This is an anniversary, of sorts, for me. I have now lived in Ireland for ten years. They were ten good years. During that time, I made some friends and worked with colleagues, who later became friends, and befriended some students, who later befriended me. During this time, I made one good decision, and one bad mis-judgment—and the two were related.
Worth reading in full.
In my one visit to Ireland, admittedly 40 years ago, I found the Irish not at all enthusiastic about American tourists trying to find their “roots.” An Irish friend told me why, or at least his theory of why. “They think the cream all left,” he said. The Irish felt a sense of inferiority toward Americans, which is slightly supported by that article. By the way, my search for “roots” was defeated by relying on the President Kennedy connection. Teddy would visit with alleged “relatives” when, in fact, they had no idea where their ancestors came from. I did finally learn where my ancestors came from, northern Ireland.
A lot of it comes down to nobody likes hearing criticism of their home from an outsider, especially if it’s deserved.
The comments answer his questions about the graves of Axis P.O.W.’s in the U.S. The ignored elephant in the room is the recent agitation about our Civil War monuments.
I’ve said before that the various memorials throughout the North for Confederate soldiers that died in P.O.W. camps mostly, were a positive sign of reconciliation rather than an endorsement of their cause. I am more ambivalent about the statues of Confederate “heroes”. I note that statues of Grant are seemingly absent south of the the Mason-Dixon line and not very common to the north either.
“positive sign of reconciliation”
https://www.wpr.org/confederate-monument-madison-cemetery-removed
“Based on its connection to Civil War history and, more importantly, the role in which some Wisconsin Union veterans played in raising money for the memorial, we accepted its acquisition,” said Telzrow,” director of the Wisconsin Veterans Museum
That piece made me think less of both Ireland and this Seth Barrett Tillman person.
The Irish regime’s choice to let that monument to that officer decay strikes me as an attempt to rewrite history, with the goal of separating the people from their own actual history.
That is, the Irish regime is lying to them. It wants to widen the divide between the UK and Ireland, lest the Irish lose some of their hatred of the English.
If that happens- gosh, the Irish might realize they don’t need their own local slice of the globalist elite that looks to foreigners for guidance- but presumably not English foreigners!!- and they might wonder why they don’t ditch the lot of them and run Ireland themselves.
Which, you know, might mean they want closer ties to the country across the Irish Sea that speaks the same language they mostly do and has the same ancestry they mostly have and not every other foreign country on the planet that can simply supply foreigners who have no special reason to care about Ireland- but most importantly, they have no special reason to care about England, either.
To borrow from something Muhammad Ali said, I’m glad my ancestors got on that boat to America.