Over the bones of dead men.....Irish version?

[ForkaB]

There was a remarkable documentary on BBC4 last night on Shane Macgowan, modern punk-Irish baladeer extraordinaire (The Nipple Erectors, The Pogues, The Popes, etc.), the end of which was a haunting song written by Shane about the Potato Famine of the 1840's.

The premise of the song is that the survivors were so debilitated from the effects of the famine that they did not have the strength to dig normal graves, and so buried large numbers of the dead along the Western Ireland coastline, creating sand dunes in the process.

Is this completely metaphorical, or is there some truth to the story?

PS--I see that the on-site censor has substituted "logo" for the actual noun used in the name of Shane's frist band.  They were commonly called the "Nips."

[Jack_Marr]

I'm sure it was poetic license. I'm sure the bones would have been discovered many times over beside the sea?

Anyway, I'm just guessing, as I don't have a clue really.

[Kyle Harris]

If so, the remains would have eventually turned up... burrowing animals and the like. Gettysburg had a rather dismal 20 year history of such events after the battle.

The Irish tend to have a nice flair for satire (Jonathan Swift all but invented the form). He once suggested during the famine that the Irish could eat their babies and kill two birds with one stone.

[ForkaB]

Kyle

Much as I love Swift (wrote my Honors thesis at college on his influence on Joyce--in between games of golf and drinking beer....), the conventional wisdom is that the Greeks (e.g. Aristophanes) "invented" satire, but I wouldn't be at all surprised to hear that the Chinese did it before them!  

Jack

You could be right, but I'm inclined to believe the story.  The song is very poignant one and lacking any sort of irony.  I'll check into it a bit and report back if I find anything.

Rich

OK--found the lyrics (written by another guy).  I'll check him out too.

http://www.shanemacgowan.com/lyrics/dunes.shtml