I'll drink to that! - Tom
Not all Irish are Catholic potato famine victims.
Earliest large Irish migration was 1718 with five shi[s from Londonderry to Boston. These were Protestants, most we now label scots-irish.
Many others came in the decades BEFORE 1840s, playing a huge role in the Revolution and settlements moving west.
Mountain men, Texas, etc.
I call it the potato starvation since Ireland was a net exporter of food, grain and meat, the whole time. They just weren't allowed to eat any of the (mostly absentee) landlord's produce. They could only eat what they could grow on their ever less fertile soil. I did not even know this fact until I was about 50, though my father was a student of Irish history. He gave me a book to read, Paddy's Lament, written seemingly without bias, that I recommend to anyone who would like to learn more about this era.
The potato blight, and the famine-disaster, was not caused by the English, but rather was a natural consequence of Catholic religious practices, high birth rates, and dependence on a single crop in high densities to support the high population increase. The Brits did more to aleviate the famine than they had ever done before, importing and distributing free maize (indian corn) in an effort to help.
It was beyond their powers to do more. The Irish, once again, left their island in large numbers to the great benefit of the world.
The Irish had left before, to transmit ancient culture through the Irish Monastaries. The Irish emigrants had given us President Jackson before the Famine, and Presidents Kennedy and Reagan afterwards.
How about Van Morrison and James Joyce?
This Tom Hayden is the same one who ran Students for a Democratic Society. Not exactly an authority.
Social activist Tom Hayden?? I think "radical socialist" would be a more accurate description.
That being said, I will still have a drink or two to celebrate the Celtic soul that flourishes under my skin.
I will listen to the Bothy Band shred the wind with Rip the Calico and The Holy Land. I'll have another bit of Bushmills and relish the contrapuntal melodies of Planxty playing The Good Ship Kangaroo and The Blacksmith's Daughter.
If, by that time, I have yet to shed a single tear of melancholy remembrance, I'll sip a little more of the morning dew and listen to Paul Brady sing The Lakes of Pontchartrain.
I will not be drunk but I will have opened a door to see more clearly the joy and the struggle of those who lost all hope in their native land and came to America to renew their spirit and regain love's hold on their heart and soul.
read later
It was a monoculture crop blight that left an overpopulated island vulnerable to mass starvation, combined with a rise in food prices on the Continent due to crop failures elsewhere, intense political hostility (politics is involved in nearly all famines), poor communications, and the fact that no government had, up to that point, paid any attention to such 20th-century niceties such as disaster relief.
There are popular stories of crops being exported while Irish starved, and so they were, primarily to purchase food relief. The efforts to construct relief programs out of nothing are heartbreaking to read, with all the classic mistakes made by amateurs where even professionals would have failed.
One source for information on this that is somewhat less politically tainted than the ones Hayden recommends is The Great Hunger, Cecil Woodham-Smith's chronicle of the disaster. It isn't sometimes immediately apparent that these events took place in one of the most revolutionary periods in European history, which certainly helps to account for the political confusion - add that to centuries of animosity between English and Irish and the magnitude of the thing begins to make a little more sense.
Ireland ping.
If you want to understand the Irish in America and America from its foundings, you have to study Scottish and Irish history in Britain. Much of the platforms written against tyranny in our bill of rights and constitution are a result of Scots-Irish Presbyterianism. They came to America and brought with them the Westminster confession of faith. Some came during the potato famine, some came as slaves during the periods of Roman Catholic persecution of the "protestants". Yes, Virginia, White Irish Protestants were slaves in America too; but, we don't much hear about that cause it isn't pc to be a white slave evidently.
I am Scots-Irish and German. The Irish didn't give us St. Patrick's day. Rome did. The guy from what I know of the tale wasn't even Irish. He was a foreigner if he existed at all and was attempting to convert from the culdees and others. Culdees, as it happens, were Christians that had long since beat Rome to Britain and Christianized it. Irish and Scottish History are largely characterized by a war of faiths - Christian verses Roman, A war over governance - Self verses foreign. I would say British rather than foriegn; but, The french were not Brits any more than the Scandanavians or Italians were. And when freedom was won, finally, one would be hard pressed to Call William Wallace or Robert Bruce either foriegn or Catholic.
As A person who shares Irish and Scottish blood, a day awash in green beer might be the way my people tried to forget what they'd been through under domination and tyranny both civil and religious; but, I'd rather they be thought of for their stand for freedom against tyranny, civil and religious. Much of our foundation in America is owed to the writings of the likes of John Knox. When do you suppose we'll get a day commemorating him?
I like to believe that maybe we were just mature enough not to identify ourselves based on some notion of "victimhood" based on something that happened to our ancestors several generations ago.
Anyone who uses the term "our history of oppression and persecution" in reference to his racial or ethnic background is a professional malcontent, in my opinion.
"Sligo was one of the principal ports of emigration on the western seaboard and it became known as the embarkation point for the 'COFFIN SHIPS', as the poorest of the poor walked here and sailed from this town. Many thousands of others walked from Sligo to Dublin, the main departure port along the Quays of the River Liffey."
http://www.moytura.com/sligo1.htm
Book Review:
How the Irish Saved Civilization
http://www.allaboutirish.com/library/bookrev/rev-saved.shtm
Day-Lewis' other film should be titled "In the Name of the F***ing Father" for all the profanity that it spews out.
unfortunately the most anit-american country in europe is Ireland, not France
Oh, brother. Is EVERYBODY a victim?
Since we're talking St. Patrick's Day...
I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
... Through confession of the Oneness
Of the Creator of creation.
I arise today
Through the strength of Christ's birth and His baptism,
Through the strength of His crucifixion and His burial,
Through the strength of His resurrection and His ascension,
Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of doom.
I arise today
Through the strength of the love of cherubim,
In obedience of angels,
... In innocence of virgins,
In deeds of righteous men.
I arise today
Through the strength of heaven;
Light of the sun,
Splendor of fire,
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of the wind,
Depth of the sea,
Stability of the earth,
Firmness of the rock.
I arise today
Through God's strength to pilot me;
... God's hosts to save me
From snares of the devil,
From temptations of vices...
I summon today all these powers between me and evil,
Against every cruel merciless power that opposes my body and soul,
Against incantations of false prophets,
Against black laws of pagandom,
Against false laws of heretics,
Against craft of idolatry,
Against spells of women and smiths and wizards,
Against every knowledge that corrupts man's body and soul.
Christ shield me today.
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye that sees me,
Christ in the ear that hears me.
...
St. Patrick (ca. 377)
Little-known Irish historical note: numerous members of the Irish St. Patrick's Battalion in our army deserted to the enemy in the War with Mexico in 1848. They sided with the Catholics and are still regarded as heros by Mexico. In the San Angel suburb of Mexico City (a town during the war), there is a large plaque in the main square with their names inscribed along with a salute to "their noble actions." The US Army saw them as traitors and they were tried as such and hanged.