¡San Patricio... Presente!
Lá Fhéile Pádraig sona daoibh - Feliz día de San Patricio
I just want to give a Happy St Paddys Day to everybody in the world!
This is the first entry of Here I am Amongst Ye. I will be posting more casually here, using it like a journal spouting shite I am pasionate about (corrupting the youth with subliminal fenian messaging)
If you followed me on twitter back in the day, hows it going? its nice to see you again. Cheers for still rolling with us.
I was born in Downpatrick, a town situated in the South Eastern region of County Down. It is one of the oldest towns on the island of Ireland. And it is the resting place of Saint Brigid, Saint Colmcille and Saint Patrick. So I get to feel a bit holy no matter what time of year it is.
Outside of Downpatrick in Saul sits the largest statue of Saint Patrick in the world. I like to call him the Big Paddy. They light him up in green around this time of year and at night he looks like a gigantic radioactive cucumber being launched into space.
It’s a time of year to think about the Irish people we love. And also the Irish we fucking hate. And I want to use an example of something negative and piggyback off it to turn it into something positive. I promise it will end on a nice hopeful note.
The snivelling little free state manlet Micheál Martin is heading to the Great Satan for St Paddy’s day to grovel at the feet of the Epstein’s clientele. It is an unfortunate disease that some Irish are born with, the inoperable Tongue in Arse.
Like some secret fraternity hazing ritual, leaders go to Washington to be humiliated by the grand paedophile, so the citizens of their nations know their place in the world in relation to the US empire. I believe the Freemasons call it riding the goat.
Of course these are the types of people our Taoiseach wants to rub shoulders with. After all, he’s looking to get Ireland into “the big boys club” and sit with the other US client states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. You’ll have a chance to bring your own daughter and son back in a body bag from some foreign war soon enough.
The US empire flexes its influence across the world causing death and destruction in Latin America, Palestine and Iran. And you can all always count on a Paddy, like a jester waiting by your side to do a wee song and dance for ya at least once a year with his wee bowl of shamrocks, with his spine back in Ireland.
I’ll say this about your man Micheál Martin, he would never have picked up the Pike.
As the Taoiseach visits these bastards in Washington who kidnap Latin American men and women from their homes and send them off to some El Salvadoran death camp, over in Mexico the people hold their very own Saint Patrick’s Day parade on the streets of Mexico City.
The Mexican people use the day of Saint Patrick to commemorate a band of Irish men who saw Yankee manifest destiny similar to the British conquest of Ireland.
Poor Catholic Mexicans being subjected to white Anglo-American aggression hit too close to home for a lot of the Irish soldiers having just arrived off the coffin ships themselves from Ireland during the British manufactured famine, killing around 1 million of the Irish population. Another million left the country for a better life, never to return.
The arrival of poor European Catholic immigrants during the 1800s threatened the Anglo-Saxon Protestant hegemony. In the US, Catholics were seen as idol worshipping pagans whose allegiance lied not with their country, but with the Pope. The Irish left their homeland in Ireland to flee one form of persecution for another. With the promise of economic security and land, the Irish joined the US Army in their droves.
The Irish in the US military were treated with great disdain by the protestant dominated higher ranks. Reports of Irish Catholics whipped and branded with hot pokers were common. Men were refused mass and denied access to Catholic clergy.
Just before the beginning of the American-Mexican War, a Private called John Riley from Clifden County Galway of the 5th US Infantry Regiment, saw the mistreatment of his fellow Irishmen in the Army and the aggression waged on the Mexican people as the final straw.
He could have bitten his tongue and continued to be an instrument for the US empire, like many Irish have done before and after, absorbed into the Anglo terror machine, becoming the very thing they fought against. But through his strong conviction in his catholic faith and the weight of the struggle of his fellow Irish men and women, he could clearly see he was on the side of an evil aggressor similar to the one his own people fled from back home.
John Riley and 200 Irish men as well as catholic immigrants from other European countries shedded their US military uniforms and pledged to fight for the Mexican people.
These men are known in Mexico as Los San Patricios. The Saint Patrick Battalion.
Due to their previous military experience in the US and British army, the San Patricios became a very effective military artillery unit causing many yank casualties on the battlefield.
At the end of the American-Mexican war the San Patricios were captured and charged with desertion in a time of war. Over all 50 San Patricios were hanged for treason by the US Army. 16 men hanged in San Ángel 10 September 1847. 4 men hanged on the 11th September in Mixcaoc and 30 hanged in Chapultepec on 13th September. It is considered the largest mass hanging in US history.
John Riley, having deserted the US army before the war started, escaped execution but was branded with a D for deserter on his cheek.
There is a plaque in San Jacinto Plaza, in San Ángel Mexico City dedicated to the men of Los San Patricios which reads:
“In memory of the Irish soldiers of the heroic St. Patrick’s Battalion, martyrs who gave their lives to the Mexican cause in the United States unjust invasion of 1847”
In the US, the San Patricios are seen as traitors and enemies. But in my opinion, it is one of the most noble acts committed by our people and an incredible act of sacrifice. It should be celebrated and embraced in Ireland with absolute pride. I am honestly near enough moved to tears any time I encounter the story of the San Patricios.
And now with talks about a United Ireland, in an age of aggressive capitalist violence foreign and domestic, people often say what should a United Ireland look like?
I tend to look towards the immortal words of that sound aul protestant man from God Knows Where, who is humbly buried in Downpatrick not far from where Saint Patrick is laid to rest.
In Down Parish Graveyard lies Thomas Russell, a man from a protestant Ascendancy family who could have lived comfortably enough as a librarian or pastor for the Anglican church. But he could see the evil acts committed by the British empire onto the world and the native population of Ireland, and dedicated his life to freeing Ireland from its clutches helping to form the revolutionary Society of United Irishmen.
In his pamphlet A Letter to the people of Ireland, on the present state of the country, I like to use as a guiding light as to what being Irish should mean as opposed to mimicking the Anglo West and their crusade on mankind and I feel captures the essence of the San Patricios:
“…If the English, or any other people, think gold a sufficient cause to shed blood—if they are satisfied to fill the world with carnage and misery, that they may acquire cloves and nutmegs, and contracts, and slaves—let it not be so with us.”
A Chara, in the face of despair, individualism and nihilism, the San Patricios should inspire and uplift us. No matter the odds, no matter the cost. Nothing can break the indomitable human spirit. Mind your head. Clean your Arse. Change the world. Bigi Linn!
Great read, Micheál. Is there any additional writing or books you’d recommend in relation to the San Patricios?
I hope you’re well btw!
Lovely stuff Micheál