“The Volunteers' March”
Description
"Was she not a fool, When she took off our wool, To leave us so much of the Leather, the leather? It ne'er entered her pate, That a sheepskin well beat, Would draw a whole nation Together, together."
Notes
The current description is all of the Zimmermann fragment.
Zimmermann p. 117: "'The Volunteers' March' ... represents the first group of really nationalist Irish songs written in English, though most of the words are lost."
Moylan notes the tune Zimmermann uses for this entry and thinks it unlikely. "In fact the verse would fit a slide or jig tune, but not one in 2/4 time. In fact the verse would fit perfectly to the tune 'Larry Grogan' to which song [Zimmermann] 40 below is set, and was in all probability made with that tune in mind." (Moylan 2, "Favourite March of the Old Irish Volunteers") Consider this comment when using the tunes assigned by both Moylan and Zimmermann. - BS
Though it rarely is mentioned in song, one of the worst ways Britain oppressed Ireland was by controlling her trade. One instance of this was that they restricted Irish clothing from entering England. On several occasions England seemed to encourage one or another industry (e.g. linen) only to chop it down.
Robert Kee, in _The Most Distressful Country_ (Volume I of _The Green Flag_) writes on page 21, "The later English parliament took advantage of this constitutional subservience to see that local economic interests in the Kingdom of Ireland should present no threat to those in the Kingdom of England. Irish trading and manufacturing opportunities were severely restricted to protect England's own trades and manufactures. For instance, in 1699 the export of woolen goods from Ireland... was totally forbidden to everywhere but England where English import duties were themselves prohibitive." (Compare Michael Cronin, _A History of Ireland_, pp. 86-87: "The 1699 legislation destroyed the Irish woolen industry at a stroke.")
Similarly, P. Berresford Ellis, _A history of the Irish Working Class_, p. 48, reports, "In 1666 Parliament forbade irish cattle being imported into England thus bringing about the ruin of the cattle industry."
I don't know if this song reflects that, but it might. - RBW
References
- Zimmermann 2, "The Volunteers' March" (1 fragment, 1 tune)
- BI, Zimm002