You don’t get to be racist and Irish.
You don’t get to be proud of your heritage,
Plights and fights for freedom,
While kneeling on the neck of another.
You’re not entitled to sing songs
Of heroes and martyrs,
Mothers and fathers who cried
As they starved in a famine.
Or of brave-hearted,
Soft-spoken
Poets and artists,
Lined up in a yard,
Blindfolded and bound,
Waiting for Godot,
And point-blank to sound.
>>
We emigrated.
We immigrated.
We took refuge,
So cannot refuse
When it’s our time
To return the favour.
Land stolen,
Spirits broken,
Bodies crushed and swollen,
Unholy tokens of Christ,
Nailed to a tree,
That you hang around your neck
Like a noose of the free.
Our colour pasty,
Our accents thick,
Hands like shovels
From mortar and brick,
Laying foundations of cities
You now stand upon.
>>
Our suffering seeps from every stone
Your opportunities arise from,
Outstanding on the shoulders
Of our forefathers and foremothers
Who bore your mother’s mother.
Our music is for the righteous.
Our joys have been earned,
Well deserved and serve
To remind us to remember:
More Blacks.
More Dogs.
More Irish.
Still labelled leprechauns, Micks, Paddies, louts
We’re shouting to tell you:
>>
Our land, our laws
Are progressively out there.
We’re in a chrysalis,
State of emerging
Into a new and more beautiful Éire.
40 Shades Better.
Unanimous in our rainbow vote,
We’ve found our stereotypical pot of gold,
And my God, it’s good.
So join us…
’Cause you don’t get to be racist and Irish.
A poem by #ImeldaMay ❤️
@2legged 👏 badly needed
YouTube suggested a GB News video today which I would never watch featuring an interview with a Dr Eoin Lenihan (who?) about how Ireland was being overrun by migrants (I doubt he mentioned hundreds of thousands, by far the majority, came from the UK). The comments, which I did scan briefly, were a festival of far right ignorance and bigotry. Particularly emetic were expressions of shared identity under siege from both sides of the Irish sea, requiring joint action. 🙄
@samueljohnson this sounds a lot like Dr Eoin Lenihan, who in December did a carcrash interview with The Irish Times's Inside Politics podcast. https://open.spotify.com/episode/1FUHz2g1s21og8Y5tFtJhO
I hate the thought that there may be 2 of them
@2legged I may have got the name wrong. Yes, you're right! I won't link to it.
Edit: fixed.
Claire McNab
SamuelJohnson