RpH #8
the Troubles
The first time I remember wearing orange on St. Patrick’s day was in first grade. We were going up the stairs to the classroom and a classmate said I wasn’t wearing green. But my dress was of a small, floral pattern that had both colors in it, so no pinching occurred that day. My father, who did not go to church, taught me always to wear orange on the Irish national saint’s day. Sometimes it was as simple as orange crepe paper around my arm and for a while I wore orange with black, for sorrow. But always orange on St. Patrick’s Day, because, Daddy said, I am a Protestant.
Ireland is a mother of nations, a large island in the Atlantic ocean that has sent her sons and daughters all over the world, looking for food and work. The Irish were occupied by the English for hundreds of years, their language was outlawed, their church was suppressed and their land was given to Protestant Scottish farmers. The sorrow of Ireland is known, sung and fought, but what the hell does it have to do with me?
My paternal great grandfather was Mathias Gibson, a poor lad with bad lungs who came from Belfast. He ended up in New Hampshire, married Clara Hubble and fathered Dorothy Viola, my father’s mother. Dorothy didn’t care about the Irish connection except to refer to the Kennedy Clan as “lace curtain” Irish. She was a lifelong Republican who grew up in Boston. Family legend holds that Mathias would put an orange ribbon in his lapel and “go down to Southy on St. Patrick’s Day to discuss fine points of theology with his Catholic brethren.” So I was a Protestant before I confessed Christ, a political distinction but harmless.
Then, in 1972, the marches and riots of Bloody Sunday were spread over the news and Protestant and Catholic became very real words. Although a child of the Vietnam War, I was still in the cozy world of political black and white. As a high school drama queen, I was drawn to the poor benighted Protestants of Northern Ireland, only to be slapped in the face with a long ugly history and very complicated politics.
There was Ian Paisley, (Paisley, a town outside Glasgow in the Western Highlands of Scotland from whence his forefathers came) in clerical collar and always with pectoral cross, yelling about how the Catholics had to be controlled or they would enslave the world. And Gerry Adams, talking normal as milk, the representative of Sinn Fein, but in the beginning he was the mouthpiece for the provisional IRA, as narrow-minded and violent as the Ulster Unionist Party. He also scared the British so much that the BBC was not allowed to broadcast Adams’ voice. Both parties were blinded by their individual visions of national victimhood. In between were a disenfranchised Catholic minority and a brainwashed Protestant majority. The complaints were centuries old and, it appeared, intractable.
The most telling story for me was a little vignette that was played out across a no-go zone in Derry. Two boys were throwing rocks at each other, after their day together at school. So Michael yells over to Sean, “Sean, that’s me ma. I’ve got to go in for me tea. See ya tomorrow.” There was the soul of the Troubles , stubborn boys throwing rocks at each other because that was what they were taught to do. Those rocks were bombs and made the five counties of Northern Ireland a very dark and bloody ground. The Troubles of Northern Ireland were my political education. The victims were preyed upon by para-military thugs on both sides, no perfect good or bad. And I also learned to be ashamed of some Protestant voices. Ian Paisley prepared me for Pat Robertson.
And I learned that even the most entrenched conflicts can be undone. In 1989 the impenetrable Wall came down in Berlin and Germany was unified. For a small time the undoable seemed doable. But that wall was only 50 years old; nothing could possibly be done about the 350 year old sorrow of Northern Ireland—unless, of course, the enabling power, Great Britain, had finally had enough. When it was no longer supportable for Britain to be in Northern Ireland, then Britain chose to leave, with its Protestant supporting army. But how? How could the earliest sins of the Empire be undone?
Out of the Pine Tree State of Maine came George Mitchell, a retired American senator and the complete honest broker. Using the quiet and implacable negotiating techniques he honed in the Senate of the United States, Mitchell did the impossible and forged the Good Friday accords. Now, almost ten years later, the British Army is leaving Northern Ireland and there is a Target store in Belfast.
Terrible sorrows can end, the sins of empire can be overcome and hope can prevail. All that needs done is the impossible, and that only takes the belief it can happen. The North is turning into a normal place and I can pray, with all honesty, for a untied Ireland.
Erin Go Bragh.
And I learned that even the most entrenched conflicts can be undone. In 1989 the impenetrable Wall came down in Berlin and Germany was unified. For a small time the undoable seemed doable. But that wall was only 50 years old; nothing could possibly be done about the 350 year old sorrow of Northern Ireland—unless, of course, the enabling power, Great Britain, had finally had enough. When it was no longer supportable for Britain to be in Northern Ireland, then Britain chose to leave, with its Protestant supporting army. But how? How could the earliest sins of the Empire be undone?
Out of the Pine Tree State of Maine came George Mitchell, a retired American senator and the complete honest broker. Using the quiet and implacable negotiating techniques he honed in the Senate of the United States, Mitchell did the impossible and forged the Good Friday accords. Now, almost ten years later, the British Army is leaving Northern Ireland and there is a Target store in Belfast.
Terrible sorrows can end, the sins of empire can be overcome and hope can prevail. All that needs done is the impossible, and that only takes the belief it can happen. The North is turning into a normal place and I can pray, with all honesty, for a untied Ireland.
Erin Go Bragh.
