'twas better to die 'neath an Irish sky

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!

Never mind the media circus. There’s more to being Irish than shamrocks and boozing; there’s a proud legacy of revolutionary thought, too.

James Connolly: Socialist, labor leader, egalitarian thinker, Martyr of 1916. I wonder how the nation would have developed had he not been executed by the forces of the Crown. His idea for an ecumenical Irish state free of religious interference and equal rights for all, including women, was forward-thinking for its time, although the victory of the Free State forces after his death, meant that -- to paraphrase one disillusioned Republican -- all that blood was shed for the sake of handing over the keys to the kingdom to the priests and the shopkeepers, the very same bourgeoisie elements Connolly considered as much as an impediment to Irish freedom as the British were.

Both my wife’s grandfathers fought in the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War (on the Republican side, against Michael Collins’s Free State sellouts). My maternal grandmother’s people were Orangemen from Donegal and Carrickfergus, but radical politics have trumped upbringing in my case. (I’ve been told my mother used to wear orange on St. Patrick’s Day when she was in high school. It’s an ugly bit of spite that I have a hard time reconciling with my memories of her being a kind, good-hearted woman.) My wife thinks it’s kind of funny that out of all the kids in her very Irish, right-off-the-boat family, she’s the only one who married someone of Irish descent, and he turned out to be Anglo-Irish.

Although I oppose actions against civilian targets on general principle, I can at least respect that the Nationalists stand for something other than the Loyalists’ reactionary desire to maintain the institutionalized prejudices of the colonial status quo. It’s amazing how Sinn Féin gets raked over the coals for every misstep or bit of wrongdoing by the I.R.A., but the DUP is pretty much given a pass despite the fact they their armed wings have engaged in nearly an equal amount of violence since in the Good Friday agreement of 1998.

The Pogues and The Dubliners – The Irish Rover (from a 1987 single, collected on The Ultimate Collection, 2005) – Forget the nasally warbling of Celtic Woman or the grandma music of the Irish Tenors, this is real music of the people.

Flogging Molly – Rebels of the Sacred Heart (from Drunken Lullabies, 2002) – It just dawned on me that all of today’s tracks were played at our wedding reception…in between various punk and new wave favorites. Those four mix CD’s are a lovely glimpse into the nature of our relationship.

Wolfe Tones – Rifles of the I.R.A. (from Rifles of the I.R.A. 1991) – Anytime a large enough number of the wife’s relatives gather together for a holiday or whatnot, it’s a given that this song will be given a spin, accompanied by much whooping, stomping, and dancing.