In the 1800\u2019s when the Irish immigrated to the United States in mass, largely due to the potato famine, there were signs in the businesses of many windows that read, \u201cIrish Need Not Apply\u201d.\u00a0 For Irish families that can recall this through their generational stories, what is written here in this article need not apply.\u00a0 If you grew up Irish as late as the 1960\u2019s or 70\u2019s in the South End of Boston, or Tipperary Hill in Syracuse New York, or on the Southside of Chicago in Irish neighborhoods such as Bridgeport, what is written here in this article \u2018need not apply\u2019 to you.<\/p>\n
These families and these places mentioned above have something that all \u201ctruly Irish\u201d people still have.\u00a0 A remembrance and disdain for colonization and how it has shaped their lives and the lives of their ancestors back in the homeland of \u00c9rie (Ireland).<\/p>\n
But for the millions of people in the United States who call themselves Irish-Americans as they strove to the bar on St. Patrick\u2019s day this past week, it is safe to say that most of them, unknowingly, have an identity crisis.<\/p>\n
The objective of this writing is not to admonish this group, of whom I am a part of.\u00a0 The objective is to point out the so-called success that the UK and US settler-colonial project has had over most Irish-Americans.\u00a0 The goal of many settler-colonial projects is to bring their new citizens \u2018into the fold\u2019 of the \u201cNew Nation\u201d, and part of this is to erase their memory.\u00a0 In the case of Irish-Americans it is the erasure of the British actions against the Irish.\u00a0 For example most Irish-Americans know the potato famine to be a catastrophic, almost fairy-tale event, of environmental drought and disaster that swept over Ireland.\u00a0 Although that was part of the story, it wasn\u2019t even close to the full story.\u00a0 \u2018The Irish Potato Famine Didn\u2019t Just Happen\u201d.\u00a0 As the title of 1995 New York Times Op Ed article points out: “The starvation of Ireland was planned in London.”(-1845)\u00a0 Indeed, the British Empire was exporting millions of \u00a3s of food from Ireland while the Irish population starved, and over a million perished.[i]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n People may ask why is this important?\u00a0 Beyond the tragic result that we disassociate from our own history and our very selves, the more complex answer is that it enables the settler colonial state of the US to have groups such as Irish-Americans disassociate themselves with domestic and foreign minorities that are suffering from the same tools of colonization.\u00a0 The most prominent historic and domestic use of this was that the Scotch-Irish were used as paramilitary forces to clear large swaths of Original Native Nations and land, most notably in the South-East.<\/p>\n The most prominent foreign example is Palestine.\u00a0 It is also a so-called success of a colonial settler nation to erase any connections that the new settlers (such as Irish-Americans) have with\u00a0 closely associated groups such as the Palestinians. A little known truth that most Irish-Americans are ignorant to is that: “A little over a century ago, Ireland and Palestine were both under British control.\u00a0 A lot of the brutality of the British Empire practiced in Palestine was practiced on Ireland first.”[ii]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n And why is this dis-association important?\u00a0 It allows the United States to continue to carry out with Britain its bi-partisan support of Israel in a land stolen from Palestinians reaching as far back as the 1919 British Balfour Declaration, that officially started the current occupation of Palestinian lands.<\/p>\n Previously Lord Balfour had served as British Cabinet secretary<\/a> for Ireland. He opposed home rule for Ireland, ordered police to open fire on protesters in Mitchelstown, Ireland \u2014 killing several people, and earning him the nickname “Bloody Balfour” among the Irish.<\/p>\n The other thing Ireland and Palestine knew in common were the Black and Tans. To most Irish-Americans Black & Tan is a mix of Guiness and Bass.\u00a0 In fact, however, they were a brutal British police force named for the color of their uniforms, and infamous for killing Irish civilians in the early 20th century. After Irish independence, the Black and Tans deployed to British Mandate Palestine<\/a>, where they exercised colonial power over the mostly Arab population there.[iii]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n Ronald Storrs, the first British governor of Jerusalem, described the plan for a Jewish homeland in Palestine as \u201ca little loyal Jewish Ulster in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism.\u201d This which draws a parallel to British colonial policy in Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n Currently today one of the most supportive modern nations for the people in Gaza (and The West Bank) is not an Arab nation, but it is that of the nation of Ireland.<\/p>\n Former Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said, \u201c A story of displacement, of dispossession, national identity questioned or denied, forced emigration, discrimination, and now hunger.\u00a0 This is what Ireland shares with Palestine.\u201d<\/p>\n 1n 1980 Ireland was the first European country to officially advocate for Palestinian statehood.\u00a0 Today the Irish people and government still support in full public view the rights of the people of Palestine.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes in all the roads in all the cities of Ireland, I see a Palestinian flag,\u201d Former Palestinian Ambassador to Ireland<\/p>\n In contrast, today we the Irish-Americans of the United States as tax payers fund the continuation of supplication of weapons to Israel. We the United States government continues to allow the blockade of aid to Gaza.\u00a0 We the United States taxpayers continue to fund, under the cover of events in Gaza, an Israeli military annexation of the West Bank.\u00a0 This is the so-called power and success that this settler colonial-project can now boast\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cMay the road rise up to meet you, Notes:<\/strong><\/p>\n [i]<\/sup><\/a>Opinion | Irish Potato Famine Didn’t Just Happen – The New York Times<\/a><\/p>\n [ii]<\/sup><\/a> Opinion | Irish Potato Famine Didn’t Just Happen – The New York Times<\/a><\/p>\n [iii]<\/sup><\/a> Why Ireland is one of the most pro-Palestinian nations in the world : NPR<\/a><\/p>\n __________________________________________<\/p>\n Daniel Horgan is an occasional contributor to <\/em>Transcend Media Service.\u00a0<\/em>People may ask why I support the plight of the Palestinians and I could say that I am the son of my father, the grandson of my grandfather, and the great grandson of my great grandfather. After all: I am Irish.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the 1800\u2019s when the Irish immigrated to the USA in mass, due to the potato famine, there were signs in businesses that read, \u201cIrish Need Not Apply\u201d.\u00a0 For Irish families that can recall this through their generational stories, what is written here in this article need not apply.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":290452,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[2242,1762,427],"class_list":["post-290451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anglo-america","tag-famine","tag-ireland","tag-palestine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290451"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":290504,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290451\/revisions\/290504"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nMay the wind be always at your back,
\nMay the sun shine warm upon your face,
\nThe rains fall soft upon your fields,
\nAnd until we meet again,
\nMay God hold you in the palm of His hand.\u201d<\/p>\n