and, you know, I met them over there, they gave me nothing but advice. They gave me great advice about America, what to do and what not to do. And, you know, I congratulated the path that they broke

for other Irish people across America. I couldn't say more about the beautiful and wonderful friendship we had together. And I heard a lovely thing I heard about the Clancy brothers, which I just think it's a lovely story, is so when they started, they used to all wear Aran sweaters, you know? Do you know those white woolly jumpers

that are made on the Aran Islands? And this was the Clancy Brothers look as such and they were very popular in Greenwich Village. Like they would have been... Bob Dylan used to support the Clancy Brothers. Clancy Brothers, when Bob Dylan was about 16, used to teach him songs and stuff like that. Lads from fucking tip. But when the Clancy Brothers started to get popular, an American company approached them and said, These fucking jumpers that you're wearing, lads, all the kids are trying to get these Aran sweaters to wear them to look like ye.

How about we make our own Aran sweaters here in Ireland, we'll put the Clancy brother name on them, you'll be fucking millionaires. The Clancy brothers said, why would we do that? Should we put the Aran Islands out of business? And they didn't. They said no. To preserve the culture of the Aran Islands and the genuine Aran sweater, they turned away millions, which I think that's very admirable.

And, you know, it's on brand. You know, as a lot of sound lads. Have you any mad stories about going on the tear in New York? Oh, well, you know, we were very... We were great friends with the police in New York, and... Jesus! Sting must have been very young. And, you know, it's a funny story, really.

Back in 19... about 1966, we were coming back to Bluebell. I lived in Bluebell and in Chicor there. And we were coming back and we were stopped by this car with yanks in it and all that and this yank said hey you guys you know the way to Ballyferm and we said yeah yeah yeah

we know the way so we showed them the way across Kylemore Road and all that so they sent them back anyhow the way and you guys want a beer oh no no no we don't want a beer no no thank you no it was about four in the morning we were going back after a gig so back to the house and went

to sleep and blah blah that august we went to america and uh went to new york we we were playing at a city center ballroom in new york 1966 and uh these uh this couple came up and we befriended them and they said, would you like to come up for dinner next Wednesday, wherever it was? Oh yeah, yeah, a homemade dinner was good for us, you know, very dear to eat out in New York, but a free dinner would sound good.

But anyhow, they brought us up for dinner up to their mother's house and we're up there having a beer and a dinner and I saw Carl in the car for the first time. I couldn't believe, what's that? Carl! Oh no, I never saw it like that. But anyhow, but anyhow,

we're up there eating dinner and this guy comes into the room and this is our son, the brother of the people we met. This is Mick McCrory, my brother. And he goes, you guys want a beer? I looked around and I said, were you ever in Ireland? And he said, yeah, I was in Ireland about two months ago.

He said, were you ever looking for Ballyferment? He said, yeah, I was looking for Ballyferment? He said yeah I was looking for Ballyferment. I said well we showed you the way. And what a coincidence it was. The millions of people in New York and the millions of people that we had met over the years

that this was the very person we had showed the way to Ballyferment. And you know we became great friends since then. And he was only a rookie in the academy back then. He's now since retired, and retired many, many years. And, you know, we became great friends of the New York Police Department, of the Emerald Society.

And ever since then, we've had that wonderful wonderful friendship. Which ended up, by the way, with a song called The Streets of New York. And, you know, because of our friendship... Isn't that the biggest selling Irish single of all time? No, The Helicopter.

What? The Helicopter. Is that a song as well? The helicopter was about the escape of the three IRA prisoners. Oh, that's the biggest one. Yeah, yeah. The biggest sound record of all time in Ireland. Fucking hell.

It beat the Beatles. You too. Now, was... I'm not finished. Was it getting played? Was that getting played on the radio? It was the only number one in Ireland that was ever played on radio.

And you know something? It sold over 35,000 records! You know something? It sold over 35,000 records. Over 35,000 records in three days. And that was the three days before the escape. And then it sold over three million records. We only got paid for three. Oh my gosh so you had this massive massive

selling song that wasn't getting radio play and was essentially being passed around by word of mouth well you know it was the only number one record that was in the charts that was never played and how did they justify that oh well they never have to that was in the charts that was never played.

How did they justify that? Oh, well, they never have to. You know, it was just... And since then, you know that the Wolvetones, for 35 years, have not been played on RTE. Yeah. Now, there is a blacklist there. And I prefer, OK, ban the song and tell us what you're banning the song.

But we had a Christmas song out called Remember Me of Christmas. And that was never played. And I think they thought that Santy Claus was in the provost. I swear to God, they never played it. And it was a harmless song. It was a beautiful song about all the wonderful people that you miss and love at Christmas.

No, they were all in the provost. But I think, like, that's one of the reasons that I wanted you on in this podcast is because by RTE ignoring this popular fucking like the wolf tones exist

the wolf tones are massive you can't pretend it doesn't exist and by RTE pretending it doesn't exist we end up almost like in a fucking Stalinist type of way losing a record of culture do you know what I mean like has there been an RTE

Wolftones documentary? No, no there hasn't been and you know, I think there's probably one Jew because I think the story of the Wolftones is very, very unique and it's

very, very, it's a wonderful story that's been hidden. And one of the reasons I wrote this book, you can all get it on the internet. What's it called there? It's The Wolf Tones, The Ramblings of an Irish Ballad Singer by Brian Warfield.

A very apt second name. And it's a very heavy book. It's a very heavy book, a very thick book. And if you don't like it, you can put it on the fire and it'll heat the house for two weeks. Cheaper than coal, cheaper than oil! All right.

It's half nine now, right? So I'm going to let you get a pint and have a piss. And we'll come back on in about 15 minutes and have a bit of crack, all right? I had a lovely little moment there. The backing, the music that they're playing, you know, while you were getting points, it was a playlist that I gave them. So I never thought that Blind Boy and one of the Wolf Tones would walk on to Frank Zappa. Quite happy with that.

So backstage, your family came backstage specifically to come up and tell all the stories that you should be telling. Apparently there's way, way more. So a crucial thing that you left out while you were telling us about chewing gum was, so we all know about the documentary on Netflix at the moment about the Miami show band, yeah? You've been seeing that, which everyone's talking about it. You were instrumental in making that come together. Yeah, well, about two years ago, Netflix got on to me, and they knew about the Wolf Tones and everything else,

and they asked me about the scene in Ireland during the Troubles and I told them the story about the Wolvetones and you know how difficult and how dangerous it was for us to go north and I said in fact there was a group that was massacred. It was a show band. They weren't a folk group or anything like that, but they were massacred on the way back. And he got interested in the story. And just for the people listening,

who killed those people and how did it happen and things like that? What was your recollection of even hearing about that? Well, there was a gang called the glenn gang and they they um they were in the udr and they were also in the ruc and there was collusion with uh the british secret service and they were working together to stop Irish groups and Irish bands going north. They wanted to create a situation where, I believe, they wanted to blame the IRA

on the massacre. They planted a bomb, got the band out of the van, which is a Volkswagen van, and they put them on the side of the road. And while they were there, they were planting a bomb underneath the driver's seat of the van, which was set to explode on the way back to Dublin. But what happened was it went off prematurely

and the people who had planted the bomb were killed, two of them. And they were known to be part of the RUC and they were known to be part of the UDR and also part of the UFF. Yeah. And they were supposedly run by the British. Rock City, you're the best fans in the league, bar none. Tickets are on sale now for Fan Appreciation Night

on Saturday, April 13th, when the Toronto Rock hosts the Rochester Nighthawks at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton at 7.30pm. You can also lock in your playoff pack right now to guarantee the same seats for every postseason game, and you'll only pay as we play. Come along for the ride and punch your ticket to Rock City at torontorock.com. The Secret Service, MI5. And remember that man, Nyrek?

Yeah. One of that Secret Service organization. He was in charge. And Steve Travers said to me at one stage that everything changed. They were quite friendly until this guy came up with a very posh English accent and everything changed. And they were blown out of the side of the road and into a field and only two of them survived. And the two that were blown into the field were the two that survived. So I believe that, you know, when we were in that situation in Kilkeel and County Down,

when DRUC and the UDR and all those people were getting their act together to capture the Wolftones and probably do the same to the Wolftones on the way down, that our friends in County Down got some wind of the situation and brought us over the hills to safety. But only for them, I believe,

the Wolftones would not be here today. And that's nuts when you think of it. So effectively what you have is MI5 trying to just get, like a show band is just an entertainment act. They're just singing songs and you have the British

intelligence trying to frame them to make them look like they were bringing explosives across the border to effectively demonize all entertainment groups what does that say to you about the threat and danger to the system of power that simply music holds like why attack musicians why you know well we we were in danger all the time we went through many many periods of danger um when we were in danger all the time. We went through many, many periods of danger. When we were up in Belfast in the Ardine,

I remember walking through, all the lights were shut out because it was in total darkness. We walked through the streets of Ardine. I remember the little red-bricked houses and everything else. We bumped into this patrol. And the patrol, up against the wall, they put you up against the wall and left you there for some time. And they interrogated

you, whatever. And, you know, I had a little James Connolly badge on me at the time. Not a great move, if we're being honest. But go on. Go on. And on me at the time. Not a great move for being honest. But go on. And which I believe

the great hero and I love him very much and I had a little badge on and the guy, the sergeant or whatever said, well we got here then mate. And I said, that's my emblem, saying is that your fucking emblem on your hat? I said, that's my emblem saying is that your fucking emblem on your hat I said that's my emblem here and he said oh we got a right one here then mate so they left us standing

there for some time and then we eventually went off to our digs and we are staying with various people around the Ardine and myself and the and one of the roadies was in this house so we are shown into this bedroom with two beds a big bed and a little bed little kind of child's bed and the roadie jumped onto the bed he said I bagged this one so he got the big bed and I'm in the little bed there so he looks around and there's a window beside the bed where about three bullet holes are there and he said he's never going to sleep all

night, I said well I had a great sleep, so there you are you could tell a million stories about going through the north of Ireland during the troubles, were you getting protection Brian, were you getting protection from, like, the RA or whoever while you're doing this?

Do I get what? Protection from the RA. Like, someone must have been... Like, if you're going up singing rebel songs, surely someone is giving you tip-offs and they're probably the RA or Gerry Adams. No, it was God. It was God.

Now, look, you know, we used to plan, funny enough, when we were driving in our own cars, which we did for a while, we used to plan to go up in one direction and come back in another route. We never, ever took the same route twice. And that's because we always felt under threat. And we never told our wives, we never told our family, we're going up to North because it would worry them. And I always remember when the Miami were massacred,

my wife was very worried that it might have been us. And it could have been us. And probably a lot of people think it should have been us. But eventually, like, it was very, very dangerous to go north. I remember loading gear into a hall in Derry, and it was a stardust hall in Derry, and during the loading, we were loading all the equipment and everything else,

a gunfire shootout happened between the British troops and the IRA who were on top of the dance hall. And we were caught in the middle because the troops were down there among the houses. And they were shooting up and the IRA was shooting down and we were caught loading gear in there but we just ducked and dived and whatever and when the shooting stopped we went on with the job. But I mean

that was the north of Ireland back then and it was dangerous but we are young and we thought we were invincible. Jesus Christ! Someone threw a bottle at my head once when I was in a gig in Meninga. Brian, you worked for some time in a factory

and your job was breaking eggs. Is this correct? I worked at everything when I was in London. But why breaking eggs? So you're making chewing gum. I used to pasteurise them. Not pasteurise, pasteurise. How are you pasteurising eggs?

You send them to a bloody machine, up and down they go, hot and cold, hot and cold. And all the ladies would be out there breaking eggs, they come into me then and I pasteurise them. And then what's at the end of that? Do they go back into the shell? They use them for the catering business. Ah, right, OK, so they might end up as like dried eggs. No, it's liquid, liquid stuff and drums.

Listen, I'd done everything in London while I was waiting to make it as a folk singer. This is true. When we were over there in London, I opened a folk club there in Brentwood and one of the people who was

involved in that folk club, a great singer at the time, was Paul Simon. Now, I only knew him as Paul. I didn't know he was Paul Simon or Simon and Gam Fogel, which he became. I went back to my cousin over there in England and said, do you remember Paul there in

Brentwood? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He said, that's Paul Simon of Simon and Gam Fogel. Oh my God, I never knew that. But he was playing with us for many, many times. Another story about Simon & Garfunkel was... Does anybody remember the embankment in Talla? I don't know. You might. You're all too young. But anyhow, it was a famous ballet hall.

We used to... A ballet hall? A ballad pub. Okay, yeah, yeah. A ballad pub. And we used to... It was a great after-hours place. We used to meet for after-hours drinks there.

Everybody would come up. Lou Kelly, we'd be all up there. The Clancy's. Everybody would be up there. So we'd be up there having drinks and chatting and everything else. And one night, and he had a knock comes on the window, bup, bup, bup, bup, bup.

And we all, the cops, you know, it was the cops, we all turn out the lights and everyone, the conversation goes down and everything. And they turn out the lights and Mick McCarty was the owner of the place at the time goes out to see who's at the window. He goes out anyhow he comes back in a while and the Bulls comes back up everybody's happy drinking chatting again but I asked when Mick came back I said who was at the window he says some fucking idiot called with a terrible name, he says.

Can't remember his name, but he says, Art Bar Gungle, or something like that. And I said... And I said, yeah, yeah, yeah. And Liam Clancy was sitting beside me, he said, what did you say, Mick? He said, Art Bar Gungle, some fellow with a queer Mick? He said, Art Barthbunkle,

some fellow with a queer name. He said, I told him to come up here tonight, you're supposed to let him in. He's my guest here tonight. So anyhow, they went out looking for Art Garfunkel

and when they went out, they got the taxi back and he was gone. For fuck's sake. Can you tell us a bit about, were you knocking around with the Dubliners? Did you know Ronnie Drew, the boys, did you know them? What were they like? Were they sound?

Yeah, I was more friendly with Luke Kelly. Yeah. Yeah, and Luke Kelly, we used to drink at the embankment a lot. And Luke Kelly was a communist and a member of the Communist Party. And we used to argue about politics. And I used to say, well, hold on, Luke.

It's never going to happen in Ireland. The Irish people had too much government. We don't want communism in this country. And he was a committed communist. And he used to play at their affair down at Christchurch. They used to hold

their annual general meeting in a post box down there in a telephone box. What? There wasn't too many communists in that. I'm just fitting into a fucking tiny post box. Luke Kelly's staring in

whispering songs big fucking hair anyhow Luke used to say to me I don't give a fuck he says I'm as red

as my hair and he was too I'm committed and one thing I'd often wonder too would you ever like have files on you from, like, MI5

or have any queer people following you like that, any British spies? Well, I knew that all the records were in Scotland Yard. Yeah, there had to have been, like. I mean, you're singing about the rat. Yeah, no, no. You'll never know that. And, you know, it didn't matter.

I think the important thing about the Wolf Tones, the important thing, that we sang about the events. Remember, we sang about the Guildford Four. We sang about the Birmingham Six. Before anybody... When we went to get the song played or get it on the Late Late Show, we were told we don't want any songs about terrorists.

And that was the kind of mindset that it was. We don't want those songs about terrorists. But after the Birmingham Six were exonerated, everybody wanted it. They were on the Late Late Show. Every one of them were on there. But when the Wolftones were trying to free them and bring justice to the Birmingham Six,

we were banned off radio and off television. Because they didn't understand. They didn't care. We were fighting for the rights of the people. People like, you know, when we sang songs about plastic bullets. You never heard that on radio. You never heard about the awful, awful killings by plastic bullets. You never heard.

We sang the songs. We told a story. The Ballad of Joe McDonald. All those wonderful stories. We told about the March of Ben Tuller when the Price sisters were, you might say, brought into the troubles because of that awful situation, that march was met by people of hate on the Bourne-Turret Bridge as they walked from Belfast to Derry. So there's a lot of stories that are untold that are hidden behind the story of Ireland. And we tried to bring those to light to make people understand across the world

that there was another side. The Irish people were being called terrorists across the world that there was another side. The Irish people were being called terrorists across the world. The Thatcher government at the time was labelling Irish people as terrorists. Well, I thought that was a shame and a terrible shame because we needed to address that awful slur put upon the Irish people. And people in America wouldn't have understood why.

They would have took it in. Yeah, yeah, there are terrible bombings. If you had either guilt association, but many people in America mentioned bomb, the only thing that came out was IRA. Guilt association was what they did. You couldn't even mention, under the propaganda rules by the English,

you couldn't mention any other organisation in Ireland or in Britain other than the IRA to be associated with terrorists. That was the rule and that was the law. Read the book. The book is about IRA it's about the propaganda

it's not written, not my book it's not written by me it's written by the English people it's written by the people of the times and they understood they understood what was happening with British propaganda so the idea was to demonise the Irish and then you could do what you happening with British propaganda. So the idea was to demonise the Irish

and then you could do what you like with them. And that was always the way. As a form of dehumanisation. We were there to fight against that propaganda. One thing I'm noticing too, just from hearing you speak, you're almost documenting and recording history with the songs. You're documenting them and putting them out there.

And that's a real Irish tradition. That goes as far back as the bards of nearly Breton times, that it was the responsibility of the artist in Irish society to reflect what's actually happening. That was the artist's responsibility. Do you view what you were doing within that tradition, within a long Irish tradition? Absolutely, and you said it very well.

The Irish Ballad, the Irish story, is a reflection of what's happening in Ireland. It's not leading the way. It was reflecting what is happening day by day. And not alone do we, you know, I've written 120 songs at this stage about every aspect of Ireland, you know, including the banking situation.

And, yeah, I know you love the bankers here. But, I mean, every story, including our great sport heroes and everything else, I think that's Irish life. I think that's the duty of the Irish ballad singer, is to reflect Irish life, to tell the story of Irish life. And it's been said by many people that a true reflection of history

is in the Irish song rather than the Irish historian an Irish historian writes for other historians academics write for other academics to be commended by oh you've done that's great yeah revisionist you know I remember Ruth Dudley

Edward came up to me we were playing in the National Concert Hall, the National in London. And there was almost 3,000 people there. And all young people. And it was back in the 79. And they were all dancing around. I'd just written a song called Padraig Pearce

for the 100th anniversary of his birth. I was very proud of that song. I was very proud of Padraig Pearce, for the 100th anniversary of his birth. I was very proud of that song. I was very proud of Padraig Pearce and his memory. So out we go, and the song was in the charts. It was number four or number five, I can't remember. But we sang this song, and out there, the wonderful, wonderful people were all dancing around and clapping around to the song,

telling the story of our great hero, Padraig Pearce. Well, the owner of the National came up to me, knock knock knock I was in the dressing room, he said there's some old one down there with three names wants to see you that's a bad sign I said who is it? She said Ruth Dudley Edwards

I said holy fuck who's she? anyhow she she comes up, I bring her up to, who's she? Anyhow, she comes up, I bring her up to the green room and we have a, I buy her a drink and blah blah. I'm ashamed of you, she said. I'm ashamed of you having all them people dancing around to Padraig Pearce

and they're all ready to take guns and go up the north and shoot everybody. I said, no, they're not. They're celebrating a great hero of Ireland. So we went to a great conversation. She had hers, and she is a revisionist. I said,

she wrote a book of Paul Dick Pierce, and I said, I had read it. I said, if Paul Dick Pierce is in his grave today, he turn around, and I hope he comes back and haunts you because you made a terrible, terrible job on the story of Padraig

Pierce. She brought out every negative piece of Padraig Pierce's life to downgrade him and to make a fool of him. But the Irish people know better than that. What I love there, and I do find it quite wholesome that you threaten somebody with a haunting.

Because that's a good way to threaten someone. There's no physicality to it. It might not manifest. You just go, I hope a ghost comes back and bothers your life. It's a fine thing to say to someone. Fine thing to say to someone. Unless it's like the ghost of a spider.

Fuck that. I could deal with a human ghost, you know, rattling chains, but a fucking spider's ghost, not a chance. Are you from Limerick? Of course I'm from Limerick, yeah. Oh, the terrible people in Limerick. Oh, the terrible, terrible, terrible people in Limerick? Of course I'm from Limerick, yeah. Oh, the terrible people in Limerick! Oh, the terrible, terrible, terrible people in Limerick! Terrible nice people they are in Limerick.

They're terrible. Oh, they're terrible nice. Terrible nice. We were down in Limerick recently, and you know, we couldn't get out of the pub, I swear to God. They were feeding us drink. Whiskey! Whis whiskey and all that stuff

they were throwing on us right, left and centre have another, have another have another, have another we couldn't get out of the place I swear to God I wouldn't mind I wouldn't mind but my grandmother used to say that whiskey makes you sick

when you're well and well when you're sick when we were babies that whisky makes you sick when you're well and well when you're sick. When we were babies, when we were babies, when we were babies, and we got the colic in our bellies, we got the colic in our bellies, they used to give us whisky in our bottles.

We used to get whisky in our bottles, we used to have to drink it down, and the colic all went away. Then if you had a toothache or a gum bile or anything else like that, what did you get? Whiskey on a piece

of cotton wool, put against the toothache, the gum bile and everything else like that. What happened? It all went away. If you had a cold or a flu or a sore throat or anything like that, what did you get? Whiskey. Whiskey. And all mixed with hot water, with lemon, with honey,

a little aspirin troll on top. Blunk. Drink that down, it's good for you. We used to drink it down. And the colds and the flus. All went away. No wonder we're all bloody alcoholics. And then when we wanted it.

When you were 13 or 14. The big parties. At home. They were all back from England and all that. Oh. Can I have some of that whisky stuff you give me, Mammy? No, you can't have it, you're too young. Whisky

makes you sick when you're well and well when you're sick. I love that. How did we move so quickly on to threatening people with hauntings and banishing colic from fucking Vicar Street? And the subject of Limerick, the wolf tones are massive in Limerick, right?

I have an opinion now about the wolf tones music, which you may strongly disagree with, but it's something that I hold dear. So I know about the Wolf Tones because when I was growing up, what you listened to, right, what lads listened to was either rap music, like Tupac or something like that.

You'd listen to Tupac, Bob Marley, and the Wolf Tones. Those were the three things. But I find in the way that with the Wolftones tunes it's essentially reflecting what's happening telling the stories that aren't being told in the media and fighting a power system that exists the same thing is present in rap music the while I was listening to Kamochi Black and Tans when I was a kid, I was also listening to a group called NWA from Los Angeles, and their song was Fuck the Police. But what Fuck the Police and Kamochi Black and Tans,

it's the same thing. They were reflecting. They weren't saying fuck the police as in we don't agree with law. It was at the height of huge police brutality against the black community. So in the way that you're talking about plastic bullets, rap music was doing that. They're saying the police on our streets are

murdering us because we're black. It's being ignored in the media, so we're fucking singing about it. And the FBI investigated them. And I see, I think that's why in Limerick you had young lads listening to the wolf tones and listening to rap music and for these

two things that are wildly miles apart to perfectly exist beside each other and for that to be okay do you agree or disagree with that? Well yeah you know the history and the story of Ireland

that we have told it's about oppression and the story of Ireland that we have told, it's about oppression. And the oppression in Ireland, you know, has no difference to the oppression of any community across the world. We tell of the Irish situation. I always felt that, you know, support the people of Ireland, and when Ireland gets its rights,

then I can focus on other people because I started off life supporting you know civil rights and other movements and I moved on to Ireland because I felt that the injustice was also in Ireland now I've I always felt since then you can't fight everybody's corner and if you tell your own story and the story of your own people truthfully and honestly well then it can reflect across the world yeah because people will understand that story and put it into their situations yeah so that was the wolf tones we the story. I've written 120 songs about every

aspect of Ireland, about all the injustice and it has resonated throughout the communities of this world. I'm glad that we have made that difference across the world.

It's unbelievable that, you know, when I think back to it, you know, when we first sang the song, the Ballad of Joe MacDonald, and we sang it, first of all, in... And who was Joe? Who was he? I wrote the song Joe MacDonald. And who was Joe MacDonald? Joe MacDonald was the fifth young man

who died on the hunger strike back in 1981. He was a young man from Belfast, and he went on that hunger strike for the rights to be treated as a political prisoner, the right to wear his own clothes as a normal prisoner and not as a convict, and the right to mix with other people in the same situation. Well, those rights were denied to them by the Thatcher government at the time, and two hunger strikes ensued. And the first one was brought to an

end on the Christmas of 1980. And they were conned into the fact that they thought they were granted the rights that they looked for. The second one started in 1981, of which Joe McDonald was the fifth young man to die. He died for his friends. Remember, you've got to remember, all these young men were in their 20s. They were all in their 20s. They had a beautiful life to live ahead of them. They gave and sacrificed their lives for their friends,

for the people they loved, for the country they loved, for the town, for the home, for the rights to live in dignity in their own place. And they gave their lives, one by one, from Bobby Sands right through. Those tenured men gave their lives. On the death of the fifth-year-old man, I was listening to the radio on that morning in my bed, and I heard the story of the 50-year-old man dying,

Joe MacDonald, I decided I'd have to do something to bring it to a stop. Stop this awful carnage. I wrote the song, The Ballad of Joe MacDonald. And the important part of that song, I think, is you dare to call me a terrorist

as you look down your gun when I think of all those deeds that you have done, you had plundered many nations, divided many lands, you had terrorized the people, you ruled with an iron hand, and you brought this reign of terror to my land. And that was the truth of it. These young men in Belfast, we wouldn't understand the situation. We were very comfortable here. And we wouldn't have understood. But I understood it by visiting and going up there

and hearing the remarks of the people and everything else like that. I understood it. And this hit my heart. And I had to do something about it. When we sang that song in many places and this guy came up to me in Canada and he said, hey man, he was from the Caribbean. Irish guys don't do that, do they? Hey man, he says, you've got to tell that song to the world. He said, this is the best song I've ever heard in my life.

And, you know, it resonated throughout the world. Standing ovations in every country. I think the world understands the injustice that was dished out to the Irish people. You've seen the collusion and everything else that happened. A lot has been hidden, but while the wolf turns around, we will tell the story. Someone has asked,

has Brian ever considered writing a song for the Eurovision? Come out, you black and tals! That's a no, I'm guessing. Who were your musical influences in terms of rebel music? Or was that even a thing? Were you listening in terms of rebel music? Or was that even a thing? Were you listening to records of rebel music or was it simply what you were hearing in the pub or in your granny's house?

Did rebel music records exist in the 50s? Well, the protest song, as we know it across the world, has always been there. It's not a new thing. The protest song is in the black community in America. The protest song is in South Africa. The protest song is in many of the colonial peoples of the world. And, you know, we were voted,

when they voted for the nation once again, as the best song of the millennium. Yeah, we need to talk about that as well. Yeah. That was nuts. Yeah, well... What was that, in 2002? Was it BBC or...?

No, it was the song of the millennium. In other words, they asked the people of the world to vote for what they thought was the most significant song of the last thousand years. And what happened? That was for the year 2000. Well, it happened to be the Wolvetones.

And what was the song? And it happened to be A Nation Once Again by the Wolvetones. And A Nation Once Again, as you well know, was written by Thomas Davis. And he died on 1847, September 15th. Oh my God, he was a great inspiration to the people of Ireland. And he had been part of the nation newspaper that inspired the Irish people

to bring confidence to the Irish people as a nation once again. He wrote that song in 1843 for O'Connell's repeal of the movement, repeal of the union year, which was 1843. And he wrote that song to support O'Connell. A wonderful song, a great song, and with great meaning. And it has meaning to this very, very, very day.

And I always remember one time we were... Just to tell you a story about RTE. Well, we were putting in a programme for... I think it was up for the match or one of those programmes. And we put in a programme. One of the songs was A Nation Once Again. We put in A Nation Once... All right. So we put in A Nation Once again as one of the songs.

I think Cork were in the final or something and Thomas Davis was from Mallow and Cork. So we put that song as a kind of a Cork connection. And all the producers came up, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You can't sing that song. No, no, no, no, you can't sing that song. We said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you can't sing that song, no, no, no, no, you can't sing that song, we said, no, no, why not, he said, we can't, it's not the time, not the, you know, not the place, no, no,

he said, well, what's the name, Frank Patterson sang it there last week, and in one of the shows, oh, that's different, he says, when the wolf don't sing it they mean it. And that's an absolute fact. And we did mean it. Before I open up questions to the audience a lot of people were just asking

what do you think about Brexit at the moment. A lot of people were just asking what do you think about Brexit at the moment and the north of the country and the border and all this business. What's your opinion on that? I think we should, the people up there should exit Brexit.

You know, it's, they voted against it and they're entitled to break away as the people of Scotland are and the people of Wales are. So, you know, they talk about democracy. If it's a democracy, it applies to everybody, not just to England.

Yeah. So the poor old fucking Scots. Lads, the Scots. Lads the Scots the Scots were given the chance of an independence referendum and one of the reasons they didn't a strong reason they didn't leave the union is because England

basically said to them well if you leave Britain like it's gonna you'd be out of the EU it's gonna take a while lads to get back into the EU so the Scots said alright fair enough England we'll stick around and then England a year later go fuck that poor bastards it's a mess

it's an absolute mess and it's changing every day I'm looking at the news by the hour and I still don't know what's happening it's insanity quite an abrupt ending there I do apologise the recording stopped at that point but

literally we'd gone into audience questions literally after that and I don't know what happened but whenever we went into audience questions passed the mic around the audience and it didn't pick up or something so but that was the

interview with Brian Warfield from the Wolvetones, didn't get the audience questions in unfortunately, I hope you enjoyed that like I said you don't have to agree with the fucking with the Wolvetones, whatever opinion you want but

I just feel it's important to document culturally important document culturally important a culturally important Irish group no matter what you think of them because no one else seems to be doing it and 55 years is a long time to be doing what they're doing

alright I'll talk to you next week yart Yart. Thank you. you