While watching Hibs v Rangers on telly this afternoon, it was impossible to ignore the countless renditions of the new no.1 song from the Rangers songbook: The Famine is Over (Why don’t you go home?). If, as has been muted recently, fans are to be arrested for singing this, then Edinburgh’s police stations are going to be busier than the pubs tonight. I suspect that is not the case as the Rangers end looked pretty full at the end of the game, despite the fact that the chants clearly involved more than a handful of fans.
In my view it is an idiotic song at best. Where are the descendants of Irish immigrants from Edinburgh and Glasgow supposed to “go home” to? The Irish have been there in significant numbers since the 19th century. Should the ancestors of those Scots who settled in Ulster from the seventeenth century onwards maybe think about heading “home” too?
If it is supposed to be a joke or banter then I don't get it. Which Irish rebel songs did the Hibs fans sing to prompt the Famine Song as I couldn't hear any?
I was a little surprised and dismayed while in Scotland in recent weeks to read sports columns suggesting that this was a fuss about nothing. Imagine the reaction if for instance we had a song inferring that members of the Pakistani community should “go home”. I suspect the Scottish media would be up in arms about that and rightly so. So what’s the difference?
I fully understand that many in Scotland are tired of the tit-for-tat accusations from both sides of the Old Firm/sectarian divide. Far too often, both sides criticise the other while refusing to acknowledge they need to do anything about putting their own house in order. But when a foreign administration (Rep.of Ireland) deems it worthy of investigation and sends a complaint to the Scottish Government then surely the nation has to sit up and take notice.
To be fair, some attempts have been made by Rangers FC to do something about this. Just a few months ago, fans received advice from the club in an effort to stamp out sectarian numbers and show the way forward by encouraging chants of a more positive nature. At Easter Road this afternoon, I only heard one that could be regarded as a genuine club song – We Will Follow Rangers. Other than that, apart from the constant mantra of The Famine, we heard renditions of Rule Britannia and God Save the Queen. Odd that, when most other fans in Britain prefer to focus on their club and keep the singing of national anthems for international games. It begs the question of whether Rangers Football Club are oxymorons (or simply morons), but I suppose it is the prerogative of Rangers fans to celebrate their Britishness if they must. If the famine song is such a celebration, then God (if he exists), will have his work cut out saving them all, not just Her Majesty.
