It is with a heavy heart that I watch scenes of the “Queen of England”, Elizabeth Windsor, being shown around Dublin by fawning would-be courtiers from the bankrupt – morally and financially – Free State government. Was it for this that the Wild Geese spread the gray wing o’er every tide?
My own grandfather served in the Irish war of independence, and had to flee to the United States after it ended, hunted down by the treacherous Free State government. His crime? To act as a local scout and information-gatherer for a crack paramilitary unit that played a major role in the fight for Irish Freedom. Yes, my dear old Dad used to wake me up in the small hours of the morning, when he came in late from the bar, to tell me about the heroic work his father did for the bold Black and Tans. It is a phase of Irish history that I really must research some day. But time is always so short, when the wars of the present press in on one so…
I digress. If they have any pride left, the people of Ireland must rise as one and expel the hated Saxon monarch from their midst. I was heartened to see that a few, at least, of Eireann’s sons are still prepared to fight for her honor. How joyous it was to watch them on television, the flower of Irish youth on the lovely boreens of Dublin, proudly clad in their gaily-coloured track suits, throwing rocks and burning trash at the Free State police. Is there a pike yet in the thatch?