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Message: <blockquote data-quote="scolairebocht" data-source="post: 144718" data-attributes="member: 8">Irishness possibly causing offenceArguably the main complaint of Phillips all along in his criticism of the London Companies is that they weren’t playing ball in excluding the native Irish, as was always envisaged by the planners of this Plantation. As with all these things, it was of course about race, once and for all the English (and Scots) were going to get rid of the Irish out of here and all this rebelliousness, and unlawfulness in general, will be banished out of these parts for good. But the London Companies were businesspeople first and foremost, and they found the native Irish to be good and skilful workers, and willing to pay them high rents, so were not inclined to exclude them as much as Phillips, and the Commissioners, would like them to. So Phillips is driven to lament, in the same petition you have just read from:So a credible theory might be, that these Colonists got somebody to sing an Irish song (maybe from the play or maybe not) because they might have thought it was good musically and thought it would do no harm, and the Commissioners might have been offended by simply its Irishness. Thats certainly possible, no doubt then, as always, there were good Irish musicians in that part of Derry or nearby Tyrone, but how does that fit into the play? Again they are offended, or might be, by the play as well?Well this is not the hurdle you might think it is, among the great historians of Irish Music was certainly W. H. Grattan Flood and he noted about 20 Irish songs, the names of which were secretly hidden in the works of Shakespeare. For example the lute book of the Dublin actor William Ballet of 1590,(7) TCD Ms 408, which Sarsfields readers have come across earlier as containing a song by the Baron of Delvin and which probably never left Ireland,(8) contains about six songs secretly hidden in the works of Shakespeare: Peg a Ramsay (p.26), Witches Dance (p.65), Calleno (p.85), Fortune my Foe,  Weladay, and Lighttie Loue Ladyes (p.103).So in Much Ado About Nothing Act III Scene IV:And that Light o’ Love is considered an Irish song, so there could be a tie up with the play here.(9) The Londoners in Coleraine, having put on an Irish song and seeing how badly that went down might have decided to cut their losses and not put on the play because it has so many Irish references, and even perceived, somehow, to be an Irish play?In my experience (which is extensive here!) modern Irish people, and academia in general, find it very difficult to get their heads around a Shakespeare play being an especially Irish thing, but maybe that wasn’t so for people in 1628, nearer the time when he lived. These hidden Irish songs (to take only one issue, there a lot of other reasons to tie Shakespeare to Ireland) might not have been so hidden to a 17th century audience, for example the aforementioned Grattan Flood goes on to point out:</blockquote>

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