I dare you to say that in South Boston on March 17th.
Why? Terrorists are terrorists. There a lot of terrorist sympathizers in Boston or what?
I think I get it. They're terrorists but they're 'our terrorists'. That sort of thing. Screw 'em. They all need to be eliminated.
American sympathies, and funds, for the IRA dried up in a big hurry after 9/11, especially in their traditional strongholds of NYC and Boston. Seeing the writing on the wall, the Provisional IRA finally agreed to surrender its arms in October 2001 -- something it had resisted since the 1994 Good Friday accord.
I'll hoist a pint or twelve on St. Patrick's Day, but my long-standing practice is to wear both green and orange, and when the songs turn to praise of the IRA, I turn back to my beer.
I'll never forget the time an Irish-American waitress gave me a dressing-down for ordering a Bushmill's and a Bass. Bushmill's, she explained with a derisive snort, was a Protestant whiskey. After a moment's reflection, I asked why she was more insulted that I'd ordered a Protestant whiskey than that I'd ordered an English beer. She didn't really have an answer.
For the next round, I made a point of ordering a Jameson's, a good Catholic whiskey. She seemed to approve. After taking a sip, I patted my ample abdomen -- draped in green and orange -- and described my stomach as a place where we could all just get along.
She still didn't go home with me. Ah, life is like that.