Cork musician Martin Leahy has penned a new song in opposition to the Republic of Ireland v Israel Uefa Nations League fixtures, which are due to take place in the autumn.<\/p>\n
\n Don\u2019t Play is a rewritten version of Put \u2018Em Under Pressure, the Irish anthem from the 1990 World Cup, with the iconic words of \u201cOl\u00e9 ol\u00e9 ol\u00e9\u201d replaced with \u201cDon\u2019t play\u201d.<\/p>\n
The song features Palestinian singer Leen Maarouf on vocals, and an appearance by the former Ireland football manager Brian Kerr, with clips included from a recent TV appearance in which he voiced his opposition to the fixtures.<\/p>\n
Amnesty International and the Stop The Game campaign have lent their support to the song.<\/p>\n
Mr Leahy told The Echo: \u201cI was in awe of the original song (Put \u2018Em Under Pressure). It was such a unifying anthem at the time. You couldn\u2019t avoid it in the best possible way.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI thought it was a great move what they did on the original, the way they sampled Jack Charlton\u2019s voice. So I thought it might be good to echo that with the interview that Brian Kerr did.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
He described Brian Kerr as an iconic figure on the Irish football scene.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a heavyweight in Irish football. I feel he gave a very strong interview and I felt that it was a good idea to use it. Through a mutual contact, I got a message saying that I was good to go ahead with it and he was ok with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Leahy said he feels the public reaction to Don\u2019t Play illustrates the overall opposition that exists towards the Ireland vrs Israel fixtures taking place.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reaction has been great and it has been shared loads of time.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe song is going around and it is having a life. It is reflective of the feeling engaging in these games. Stop the game means stop the game anywhere.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s such a broad opposition across all sections of society. I just feel that it\u2019s impossible for the games to go ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Football Association of Ireland is due to meet this week to debate the upcoming Israel games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cork musician Martin Leahy has penned a new song in opposition to the Republic of Ireland v Israel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496104,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[62890,4712,79,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-496103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-cork-housing-crisis","tag-israel-palestine","tag-cork-news","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}