A RECONCILIATION IN N. IRELAND MUSIC PLAYLIST

My friend Jonny Clark asked a number of us on social media to recommend songs, poems, readings related to the Troubles for a North American group studying “restorative justice and reconciliation in Ireland and Northern Ireland”. 

I couldn't help myself and made this playlist. It flows with intention...

I hope Stuart Bailie doesn't mind me using his book cover. That is the authority. I highly recommend it. Give it a read and you can come up with your very own playlist!

 

RYAN VAIL & ELMA ORKESTRA (feat Stephen James Smith) - My Island

Dublin poet Stephen James Smith collaborates with these guys on their Borders project setting the scene across the island, across history.

 

ENERGY ORCHARD - Somebody's Brother

West Belfast boys tell it how it was in the late 80s.

 

U2 - Raised By Wolves

For those caught up in the 1974 bombs in Dublin and Monaghan, their mate Andy Rowan experience the one in Talbot Street, U2 disturbed and rocked up.

 

IAIN ARCHER - When It Kicks In

Archer tells of his experience and frustrations of home and hopes for the day...

 

JOSHUA BURNSIDE - Late Afternoon In the Meadow (1887)

A song of a city deliberately divided... why would you do that?

 

TOMMY SANDS - There Were Roses

Sands at his very best in storytelling and mots prophetic. Indeed, our tears ran together

 

DUKE SPECIAL - The Ice-Cream Man

Peter Wilson takes a Michael Longley poem of a bomb on the Lisburn Road and gives it even more poignancy. 

 

URSULA BURNS - Heartbreak Was Heartbreak

Everybody suffered the same and Ursula tells is that well.

 

TRÚ - Patriot Games

Our folk boys take Behan and Dylan and make it their own with a northern slant.

 

JOBY FOX - Belfast

Energy Orchard man with his own version of a city to be proud and ashamed of.

 

ANDY WHITE - Soldier’s Sash

The young energetic Andy White playing fun with the deadly serious

 

STIFF LITTLE FINGERS - Alternative Ulster

What we need...

 

PAUL BRADY - The Island

Brady at his very best, blending love, naivety and catharsis

 

CARA DILLON - Inishowen

A poem of idyllic escape for a child unsure of what she was escaping from

 

CHRISTY MOORE - North and South of the River, Live at Point 2006

A Moore/U2 co write. This version is lament and hopefulness at its very best.

 

BEN GLOVER - And The Sun Breaks Through the Sky

Ben seeking sunshine.

 

DIVINE COMEDY - Sunrise

Neil Hannon rages in anger and sees hope arrive in 1994.

 

SNOW PATROL - I Think Of Home

All four corners are beautiful.

 

BRIAN HOUSTON - We Don’t Need Religion

Brian at his provocative best around the time Drumcree.

 

ANTHONY TONER - The Less It Matters

In the Residential home in East Belfast as life slips away, they think of what didn't matter after all.

 

ORPHAN BRIGADE - Mind The Road

Ben Glover's super Nashville group with a benediction set in a County Antrim space.