DERRYBEG, Ireland— Brian Warfield has promised to reverse Britain’s last act of imperial expansion, and claim the Atlantic island of Rockall for Ireland.
Rockall is an 80-foot wide, uninhabitable rock, battered by 50-foot waves. The nearest habitable land, Scotland, is around 230 miles away. Mr. Warfield is a 73-year-old Irish folk musician without a boat.
Tensions between Britain and Ireland are rising over the prospect of a no-deal Brexit. Fans of Mr. Warfield’s band, the Wolfe Tones, want him to make good on the pledge.
Philip Casey, 62, first read about Mr. Warfield’s promise in a newspaper.
“I thought, good on him,” he said, as he waited for the Wolfe Tones to hit the stage.
The U.K. annexed Rockall in 1955, in what London newspapers dubbed the last act of the Empire, to stop the Soviet Union using it to spy on British missile tests.
Though it doesn’t claim the rock as Irish, Dublin has never recognized British sovereignty, saying nobody should own the remote island. Nor has Mr. Warfield and his band, the Wolfe Tones, who first took up the cause in 1976 with the satirical song “Rock on Rockall.”
This June, as the Scottish government ordered Irish boats to stop fishing the squid-rich waters around Rockall, Mr. Warfield told a newspaper: “We’d be prepared to go up there in a trawler ourselves and claim the rock back for Ireland.”
Then the band went on a tour of the U.S. and Mr. Warfield mainly forgot about his promise.
Back in his native Ireland, he is discovering that not everybody else has.
“You shouldn’t say you are going to do something, unless you are going to do it,” said Anne Cassidy, who had come to watch the band play in Derrybeg, a village in the northwest coast of Ireland.
But there is the question of finance and logistics, Mr. Warfield said, from his hotel ahead of the show.
Share Your Thoughts
How long could you stay on an 80-foot wide, uninhabited island? Join the conversation below.
The logistics would require the aging musicians to brave gales and rough seas in a journey that could take up to 30 hours from an Irish port.
“It’s essentially just a big rock in the middle of nowhere, covered in bird excrement,” said Englishman Nick Hancock, who spent a record 45 days on Rockall in 2014.
Aside from the waves, the band will have to conquer huge swells at the base of the rock that make it difficult to get close, warns Tom McClean, a Brit who spent 40 days there in the 1980s.
With no place to land, visitors have to swim or leap onto the rock from a boat. Once on, the Wolfe Tones would need to climb 50 feet up the rock to plant the Irish flag. Mr. Hancock is an experienced rock climber and plays rugby. Mr. McClean is a former member of Britain’s elite Special Air Service group.
The Wolfe Tones play golf.
“How can the Wolfe Tones do it? We are just a band,” Tommy Byrne, the 75-year-old guitarist, asked Mr. Warfield, as they settled into comfy chairs and pints of beer. “I’m not saying that I am not up for it, but 40-foot waves?” he said.
Noel Nagle, the band’s 75-year-old whistle player, wasn’t surprised to hear of Mr. Warfield’s promise on his and Mr. Byrne’s behalf.
“I’ve known him for over 50 years, I know what he’s like,” he said. “He’s gung ho.”
Mr. Warfield, who is currently writing a musical about Ireland’s Great Famine, is feeling positive. He posits a drone to get the flag onto Rockall. Mr. Byrne suggests a helicopter.
Calls for the Wolfe Tones to live up to their promise, and the band’s reaction to those demands, come with humor. The episode has also reminded the band members of their own mortality.
Having talked about the trip to Rockall since the 70s, the “Wolfers” know the trip gets harder every year. Meanwhile, the band’s retirement no longer seems distant after 50 years plus of touring.
Politics is forcing the issue. Though Scotland can already claim exclusive fishing rights in the 12 miles off Rockall, champions of Brexit made control of British waters a high-profile issue.
“Rockall is very much British…the Irish will fish the squid and fish there to extinction,” said Mike Park, who used to fish haddock there and is now chief executive of the Scottish White Fish Producers Association Limited.
In recent decades, the U.K. and Ireland have enjoyed a mainly harmonious relationship. But the sticking point in Britain’s attempts to strike an EU exit deal has been treatment of the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, raising hackles on both sides.
The Wolfe Tones are sometimes called anti-British, with songs such as the “Rifles of the I.R.A,” about the Irish Republican Army, which was responsible for a string of bombings in the U.K. The band, which began in England, says songs about past injustices don’t imply dislike for Britain as a whole or as it is now.
As the Derrybeg gig approached, the Wolfe Tones concluded that Rockall was worth pursuing.
“With a no-deal Brexit, the Brits will only end up making it even harder for Irish fisherman,” Mr. Nagle said, getting up to leave, but struggling to rise from his seat.
“And you want to go to Rockall?” Mr. Byrne said, putting down his beer.
The group opened to a raucous welcome from a crowd bedecked in the Irish flag. But the night’s loudest cheer went to “Rock on Rockall.”
“Oh the Empire it is finished, no foreign lands to seize, so the greedy eye of England is stirring towards the seas,” Mr. Warfield sang.
“Who’s got a boat to bring the Wolfers out to Rockall?” he shouted
Hands shot up, including Oran Gallagher, standing at the front of the stage.
“No matter the waves, I’ll take him,” the 20-year old said later.
Another boat was also offered that night, according to Mr. Warfield.
Even one-time Rockall residents Mr. McClean and Mr. Hancock believe that, with great determination, the Wolfers can maybe do it. Now in his 80s, Mr. McClean doesn’t rule out a Rockall return himself. His website describes his vessel as “the world’s only giant whale-shaped boat.”
Mr. Hancock remembers moments of great beauty on Rockall, with real whales blowing water and gannets divebombing into the ocean for food.
But, “when the weather is bad, you really don’t want to be there,” he said.
Write to Alistair MacDonald at alistair.macdonald@wsj.com
Copyright ©2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
https://www.wsj.com/articles/folk-singer-said-hed-reclaim-a-british-rock-for-ireland-fans-wont-let-him-forget-11565973569
2019-08-16 16:39:00Z
CAIiEL6D_nBU8hjvcn0sqPr4GOsqFwgEKg8IACoHCAow1tzJATDnyxUw54IY
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar