Madam, – Few countries have a day to rival ours. While St Patrick made the shamrock stand for the union of the Irish with God, it later came to also stand for Irish resistance to oppression.
Witness Henry Grattan Curran’s version of The Wearing of the Green: “Ah Paddy dear and did you hear?/The news that’s going round/ The shamrock is forbid by law/ To grow on Irish ground./ Saint Patrick’s day no more we’ll keep/ His colours can’t be seen/ For they’re hanging men and women/ For the wearing of the green”.
St Patrick’s Day celebrates the spiritual strength and psychological force of an ancient people. The potency of it was noted by those watching the prowess of Irish regiments during the Peninsular war. St Patrick was rendered British and identified with the Prince of Wales. In a word, St Patrick was stolen by the British army.
In recent years the American army has used the day to pin medals to the chests of invaders of Iraq, an illegal action in which the native people have been routinely slaughtered by American soldiers and mercenaries who have enjoyed absolute impunity from prosecution, just like the yeomen of 18th-century Ireland who tortured and slaughtered our ancestors without moral or legal sanction.
Barack Obama maintains the illegal system of kidnap and torture which leads to imprisonment without trial in Guantánamo. He protects the government of Israel which slaughtered the people of Gaza.
Our government and politicians should not affect to bestow the moral authority of St Patrick and the Irish people upon Barack Obama.
Instead we should send the shamrock to Guantánamo, to Gaza, to the West Bank. To the oppressed masses of the Middle East. Let our day of hope offer hope to them.
“Then take the shamrock from your hat/ And throw it on the sod/ And never fear twill take root there/ Though under foot tis trod.” – Yours, etc,