"Won't You Say a Word for Ireland?"
by Irving Kaufman
Sheet music courtesy of Clarence Johnson |
Topicality is always the soul of popular music and the songs of the Great War are no different. Yet, there is one instance in which the intent of the song writer is pointedly and unabashedly political and we can see the directions that the writer and the song would have events turn. "Say a Word for Ireland" is a blatant request from an Irish song writer for President Wilson to intercede on behalf of Ireland in her conflict with England over Home Rule. Home Rule is the fundamental point on which the Protestant/Catholic, IRA/Orangemen discussion turns, even today. And in 1910, England promised Ireland Home Rule. But when war broke out in 1914, England reneged, claiming the war as the mitigating factor. Ireland saw it as yet another lie in the long centuries of what they styled as consistent English abuse, and the conflict eventually led to the 1916 Easter Uprising, and any number of smaller uprisings and disagreements. So when the writer asks "Mr. Wilson, won't you say a word for Ireland?" he is asking the President, after the war has been won, to intercede on Ireland's behalf.
Irish-Americans were the second largest group of hyphenated-Americans, and they had huge political influence, including Tammany Hall in New York City. The Irish had been a source of some concern because of their decidedly anti-British predilection. So when a request from the Irish for Ireland is directed toward the President as he prepares to make a world at peace, it is believable that he listened. "Mr. Wilson, every Yankee Lad who bears an Irish name," the song goes, "awaits the call to do his bit and play the fighting game / In every gallant regiment that bravely strides away, / You'll find some good old Irish names like Kelley, Burke, and Gay." The song avoids the onus of being perceived to be from hyphenated-Americans by announcing that these are "Yankee" lads with Irish names, not Irishmen who happen to live in the U.S. Furthermore, they were right. Nearly every military unit in the A.E.F. was significantly affected by an Irish presence. "Say a Word for Ireland" is the most overt attempt in the genre to directly manipulate not just opinion, but American policy. The failure of the Versailles treaty, the failure of the Congress to ratify it, and the rampant post-war xenophobia, witnessed by the headlong rush back into isolationism and immigration controls, probably undid anything Wilson might have tried.
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