William Butler Yeats, my favorite Irish poet (and there are so many wonderful ones!), wrote many poems centered around the Easter Uprising, 1916 (Yeats’ Sixteen Dead Men).? The bullet holes can still be seen in the post office on O’Connell street (Yeats’ Easter, 1916).? That was the day that weakened the British center, which finally could not hold (Yeats’ The Second Coming).? One of the prisoners was a woman he never stopped loving (Yeats’ On a Political Prisoner).
By 1921, there was an Irish Free State.? And then we proceeded to kill each other (as in the old days) until we grew up around 1925.? We are now taking another step to growing up – the Irish primary school system is being taken away from the Catholic Church, which so abused Irish children, primarily boys, physically for many, many years – and then sexually for only many years.? While lying about it all.? The blood and innocence of generations of Irish children watered that rose tree (Yeats’ The Rose Tree).? As the New York Times reported yesterday in the story about the schooling change, the Irish Prime Minister called the church on its ‘ ?dysfunction, disconnection and elitism? when the Vatican denied any responsibility for the scandal.’
Tis a blessing, each step this beautiful country is taking to freedom.? Tis not a blessing that they wanted so much to be in the Euro Zone that they took loans they didn’t need and are now paying dearly for that.