When I was a kid, maybe a preteen or there abouts, I wore a lot of orange. I don't know why, but it was probably your typical cliché "trying to stand out" compulsions that preteens typically feel. I tried to wear my bright orange hoodie to the St. Patrick's Day Parade one time, and my uncle flipped shit, saying that I wasn't supposed to wear orange, because that's the color of Northern Ireland, etc. etc. I had no idea what he was talking about. Years later, I still only kind of know what he was talking about. The truth, as it turns out, is complicated. But my ignorance is no longer an excuse.
When the Wolfe Tones were chosen as the RC album for the week of St. Patrick's Day 2026, I committed anew to the quest to figure out Ireland's history and how it applies to my experience as an "Irish" person. The movie helped, but really only provided one small piece to the story. The write-ups for that movie helped, especially the words of Sean and Pat, who exude such confidence in knowing about the shit that I crave to know. There is a story of oppression, and that story is passed down genealogically, but in being passed down, it mutates and is twisted and fractured through the great grinding machine of Northeast Philadelphia and all its racist turpitude and fake cultural pride.
I really do want to know about everything, but life gets in the way. I am sitting here at my desk on St. Patrick's Day, inundated with work, work that is distracting me from what's going on out there, and that's by design. The oppressor designed it that way. They don't want you to think about the oppression, about how YOU are being oppressed, right this second, because if you do, then maybe you'll rise up, and fight back, and they are scared that you're going to do that. So here's a pile of bullshit to drown in, and hey, maybe once a year you can kick back a few Guinnesses at the local pub at 11 AM in honor of a holiday whose meaning has been lost over the centuries.
Do I believe that the Wolfe Tones are fighting the war against oppression? I do. I think that telling the tale of Ireland is by default a means of telling a tale of oppression, and so the Wolfe Tones are fighting oppression in their own specific, occasionally corny, way. This makes them allies with anyone else who was or is fighting oppression. For example, we can listen to A Sense of Freedom and easily connect it to the idea of the U.S. and Israel bombing Iran and blowing up a school full of kids. It's different geographically and chronologically, but not ideologically.
It's the Irishness that gives the Wolfe Tones their bona fides to touch on oppression in the way they do. This is classic Celtic folk, and yeah, some of it is about mermaids and shit like that, but there's a lot that has to do with British imperialism, and everything that the Irish did to fight back. It's the Irish stories that give credence to the idea that oppression is both specific and universal. Michael Collins and Joe McDonnell are name-dropped, because they are important names in Irish history. But there are Michael Collins types all over the world and all over history, those individuals who took a stand against oppression.
The clearest and most obvious Record Club connection here is Kneecap, as their story bears a striking modern resemblance to the stories told by the Wolfe Tones here. It's funny, isn't it, how both here in this review and in the Fine Art review, I am quick to say "ehh, the music itself isn't quite for me," and yet the Wolfe Tones and Kneecap each play very different music. Traditional Celtic folk and dance-rave hip hop music share almost nothing aesthetically, but thematically, they are tied very tightly together. They are each telling their own stories of oppression!
Both artists are easily able to tie stories of Irish independence to other stories around the world. A Sense of Freedom has the story of an Irish soldier who led Argentina to independence, stretching the story well beyond the shores of Ireland. Kneecap, post-Fine Art, tied into their foundational identity the fight against the slaughter of Palestinian children by Israeli forces, and are now on their way to Cuba. To be Irish is to know what it means to be oppressed.
I think that's probably where my own confusion stems from—growing up while being told repeatedly that I am Irish, and yet knowing nothing of oppression, and especially nothing about Irish oppression specifically. "Irish" instead as an aesthetic connected to binge drinking and wearing specific colors and covert racism. All this, even though it's right there in the songs. I can close my eyes and picture myself at the Red Rooster on parade day, listening to the McKendry Brothers play some Wolfe Tones cuts. This music is very familiar to me. The message of the songs are clear to me too, but something got lost in the translation in my corner of the world, and it took me till I was older and wiser and the Northeast Philly wool was pulled from my eyes before I understood in which ways I had a kinship with the characters in this story, and the ways that I did not. Hint: it ain't in the way that my uncle wanted me to believe.
Can you blame me for occasionally holding the Celtic folk music at arm's length? It is part and parcel of the greatest personal cultural mishandling of my own lifetime, the music, and I was never equipped with the tools to be able to understand the true meaning of this shit, having only been presented with a false narrative my entire life. I still think that the music is just okay (and this will be reflected in the grade below), but I also have come to the understanding that Irish music—the Wolfe Tones, Kneecap, and everything in between—is absolutely integral in our understanding of the human existence, and the pain that comes along with that.
GRADE: 3 pukes out of 5
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