Staff at Belfast’s SSE Arena to refuse to work at Wolfe Tones gig

The controversial Irish folk group this week announced that three arena gigs next year in Dublin and Belfast will be their last as they celebrate 60 years in the business.

Two concerts at Dublin’s 3Arena on October 11 and 12 will be the group’s last, but will be preceded by a massive show at the SSE Arena.

But the Sunday World has been contacted by employees of Northern Ireland’s premier indoor venue who say they won’t be working on October 6.

They explained that some staff are concerned about being present when the group plays their highly controversial Celtic Symphony which carries the lyrics that many people find offensive, as well as a raft of other controversial songs supporting the IRA.

“I’ll not be there when the Wolfe Tones have the whole crowd singing ‘Ooh, aah, up the ’Ra’,” said one employee who didn’t want to be identified.

“I live in east Belfast and I regard myself as a unionist. There’s no way I could stand there while IRA terrorists are being glorified.

“It’s one thing having it sung up the Falls (at the Féile an Phobail in west Belfast) in the summer, but the people who work here are cross-community.

“I assume the people who work during the summer concert in west Belfast are comfortable with that being sung or they wouldn’t sign up for it, but this is my actual job.”

The Wolfe Tones’ annual appearances at the Féile an Phobail have been condemned in recent years because of pro-IRA chants from some in the audience.

Unionist politicians have repeatedly called for the Wolfe Tones to be banned from the event and for public funding for Féile an Phobail to be withdrawn.

The Sunday World has been told some staff working in the SSE Arena had been aware of the Wolfe Tones concert weeks before it was announced.

“We heard about this gig a few weeks ago and there was a lot of shock they were going to be playing in east Belfast,” said another concerned employee.

“I’m not a loyalist by any stretch, but the IRA murdered a lot of people in east Belfast and I’m not comfortable being somewhere where they are being glorified.

“The SSE Arena is a shared space — can you imagine if it was booked out by some band singing songs glorifying Michael Stone, the UVF or the UDA? There’d quite rightly be a big row.

“I’ve even spoken to some Catholics who work at the arena and they say they aren’t particularly comfortable either.

“I know I’ll not be alone taking that night off.”

The SSE Arena sits in east Belfast, a stone’s throw away from the staunchly loyalist Newtownards Roads.

It’s also beside where the Titanic was built in a shipyard blighted by claims of sectarianism and where Protestants traditionally found work while Catholics were excluded.

One east Belfast loyalist told the Sunday World: “It’s a disgrace that this will be going on in the Odyssey (SSE Arena) so close to a loyalist area.

“It’s bad enough they glorify the IRA up the Falls Road, but for it to be going on right under our noses is a step too far. There’ll be a few old loyalists and men who worked in the shipyard who’ll be turning in their grave that night.”

The Sunday World tried to contact the SSE Arena, but they didn’t respond to our messages.

In recent years, the band has faced heavy criticism for Celtic Symphony, which lead singer Brian Warfield says has been misunderstood.

It was originally released in 1987 as part of the centenary anniversary for Celtic Football Club.

Warfield has defended the song and its lyrics, insisting those who are offended by it are misguided about its meaning, and that it is a direct quote from graffiti he had seen on a wall in Glasgow.

The contentious lyrics are: “Graffiti on the walls, just as the sun was going down, I see graffiti on the walls — for the Celts! for the Celts! Graffiti on the walls says we’re magic, we’re magic, Graffiti on the wall... It says oh ah up the ’RA, say ooh ah up the ’RA.”

The song unexpectedly entered the British and Irish charts following footage of the Irish women’s football team singing its chorus last year.

The team was fined €20,000 and later apologised, but despite the controversy Celtic Symphony reached number one in Ireland and number three in the UK.

Afterwards, former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said young people should “educate themselves” to understand our “difficult history”.

Warfield defended the team who he claimed were being “persecuted and bullied for a song they like”.

“What the hell is wrong with IRA? It is the Irish Republican Army. It is the people who put us here and gave us some hope when we had no hope,” he told the Irish Times last October.

The singer added: “Don’t tell that you can’t sing Celtic Symphony but you can sing God Save the King? Don’t give the argument that Land of Hope and Glory isn’t a rebel song. It is.”

But the band is famous for its rebel songs and Celtic Symphony is not the only controversial tune they play.

They recorded their first album at Marble Arch studios in London in January 1965 and subsequent album titles included Up the Rebels, The Rifles of the IRA and Let the People Sing in 1971 which included photos of republican prisoners smuggled out of the Long Kesh internment camp.

Their first Irish number one, The Helicopter Song, celebrated the escape of IRA prisoners from Mountjoy prison in Dublin in October 1973.