And Happy St. Patrick's Day to You

There are a lot of Irish faces on Fox News; that's one reason it makes me feel at home. But how has this happened? In the 1960s, back when Jack Kennedy was elected, to be Irish meant to be a Democrat.

Abortion is one reason. But another, I think, is this. Most Irish know what it means to be discriminated against, on the basis of race and creed. I have my own memories, of women warning me they had promised their mothers never to marry an Irishman, or of being taunted on the way home from school with “Roman Catholic! Roman Catholic!” Even in 1960, Kennedy winning the presidency was something exhilarating; and there have been no Irish Catholic (or Catholic) U.S. presidents since.

And we have usually heard of far worse from our uncles, aunts, parents, and grandparents. I read a piece recently by a Newfoundlander who marvelled that she grew up in a completely Irish milieu there, without ever hearing the words “Irish” or “Ireland.” I found the same, in my hometown in Eastern Ontario. Everyone was Irish, and no one would speak the word, even though the thing was obvious.

But the truly oppressed are not the ones who complain of oppression; instead, the truly oppressed learn to keep their heads down. You do not hear so much from the Irish, or the Poles, or the Armenians. But given this recent background, it really gets my goat, and I guess that of other ethnic Irish as well, when other groups who have been, by comparison, positively pampered, make a great commotion about their supposed victimhood. Even worse, and more offensively, they slander us Irish, or Armenians, or Poles, or Ukrainians, as their supposed oppressors, simply because of our skin tone. That's a bit much to take. That's racism wrapped in cultural chauvinism tied up with a colourful ribbon of culpable ignorance.

Affirmative action? “Diversity” on campus? Wouldn't our Irish ancestors have loved such advantages, when they stepped off the cholera ships with nothing but holes in their pockets, in the certain knowledge that they had left all they had ever known, and, whatever happened, would probably never be able to see home again? By contrast, current immigrantsd know, if they screw up, they have a nice comfortable life to return to; and if they succeed, they can visit every summer. With the current immigration standards, especially in Canada, but by and large in the US or UK as well, the immigrants who arrive are wealthy and well-educated. They are the upper classes of the countries from which they come; the very corrupt upper classes that have made those countries what they are today. They have never known privation or discrimination; they have grown up pampered and favoured, often in a manner the average Canadian, coming from a far more egalitarian culture, can barely imagine. We are blissfully ignorant of such matters as caste systems, tea-boys, and nearly-free domestic servants. And yet we are expected to support them with our taxes, make myriad multicultural accommodations for them, give them special preferences, that our ancestors never had.

I recall a Pakistani immigrant I knew, whose certain proof that she was discriminated against was that she had not yet been invited to join the Granite Club.

Had she accomplished anything in life? Not yet, surely; she was a grad student in sociology. Financed by a nice juicy alimony payment, and the Canadian taxpayer.

How could we Irish, knowing real discrimination, find this reasonable?

Here are a few interesting morsels of Irish history, in honour of this St. Patrick's Day:

Have you ever wondered why Montserrat, in the Caribbean, is often referred to as “Little Ireland”? Or why so many black Americans seem to have Irish blood?

“The Proclamation of 1625 ordered that Irish political prisoners be transported overseas and sold as laborers to English planters, who were settling the islands of the West Indies, officially establishing a policy that was to continue for two centuries. In 1629 a large group of Irish men and women were sent to Guiana, and by 1632, Irish were the main slaves sold to Antigua and Montserrat in the West Indies. By 1637 a census showed that 69% of the total population of Montserrat were Irish slaves...”

“The Confederation War broke out in Kilkenny in 1641, as the Irish attempted to throw out the English yet again, something that seem to happen at least once every generation. Sir Morgan Cavanaugh of Clonmullen, one of the leaders, was killed during a battle in 1646, and his two sons, Daniel and Charles (later Colonel Charles) continued with the struggle until the uprising was crushed by Cromwell in 1649. ... In the 12 year period during and following the Confederation revolt, from 1641 to 1652, over 550,000 Irish were killed by the English and 300,000 were sold as slaves, as the Irish population of Ireland fell from 1,466,000 to 616,000. Banished soldiers were not allowed to take their wives and children with them, and naturally, the same for those sold as slaves.”

“... in 1650, 25,000 Irish were sold to planters in St. Kitt. During the 1650s decade of Cromwell’s Reign of Terror, over 100,000 Irish children, generally from 10 to 14 years old, were taken from Catholic parents and sold as slaves in the West Indies, Virginia and New England.”

“Subsequently some 52,000 Irish, mostly women and sturdy boys and girls, were sold to Barbados and Virginia alone. Another 30,000 Irish men and women were taken prisoners and ordered transported and sold as slaves. In 1656, Cromwell’s Council of State ordered that 1000 Irish girls and 1000 Irish boys be rounded up and taken to Jamaica to be sold as slaves to English planters.”

“...from 1600 to 1699, far more Irish were sold as slaves than Africans.”

“Colonel William Brayne wrote to English authorities in 1656 urging the importation of Negro slaves on the grounds that, 'as the planters would have to pay much more for them, they would have an interest in preserving their lives, which was wanting in the case of (Irish)....' many of whom, he charged, were killed by overwork and cruel treatment.”

http://www.kavanaghfamily.com/articles/2003/20030618jfc.htm

(written by the chief herald of my own Clan Cavanaugh).

... And yet, we Irish, as “whites,” are supposed to feel guilty for the slave trade, or for the institution of slavery?

Happily, slavery was outlawed throughout the British Empire in the 1830s.

Just in time for the Potato Famine.

By the British Penal Laws, circa 1700, Irish Catholics were also stripped of the right, in Ireland:

- to serve as an officer in the Army or Navy,
- to hold any government office,
- to vote,
- to own land,
- to practice law,
- to attend school,
- to serve an apprenticeship,
- to possess a weapon,
- to practice their religion,
- to speak their language.

Nor was it illegal at the time to kill an Irishman.

Can any “colonized” people in India or China or Africa, claim a comparable experience—at least, at the hands of Europeans, as opposed to their own near neighbours?

“The French sociologist, Gustave de Beaumont, visited Ireland in 1835 and wrote: 'I have seen the Indian in his forests, and the Negro in his chains, and thought, as I contemplated their pitiable condition, that I saw the very extreme of human wretchedness; but I did not then know the condition of unfortunate Ireland...In all countries, more or less, paupers may be discovered; but an entire nation of paupers is what was never seen until it was shown in Ireland.'"

And this was before the Famine.

Yet we Irish are supposedly the exploiting “whites,” and must pay reparations for the evil done by our supposed ancestors...?

Pogue mahone.