HERE’S a simple statement of fact: Linfield fans sang ‘The Billy Boys’ on Saturday during their win over Glentoran at Windsor Park.
Here’s another simple statement of fact: Linfield fans singing the vile sectarian anthem ahead of their title celebrations went out live to a BBCNI TV audience.
Here’s yet another simple statement of fact: In broadcasting a live rendition of ‘we’re up to our knees in Fenian blood’, BBCNI has exactly the same responsibility as Féile an Phobail has for the singing of ‘Ooh, ah, up the Ra’ in the Falls Park.
Which is to say that while Féile do not decide the Wolfe Tones’ playlist on the last night of the summer celebrations, festival organisers know fine rightly that the Celtic Symphony is going to be sung; in the same way, while BBCNI do not decide the Linfield fans’ song list at Windsor Park, they know the chances of The Billy Boys being sung by Linfield fans on a day of celebration at Windsor are good to massive.
But while both Féile and BBCNI are responsible for platforming highly contentious material which, depending on where you’re watching from, can be and has been viewed as sectarian/bigoted/insensitive/illegal/inflammatory, the similarity ends there. The Falls Park event is a ticketed nighttime concert for adults and those attending know that they’re not in for an evening of acoustic guitar singalongs of Kumbaya and James Blunt covers. I should add at this point that it’s not my cup of tea, and I’ve written editorials, articles and tweets calling for the Wolfe Tones to knock ‘Ooh, ah, up the Ra’ on the head because I can fully understand unionists of good faith being upset by it.
BBCNI’s live broadcast of the Windsor Park game, however, was King Billy’s horse of a different colour for this very simple reason: There were precisely no restrictions on who was watching and listening. The very vocal tribute to an anti-Catholic slasher gang was heard by children watching the game with their parents; it was heard by Jo and Joe Soap as they did their usual channel-surfing when Saturday Kitchen was over; and thanks to the wonders of modern broadcasting, it was even heard by Brits from Leeds to Llandudno who have no idea what a Fenian is or why somebody at a football match might want to cut their throats.
We move on from the simple and irrefutable fact that Féile and BBCNI are both platformers of controversial material to the question, How is that controversial material dealt with? And the answer to the question is again simple and irrefutable: Féile is hauled over coals for a week (on occasion a fortnight) over the Celtic Symphony, while BBCNI’s live broadcasting of The Billy Boys is completely ignored – not least by BBCNI itself. Strange that, because BBC Ulster normally enjoys nothing better than sectarian rows; in fact, it thrives on them. It has not one but two daily phone-ins – three hours of over-caffeinated babble which dominate the morning/midday schedule, with a break for a few Abba songs and jokes about Creme Eggs in between so Larry from Lurgan can get his breathing under control.
There’s a hoary old saying that sums up the media’s insatiable appetite for bad news: ‘If it bleeds it leads.’ When the preposterously self-important phone-in theme tunes crank up and the headphones are donned, a more apt adage might be ‘We’re up for a brawl, so give us a call.’ But while the phone lines are thrown open every August to people threatening to pop a neck vein over the the Celtic Symphony and Féile’s complicity in it, there is zero BBCNI interest in BBCNI’s complicity in The Billy Boys – on the phone-ins or anywhere else.
We’re hurtling towards the marching season, when BBCNI will once again devote an enormous amount of money and resources to an effort to persuade its viewers that opposing the fatal doctrines and errors of the Church of Rome is a setpiece celebration for us all to enjoy. The post-medieval mindset at Ormeau Avenue that allows this to continue year after year is finally being questioned – very circumspectly and very slowly.
That’s why the live morning coverage has been replaced by a lengthy evening special. But the UDA/UVF banners are still nowhere to be seen and we’re still treated to interviews with eight-year-olds in cowboy hats eating ice-cream to celebrate the fact that they’re better than the Catholic kids.
So it’s no surprise that in a statement BBCNI said they were “unaware” that The Billy Boys had been sung at Windsor, even though I heard it as clear as day and I was 15 feet away from the TV with the windows open and children playing in the garden. (Perhaps BBCNI is the only sports broadcaster on the planet whose technology is going backwards.)
And if you’re asking yourself why the dedicated BBCNI Wolfe Tones phone line didn’t light up on Monday after The Billy Boys went out live on TV, the answer is very simple: It wasn’t switched on.
