With only a few short days before St. Paddy’s Day, the holiest of Roman-Catholic holidays, I have noticed an alarming amount of anti-Irish activity around W&L’s campus. To start, almost the entire population of Irish American students have contracted Covid or are quarantining and won’t be let out until after March 17th, one of the only holidays worth celebrating, St. Patrick’s Day. It is unlikely that the students will be able to enjoy the celebration of Saint Patrick banishing all snakes from Ireland on the green grasses of the Poles without the harassment of the British-supported Public Safety and local police (aka Ulster Volunteers). I have received word from a member of the up-and-coming group, the GIRA or the Generals Irish Republican Army, that this act “is an insult to freedom and that if the British – I mean school administration wants to continue this course, there will be trouble.”
Personally, I find it troubling and not at all coincidental that the administration would change the Covid environmental level to “red” instead of “green.” For starters, the color red is the very color of the uniforms worn by the British as they oppressed Ireland AND the American Colonies. And to deprive us of the Irish-color green so close to the celebration is blasphemy. Let’s be clear, red is an imperialist color, and what is more domineering than requiring only 6 people inside or outside in any given location? That seems to me to be a method of stopping any potential for people to “peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Naturally this will result in far less Jameson Irish Whiskey being consumed, an utter travesty says I.
Finally, the attempts to remove an Irishman’s name from our school is a blatant damnation of Irish pride and culture. Yes, I am referring to Robert E. Leagh, whose family hails from the great County Kerry. First, they come for our most sacred holiday, then they take our whiskey, and now they take down an Irishman. Next thing you know they’ll ban potatoes and start the land grabs. Well Mr. Dudley, you might have the might of the Royal Military behind you but that has never stopped the IRA before, and it damn well won’t stop the GIRA either.
Erin go bragh – Ireland Forever!
KCT ‘21
The Radish 