🥁The Song That Broke the Internet (Apparently)🥁 So here we are. After weeks of a court-upheld determination being blocked, after senior politicians standing on an unnotified protest, after intelligence about possible firearms being used against police, after the Secretary of State intervening to end the standoff – the big story some outlets have chosen to run with is that a band played a particular tune in Portadown on Saturday night. The tune in question is the air associated with “No Pope of Rome.” No lyrics were reported as being sung. Just the melody. And yet concerns have been raised. The use of songs and music to denigrate a community is unacceptable, we are told. Hardly a welcome expression of culture. Selective hearing is a remarkable talent. For years, republican events have featured songs that glorify the IRA, celebrate the deaths of British soldiers and police officers, and openly reject the legitimacy of Northern Ireland. “My Old Man’s a Provo,” “The Broad Black Brimmer,” “Come Out Ye Black and Tans” – these are not obscure deep cuts. They are regular features at certain gatherings, often with lyrics belted out at volume. The response from the same quarters now clutching pearls over an instrumental air is usually a shrug, a lecture about “context,” or silence. Suddenly a tune – not even the words – becomes the story. Desperate times call for desperate copy. No one is obliged to like Orange music. No one is required to find every traditional air tasteful. Cultural expression that makes people uncomfortable is not automatically a hate crime, especially when the lyrics were not sung. The Deputy Chief Constable has previously described the lyrics of that particular song as a hate crime. That is a matter of record. Playing the shared air without the words is a different proposition, and treating it as the central outrage of the weekend says more about the prioritisation of offence than about any genuine threat to community relations. The Portadown rally was a large, lawful expression of support for a district that followed every legal process available to it and still saw its determination set aside. Thousands turned out. The focus of the night was the principle that court-upheld rights should mean something. That some would rather discuss a tune than the principle is revealing. If the standard is that any music historically associated with communal tension is now off-limits, then apply it evenly. Until that happens, the sudden concern over one melody on a Saturday night in Portadown will continue to look like what it is: selective, convenient, and thin. The bands played. The crowd gathered. The principle remains. The rest is noise. #Portadown #OrangeOrder #SelectiveOutrage #CulturalDoubleStandards #RuleOfLaw #PUL #NorthernIreland