Wings
Give Ireland Back To The Irish

THE REVIEW

A preventive censorship, you cannot release a song like this just a few months after what will be remembered as "Bloody Sunday" in the years to come, when the British army opened fire, killing 14 protesters in the city of Derry in Northern Ireland on January 30, 1972. All very young, all unarmed, many cowardly shot in the back.

Paul McCartney was shocked by the events and decided to record a protest song, a track written on impulse and recorded right after the massacre. "Give Ireland Back To The Irish", never had such violent words come from Paul's pen. The recording marks the first involvement of the new Wings guitarist Henry McCullough, an Irishman. The whole band was deeply moved, though Denny Laine would later admit his doubts about the need to release such a song so quickly for a band with only one LP and little regard in the music industry. McCartney himself went against EMI, deciding to release the track despite the assured censorship in his homeland that would compromise its commercial success.

"Give Ireland Back To The Irish" is an immediate rock, shouted in the chorus by the group. McCullough's guitar stands out in some riffs in the middle section where there's also hand clapping, before the incendiary verse "Great Britain you're tremendous, and nobody knows like me". It's a genuine McCartney risking his entire reputation with a very uncomfortable composition written by one of the most culturally significant figures of the British working class of his time. This is the first song written about these events, maybe the most violent and raw, but the least mentioned, even though it was number one in Ireland as well as in Spain, a country plagued by a long-lasting Franco dictatorship. A few months later, Lennon would write his "The Luck Of The Irish", one of the best moments of the weak "Sometimes In New York City", though it's unclear if it was a response to Paul.

The B-side features an instrumental variation enriched with Irish whistles played by the band. It is most likely an early take of the track, with Paul giving directions at some points and the performance tempo slower than that of the sung version.