Celtic Protest Songs, Who'll Stand With Us #749

Marc Gunn

05 March 2026

They marched peacefully. They were fired on. They sang anyway. This week on the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast #749, sixteen artists remind us that protest songs aren't history — they're a mirror. Dropkick Murphys, Wild Colonial Bhoys, Medusa's Wake, House of Hamill and more. From Diggers of 1649, to Bloody Sunday 1972, to Minneapolis 2026. Some songs don't age. They just find new reasons to matter. -- Subscribe now at CelticMusicPodcast.com! Amelia Hogan, Dropkick Murphys, Bealtaine, Ed Miller, Black 47, David Rovics, Wild Colonial Bhoys, Eddie Biggins, The Haar, Marc Gunn & The Dubliners' Tabby Cats, The Secret Commonwealth, Redhill Rats, Scythian, House Of Hamill, Medusa's Wake, Melanie Gruben GET CELTIC MUSIC NEWS IN YOUR INBOX The Celtic Music Magazine is a quick and easy way to plug yourself into more great Celtic culture. Enjoy seven weekly news items with what's happening with Celtic music and culture online. Subscribe now and get 34 Celtic MP3s for Free. VOTE IN THE CELTIC TOP 20 FOR 2026 This is our way of finding the best songs and artists each year. You can vote for as many songs and tunes that inspire you in each episode. Your vote helps me create this year's Best Celtic music episode. You have just three weeks to vote this year. Vote Now! You can follow our playlist on YouTube to listen to those top voted tracks as they are added every 2-3 weeks. THIS WEEK IN CELTIC MUSIC 0:09 - Amelia Hogan "No Irish Need Apply" from Transplants: From the Old to the New 5:02 - WELCOME 8:14 - Dropkick Murphys "Who'll Stand With Us?" from For The People (Expanded Edition) 12:03 - Bealtaine "Worker's Song" from Factories & Mills, Shipyards & Mines Written by Ed Pickford in the mid-1970s as a direct response to arguments blaming Britain's economic woes on workers rather than the wealthy. That's a typical tactic that continues today. If we want free and fair elections, we will stop letting billionaires buy our politicians. The was first recorded by Scottish legend Dick Gaughan in 1981, it's been taken up by everyone from the Dropkick Murphys to The Longest Johns. 16:22 - Ed Miller "Blood upon the Grass" from Generations of Change In 1977, Scotland traveled to Chile to play a friendly match at the very stadium where, just four years earlier, Pinochet's regime had tortured and killed political prisoners after the 1973 coup. Back in Scotland, a powerful solidarity campaign urged the Scottish Football Association to pull their team from what would become known as the 'Match of Shame.' Folk singer Adam McNaughtan captured that outrage in his song 'Blood Upon the Grass,' and Edinburgh-born singer Ed Miller later recorded it on his album Generations of Change — keeping this powerful story alive for new generations. 19:16 - Black 47 "San Patricio Brigade" from Rise Up and The Secret World of Celtic Rock 24:18 - FEEDBACK The Great Hunger in Ireland took place from 1845 to 1852. Irish immigrants migrated to the U.S. They were treated as second-class citizens. There are still newspapers that refer to them as lazy and criminals, thus the "No Irish Need Apply" song at the start of the show. These were hungry people. They were just looking for opportunities in a new land. Much like the immigrants of today. But they too were treated inhumanely. They were demonized. So when the Mexican-American War broke out from 1846-1848, many Irish looked at how poorly they were treated in America. They found greater kinship to their Catholic cousins in Mexico. That's why the Saint Patrick's Battalion was formed. Interestingly, it wasn't just Irish Catholics. There were Catholics from throughout Europe in the battalion including: German, Canadian, English, French, Italian, Polish, Scottish, Spanish, Swiss and Mexican. These were people who were attacked and belittled for their culture and their faith. It should serve as a warning and a reminder for all of us today. 30:04 - David Rovics "St. Patrick Battalion" from Historic Times 32:58 - Wild Colonial Bhoys "Dying Rebel" from Century A song that reflects on the human cost of rebellion rather than the glorification of the conflict and the martyrdom of its leaders. Here's what history keeps teaching us. People don't start out wanting to fight. They start out wanting to be heard. On January 30, 1972, in Derry, Northern Ireland, somewhere between ten and fifteen thousand people joined a peaceful civil rights march. They weren't armed. They were protesting the British government's policy of locking people up without trial. Sort of like what's happening in America now. British paratroopers opened fire. Thirteen people were killed. Fourteen others were wounded. The incident caused widespread anger and led to a surge in IRA recruitment. The argument was simple and devastating: peaceful protest could no longer achieve change. I hope to God America never comes to that. But peaceful protesters were murdered in Minneapolis. I lost a fan because I took my kids to a peaceful No Kings Protest last summer. When the state fires on and demonizes its own people, it doesn't end the resistance. It just changes its shape. That's the lesson history keeps trying to teach us. I hope we don't need to learn that the hard way. So please keep peacefully protesting 37:46 - BREAK 39:10 - Eddie Biggins "The Rising of the Moon" from Hey, I'm Singing Over Here! 41:29 - The Haar "Óró Sé Do Bheatha' Bhaile" from The Lost Day "Óró sé do bheatha abhaile" sounds like a joyful welcome song — and once, it was. The original Irish tune dates back centuries, used to greet returning chieftains and even Bonnie Prince Charlie. But the version we know today is something altogether fiercer. Around 1910, Patrick Pearse — poet, teacher, and revolutionary — rewrote the lyrics. He replaced the old imagery with a new vision: Gráinne Mhaol, the legendary 16th century pirate queen, sailing home with soldiers to drive the English from Ireland. Pearse was executed after the 1916 Easter Rising. And his words lived on. The song became a rallying cry, a promise that resistance wasn't finished, that Ireland would be free. That's why it's still sung today. Not as nostalgia, but as defiance. Every generation that lifts their voice in this song is answering Pearse's call across more than a hundred years. 48:04 - Marc Gunn & The Dubliners' Tabby Cats "Patriot Game" from Irish Drinking Songs: The Cat Lover's Companion In my opinion, "Patriot Game" is one of the best Irish rebel songs ever written. It cuts deeper than most rebel songs because it doesn't glorify. It questions. It was written by Dominic Behan in 1961. The song is based on the true story of Fergal O'Hanlon, an IRA volunteer killed during a 1957 border raid in County Fermanagh. He was just nineteen years old. But Behan wasn't writing a hero's ballad. He was writing a warning. The song is sung in the voice of a young man who died for a cause he barely understood. Seduced by romantic notions of patriotism before he had the wisdom to weigh the cost. That's the same as putting the party over the country. Our politicians have fallen into that trap. So I want to ask you to reach out to your representatives. Tell them you've had enough of this insanity. 51:12 - THANKS Back in December, I got an email from Troy of The Secret Commonwealth. He was letting me know about a man who's been part of his community for over 40 years. His friend is being held by ICE for nearly a year. His friend is hospitalized with a serious infection and awaiting heart surgery, all while being denied adequate medical care and due process. He suffers from a cracked vertebra and a history of cardiac issues, yet remains in unsanitary conditions with limited access to clean water or medical attention. My friend said, 'I'm feeling pretty damn rebellious right now,' and honestly, I am too. I'm also sad that I didn't bring this to your attention sooner, especially in the wake of the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by ICE agents in Minneapolis back in Janaury. These are not abstract political issues. These are real people, real families, real communities torn apart. This next song feels like the right response. 'Till Jamie Comes Hame' features traditional words sometimes credited to Robert Burns, with music written by Rob Campbell of the band. And today, it's for everyone waiting for someone to come home. 58:35 - The Secret Commonwealth "Til Jamie Comes Hame" from Last Call 1:02:45 - Redhill Rats "White, Orange and Green" from Some Heroes 1:06:37 - Scythian "Follow Me Up to Carlow" from Immigrant Road Show 1:10:06 - House Of Hamill "Pound A Week Rise" from MARCH THROUGH STORMS 1:14:12 - Medusa's Wake "War of Independence" from War of Independence 1:17:37 - CLOSING "The World Turned Upside Down" was written in 1975, but it reaches back to 1649 — and maybe even further than that. Leon Rosselson based the song on the Diggers, a radical movement in England led by Gerrard Winstanley. After the English Civil War, they began farming common land, declaring simply that the earth belonged to everyone. Not to kings. Not to landlords. Not to those who had seized it by force and called it theirs. They were destroyed for that idea. But here's something worth sitting with. The Irish language doesn't have a word for "to have." You cannot own anything in Irish. Instead, things exist in relationship with you. A book is at you. Hunger is on you. Joy is on you. Even land. Not mine. Just... with me for now. That's not just a quirk of grammar. It's a completely different way of seeing the world. One where ownership itself is the strange idea. The foreign concept. This the idea that declaring land your private property is an act of violence against everyone else. The Diggers lost. The language nearly did too. But both survived. And this song is proof that the idea refuses to die. 1:20:18 - Melanie Gruben "The World Turned Upside Down" from Like a Tide Upon the Land 1:22:37 -