Why are nearly all traditional Irish songs about alchoholic drinks, getting drunk and pubs?
The people who made the songs were dispossessed and lonely, and many of the songs were made in other countries by Irish who had emigrated, with English words on an Irish tune. Sometimes English words replaced Irish words, and the originals are usually much nicer – an example of this is the song Buachaill On Eirne or The Boy from The Erne, which was replaced by Come By the Hills to the Land where Fancy is Free, or some such garbage. Buachaill On Eirne was about a young man who courts a lot of pretty women but can’t forget the one who he wants to marry but doesn’t have the money to impress her family, who plan on marrying her to a wealthy old farmer. I don’t think there are that many songs about drinking, not when you hear the thousands of other songs about lost loves, lost money, lost (or dreamed) lottery tickets, lost homes, horses, dogs, food, jumbo breakfast rolls, or stroppy foreigners thinking they can run the joint and how the Irish dealt with them, those are called rebel songs.
