Tomorrow From A Tombstone

I thought the old songs had been decommissioned. The hand-wringing songs, the vicious words, the bleeding liberal hearts, the patronising concepts, all those histories and doom and despair. We've had our 'Suspect Device', our 'Zombie', our 'Invisible Sun', 'Belfast Child', 'Though The Barricades' - all that stuff. If I never hear any of them again, I'll happily take the trade for tolerance and agreement.

But all of this was raised again this morning by the Stephen Nolan Show on Radio Ulster. It centered around a discussion on the Antrim Road bomb, which endangered many people. Then the airwaves were charged by 'Sheila' who made the case for those who planted the bomb. No apologies, no flim flam, no quarter.

Nolan gave Sheila her time and her views. He also encouraged her to talk about the death of her neice, apparently shot by the SAS. It was awful, compelling radio, as Sheila's views alternated with voices of the wives of policemen and soldiers, with apoplectic callers and sorry observers. Some people were drawing parallels with Afghanistan and citing media bias.

In my head there was an old soundtrack. A piece of history, panning across the cedars of Lebanon and then the busted streets of Belfast and Derry. Paul Brady putting his signature on 'The Island'. Remember how it went?

"And we're still at it in our own place,

Still trying to reach the future through the past,

Still trying to carve tomorrow from a tombstone..."

How long to sing this song?