The Irish Diaspora Lived Ethics of the Dropkick Murphys Punk Band

Catholicism and Alcoholism: The Irish Diaspora lived ethics of the Dropkick Murphys punk band Kieran James & Bligh Grant University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, 4350, Australia. Corresponding author: Kieran James ([email protected]) Abstract A POSTMODERN IRISH NATIONALISM This paper discusses the contemporary Irish- American punk band, the Dropkick Murphys, and in particular the band‘s most recent studio album The Dropkick Murphys (hereafter DMs) have 2007s The Meanest of Times. We find that the unabashedly adopted an image and worldview band‘s resurgent Irish nationalism is both uniquely of a resurgent and triumphalist Irish a product of the Irish Diaspora, and, although the nationalism grounded in singing of Irish band might be unwilling to admit it, American traditions, festivities, towns and places, and culture and its self-confident jingoistic patriotism. use traditional Irish instrumentation in some of The band‘s attitude to Roman Catholicism is, in their music. Fictitious characters in songs Sartre‘s (2003) words, a unique synthesis of invariably are given Irish names, such as facticity and transcendence in that they ‗Flannigan‘s Ball‘ and ‗Fairmount Hill‘. acknowledge its reality as a shadow overhanging both their pasts and their presents. However, the However, what emerges is as obviously a band seems to go beyond simply acknowledging its product of the USA as it is of Ireland. spectre by adopting, expressing, and/or reflecting Although Dublin is referenced in songs (e.g. some degree of religious faith themselves without the cover of ‗Rocky Road to Dublin‘), Boston, going so far as to be clearly a ‗Catholic band‘ like, America‘s ‗Irish city‘, is referenced more for example, the Priests. frequently. We thus have a uniquely Diasporic Irishness created, which is in a sense genuine The shadow of a religious culture, and some degree and in a sense romanticised and even of actual religious belief set the backdrop for and fabricated. The Irishness is extremely self- indeed inspire the band‘s world-weary tales of urban alienation, family breakdown, and brotherly conscious and pushes the barrier between affection; complex, metaphysical accounts of a authenticity and inauthenticity without culture imbedded in Diaspora. Yet, due to their becoming wholly unbelievable. status as a punk band, the Dropkick Murphys render this attendant religious metaphysic eminently Whilst the history of Ireland is frequently graspable by de-mythologising it. In particular, the portrayed as merely sectarian and violent in band explores what 1970s punk journalist Caroline popular media (the films Bloody Sunday, Coon described as ‗personal politics‘ sharing this directed by Paul Greengrass and In the Name with other ‗postmodern‘ contemporary punk bands of the Father, directed Jim Sheridan, as well as NOFX (see James 2010) and the Offspring as well as their predecessors such as the Sex Pistols. the political and religious content of U2‘s Through our ethnomusicological reading of The earlier albums Boy (1980) October (1981) and Meanest of Times (2007) they remind us that it is War (1983)) the DMs infer a romanticised, a- equally important to understand the experience of historical Ireland which is a pleasure to visit migrant security, Diasporic or otherwise, as and easy to identify with. Theirs is a oscillating between what Giddens (1991) termed postmodern nationalism that assimilates ‗ontological security‘ and ‗existential anxiety‘ disparate cultural products to form a narrative alongside geo-political readings of the same of national identity. The DM‘s nationalism phenomenon. caters for Irish emigrants, those who have Irish ancestors in the long distant past, and those Keywords who are simply attracted to aspects of the Existential anxiety, Existentialism; Irish Diaspora; Irish Nationalism; ontological culture (Ireland‘s vibrancy being preferred security; punk music; Roman Catholicism over England‘s dourness and austerity). If we have an Irish parent or grandparent we can choose the DMs‘ Irish narrative without guilt (or even if we have no Irish ancestry at all). We are never forced to choose sides politically or in war. While possibly objectionable in the sense that man to come home in silent devotion). it reconstitutes the history of sectarian Ireland However the rough world-weary sounds of the (see, for example, MacDonagh, 1992; O'Leary, two singers of the DMs (who exchange lines 1995) so as to render it politically benign, we rapid-fire with each other, in the manner of argue that the DMs retain sufficient sincerity Californian punks Rancid), makes this and lived ethics to make their project viable. In message come across as sincere and the the same way a Croatian Diasporic band could product of lived experiences, that is authentic, authentically focus on Croatian-Catholic working-class and Catholic, as opposed to national identity whilst not involving itself in middle-class, Anglican, and conservative. the reality of recent war in the Balkans. In a There are similarities here with the veiled postmodern world of shifting unstable moral and religious messages of Tolstoy and identities and mass immigration, many feel Dostoyevsky (see Tolstoy, 2003) which attracted to and comforted by nationalist arguably only works successfully in cultures messages of various sorts. Being associated such as the Russian and the Irish, where with the political left rather than the political religion, or at least the external trappings of a right makes the DM‘s project less problematic very visual religious tradition, is woven into (unlike, for example, white-British nationalist the fabric of national life. The DMs would punk band Skrewdriver referred to in Bill agree with Tolstoy that it is ‗better to be a Buford‘s ethnographic study of English Levin than a Vronsky‘, i.e. better to maintain football hooligans Among the Thugs (1993)). one‘s personal freedom, integrity, and self- Being rooted in a romanticised a-historical respect rather than forsake conscience and past and a largely self-created diasporic society to engage in cynical and self-centred present, the DMs‘ world of Irishness seems extra-marital relations which ultimately hinder largely unassailable. In effect, they are one‘s own honest personal journey of self implicitly asserting that it is the Irishness that creation rather than assist it. we choose that counts; as such its authenticity is guaranteed. The DMs allow this lived The rest of the paper discusses songs from the Irishness and lived Catholicism to gel with DMs‘ most recent studio album The Meanest more traditional and mainstream punk rock of Times in order of the track listing on the concerns such as integrity and falsehood; album. corporate greed and the greed of the small businessperson; the emptiness of pre-marital „FAMOUS FOR NOTHING‟ sexual relations and the single person‘s ‗meat- market‘; whiskey- and war-related early deaths The opening song is a super-fast DMs song in (as on ‗Virtues and Vices‘ where, the classic 1990s punk mould characterised by significantly, the war death portrayed is in rapid-fire exchange of vocal parts between the Vietnam rather than Northern Ireland); child singers. Lyrically the band is at its least abuse and marital breakdown (as on ‗The State moralistic here which is appropriate for an of Massachusetts‘ and ‗Walk Away‘ album-opener (certain to become a regular respectively). A loosely quasi-Catholic feature of the band‘s live set) so that no position is combined with a postmodern listener is shocked by the band‘s religiously existentialist worldview similar to that of Nick influenced morality early on. The song begins Hornby‘s 30-something single male characters with the sound of a classroom bell and in his novels High Fidelity (2005) and About a children‘s playground noises, complementing Boy (1998), so that pre-marital sex is despised the cheerful Irish Catholic schoolyard because the experience of waking up in a photograph on the album cover. We are stranger‘s bed is unpleasant, as opposed to it immediately brought back to the primary being morally wrong ex-ante from the school playgrounds of Ireland (or at least perspective of the Church. Likewise, an Boston). The song verses include some unnamed male friend is urged to reconsider reference to the courts filling up after a ‗long leaving his family in pursuit of the idol of night on the town‘, at once giving the song a presumed freedom (in ‗Walk Away‘). These contemporary context but also reminding us of moral positions can be viewed as being our own unruly youth. First we have as vaguely or loosely Catholic in the sense that follows: family unity and loyalty are given pride of place, or valorised, rather than the stark There‘s two little shits/ individualism of the postmodern consumer. Selling joints on the hill/ And the kids down the lot/ On another song (‗Echoes on A Street‘) a Are burning cruisers for a thrill. friend is reminded of his wife‘s devotion (‗she promised to honour, cherish and keep you/ she And again: took your problems and took your name‘) that might annoy feminists (not because women The courts are filling up/ are treated as sex objects but because they are All the kids are coming down/ assigned a traditional role as waiting for the 107 For a head start on the troubles/ extra gusto and a conviction borne of bitter Of a long night on the town. experience: The use of first-person singular throughout is Well these lies won't save me/ somewhat odd. As in the case of Rancid (on Don't you know, don't you know/ classic tracks such as ‗Roots Radicals‘ (on From the time that made me/ 1995 album …And Out Come the Wolves), Here we go, here we go. ‗Ruby Soho‘ (on …And Out Come the Wolves) and ‗Otherside‘ (on 2003 Indestructible These lines remain difficult to interpret.

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