The Brawler wishes everyone a happy St. Patrick's day. Though he would like to remind everyone that, at least in the United States, St. Patrick's Day celebrations came into their own in the early to mid 1800s as displays of force (in numbers and votes) of a despised ethnic and religious minority that was notoriously resistant (at least at first) to acculturation and celebrated its ties to its native land. It was a group whose presence in this country was bemoaned by most and declared a sign of our country's incipient decline by more than a few.
(It also was a day that was a political windfall for groups -- Fenians, Clan na gael -- that would be construed as terrorist or terrorist sympathizers in the parlance of our times. To say nothing of IRA bucket passing in the 20th Century.)
But we're all past that now, in a day and age when you don't have to be Irish -- you don't even have to be Roman Catholic (you can be Anglican or Presbyterian for Pete's sake) -- to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Which is one of the things that makes America great.
So the Brawler looks forward to the day when, much to the consternation of right-wing xenophobes, we'll celebrate Cinco de Mayo as a day when everyone is Mexican. (Another correspondence between Irish immigrants and our latest newcomers is that both have been driven here by economic liberalization. It was the breakup of traditional landholding arrangements -- not the Famine -- that set in motion the vast migration across the western ocean. NAFTA has had a similar dislocating effect in Mexican agriculture. )
Here's some musical entertainment for the day.
Top o' the list, of course, is the Pogues' "A Pair of Brown Eyes." This song -- expurgated, of course -- has long been a lullaby staple in the Brawler household.
Here's Paddy Reilly singing The Fields of Athenry. The Brawler and missus were once in a North Dublin pub when the band played this. At the chorus the crowd chanted "Yeah, baby, let the free birds fly." Amusing.
Quite serious is the Stiff Little Fingers' Alternative Ulster:
The Wolfe Tones singing James Connolly:
The Undertones performing Teenage Kicks:
And, on a nonmusical note, news footage from around the time of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands' death. The Brawler was but a lad when all this was happening. But he clearly remembers Granny Brawler, during dinner time prayers, including an intention for the people of Northern Ireland as they were part of our family too. The Brawler doesn't think Granny condoned the IRA or Sands or even unduly hated the English (the Brawler doesn't, he hastens to point out). But this expression of solidarity sticks with the Brawler. So, from roughly around the same time, do prayers in church for the strikers in Poland and the innocents killed in Central America. Before the end of the day, with this in mind, the Brawler fully expects to say something like "What if on St. Patrick's day instead of saying everybody's Irish, we'd just say everybody's human? Wouldn't that be great?" Then I'll go back to yelling BRUUUUUUCE!
Slainte.
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