Anne Feeney performs Roy Zimmerman's "Obama" Song on Connolly Station.

dublin | arts and media | opinion/analysis

Monday August 25, 2008 15:18

by Ciaron - Catholic Worker/Ploughshares

"Well it's losing some of its politcial significance as Obama moves rapidly to the right, but it's a great song!"
"O.K. Hit me with it!"
...and then and there on the Connolly station platform, IWW anarchist singer Anne Feeney did her Dublin one song perofrmance. A great cover of Roy Zimmerman's Obama song...check it out
http://uk.search.yahoo.com/search?p=you+tube+zimmerman+...rd=r1

Anne was concluding her European tour to larger audiences, the final gig being a Raytheon 9 Benefit at Sandinos in Derry last Thursday night.

Very much rooted in the Labor singing tradition of Woody Guthrie and Utah Philips, Anne keeps on the move. She also supplements her income from gigging by organising and playing tour guide for some 30 Americans when she hits Ireland. She had left them in Limerick for their flight home at the conclusion of their 10 day tour of the west and had bussed it up to Dublin Sunday.

I met her at the bus station, helped cart her bags to her hotel ready for an early morning departure to the U.S. We then headed to Connolly to get the Dart to Dun Laoghaire's "Festival of World Cultures".

Anne is very influenced by her working class roots in her hometown steel city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She is a member of the International Workers of the World (IWW) which has as its focus workers rights and stuggles. Whether there is a costituency for her in Ireland, where the self conscious/self aware anarchist movement seems to spring largely from the postgrad student left, single issue struggles or faith based (U.S.) Catholic Worker tradition, is questionable.

That Anne is also fashioned by the broader U.S. movement of the '60's gives her a nonsectarian orientation which also may be a rarity on the Irish left. She has played previously at the theatre attached to Connoly Books and her CD's (including the most recent "Getthe Bossses off Your Back!" are available there).

We disocvered we had common acqauntances in Pittsburgh - Molly Rush of the Plowshares 8 and Vice Eirene of the Pittsburgh Catholic Worker (and "Second Mile" Moving Company). Anne is to hook up with Kathy Kelly for an event in Portland, at the conclusion of Kathy's 450 mile anti-war walk from Chicago to the Republican Convention in St. Paul Minnesotta.

The weather was great at Dun Laoghaire on Sunday and we bumped into a few anarchoes, an indigeeous artist from Fraser Island (Queensland, Australia) and an Irish speaking drummer from Bangladesh...so for us the festival lived up to its title!

Check Anne's website http://www.annefeeney.com/
and catch her next time she's in Ireland.
And don't forget the Obama song (what's in a name uh?)....