Joe Brolly says it's time to end chants of 'Ooh, aah, up the Ra', like those which were heard during a Wolfe Tones concert at Féile an Phobail in Belfast over the weekend.
Brolly described the chant as a "nuisance" and a "menace", adding that to fully make peace with the Unionist side of the community in the North, its use must cease.
"In order to reconcile properly with people of good faith in the other community, something like 'Oh, ah, up the Ra', for me, it has to go," the former Derry footballer told Newstalk's The Hard Shoulder.
29 May 2022; Former Derry player Joe Brolly stands for the playing of the National Anthem before the Ulster GAA Football Senior Championship Final between Derry and Donegal at St Tiernach's Park in Clones, Monaghan. Photo by Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
"I understand that it's not a call to arms and it's nothing like that any more. You put yourself in the shoes of the victims of the Claudy bomb, the victims of the Shankill bomb, people who have suffered terribly at the hands of our side - and I say 'our side' for better and for worse.
"We've had people in our community shot dead who we loved very dearly. Kevin Lynch, for example in Dungiven, died on hunger strike and we commemorate him every year. Our hurling club is named after him. All our kids wear the tracksuits with Kevin Lynch on it. We will not, for anyone, not honour him, regardless of what we might think of the things that he did.
"For me, this 'Ooh, aah, up the Ra' stuff, it has to go. Something like Féile, which is absolutely vibrant now. 35 million people in total were exposed to that on social media. It's a brilliant festival.
"One of the debates on it was about creating an independent Northern Ireland, and what's the best way forward. There was a largely Unionist panel. People up there are interested, voracious for knowledge - 'How do we advance the cause of Northern Ireland?'
"With the Troubles 26 years in the background, now, for me, 'Ooh, aah, up the Ra' has to go."
Brolly described the Wolfe Tones' Celtic Symphony, during which the chants were heard, as a "terrible song".
29 May 2022; Former Derry footballer Joe Brolly celebrates on the pitch after the Ulster GAA Football Senior Championship Final between Derry and Donegal at St Tiernach's Park in Clones, Monaghan. Photo by Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
"My overall feeling is that though it's great fun for the kids in my community and everybody loves it and all the rest of it, we certainly shouldn't be platforming it at the Féile Festival," he continued.
"I think it's a brilliant festival, a real honest, true festival and the organisers deserve remarkable credit and are rightly proud of it. That one, I would let it go.
"Even though it's a dumb song and it's all about graffiti on a wall in Glasgow, shouting 'Ooh, aah, up the Ra, ooh, aah, up the Ra' it must be depressing for people in the Unionist community who have lost loved ones. It must be very hurtful and depressing. Honestly, I think we're better than that.
"Part of it is giving a finger to the British empire and the machinery of the state. I think also in relation to the IRA, young people, who don't really understand what it was all about...
"You look at that, it's absolutely vibrant, it's joy, it's 'Oh, ah, up the Ra'. My son was at it and his best friend who is, as he describes it, half a Protestant. His father's a Protestant and his mother's a Catholic, and there they are bouncing up and down singing, 'Oh, ah, up the Ra'.
"So I think a lot of younger people, it's more a sense of identity, of saying, 'We had no army, we had no police, but what we had was the Ra and they stood up for us'.
"It's not for me. Life's too short for that song."
See Also: GAA Players Call Out Joe Brolly Over Take On Derry's Shane McGuigan
