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He said the ‘Ooh, ah, up the Ra’ chant heard during a Wolfe Tones performance at west Belfast’s Féile an Phobail is based on those wishing to show they are “no longer under the thumb.”
The GAA pundit and barrister was speaking on Newstalk’s podcast The Hard Shoulder.
“In order to reconcile properly with people of good faith in the other community, something like ‘Ooh ah up the Ra’ – for me – it has to go,” he said.
“I understand that it’s not a call to arms, and it’s nothing like that anymore.
“Even though it’s a dumb song and it’s about graffiti on a wall in Glasgow, shouting ‘Ooh ah up the Ra’ – it must be depressing for people in the unionist community who’ve lost loved ones.
“It must be very hurtful and depressing, and honestly I think we’re better than that,” he added.
Unionists widely condemned footage of the singing of the pro-IRA chant on the final night of the Feile on Sunday.
Social media footage showed the chanting during the Wolfe Tones’ gig at Falls Park.
Mr Brolly said he believes younger people involved “don’t really understand what it was all about.”
“Part of it is giving a finger to the British empire and the machinery of the state,” he said.
“I think also in relation to the IRA, young people don’t really understand what it was all about.
“You look at this: it’s absolutely vibrant, it’s joy, it’s ‘Ooh, ah, up the Ra’.”
He added: “So I think [for] a lot of younger people it’s more a sense of identity, of saying, ‘We had no army, we had no police, but what we had was the Ra and they stood up for us’. It’s not for me.”
Mr Brolly’s comments come after he revealed he is considering moving into politics on BBC Radio Ulster’s Red Lines podcast.
“As I get older… I could probably make a contribution,” he said in the BBC podcast.
“Whether I’d have the party discipline… is very questionable.”
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