The Wearin' O' the Green

I remember the line in rental ads in London in the '50's and '60's, "No Coloured, No Irish" I don't honestly remember feeling any sense of social outrage, but I also knew it made things difficult for some people to find a place to live and I wondered where else they would end up? My mother explained the Irish reputation for being drunks, but she never elaborated on No Coloured.

It came out years later that my mother's family was half Irish and my Dad's was Scots Irish (meaning Scots who had emigrated to Ireland hundreds of years ago and were Protestant, and considered loyal to the English, whether Cromwell or royalty, I think, though I'm no historian, check my facts). So the wild side of my mother's family, the Irish side, the Clarks, who loved drinking, singing and dancing - ok, partying - were also the source of lively stories. I remember the names more than the stories: Paddy Clark, Nellie Flanagan, Mary Fleming Clark. All Catholics, fond of story telling, drinking and who knows what they did to earn a living?

In England, the term Irish Navvy referred to the great numbers of Irish manual laborers, digging up the streets, working on building sites, and goes back to the days when the canal system in England was used to transport goods inland via barges pulled by horses, or Irish "navigators". I remember thinking of these men as dangerous when drunk and strong and silent when sober. On St. Patrick's Day they wore sprigs of fresh shamrocks on their lapels and got drunk.

One of my mother's uncles was a member of the Irish Republican Army and was shot and killed by the Scottish police. When she was a child, she used to sing along to the old Irish loyalist (rebel) song "The Wearing of the Green" lamenting the fact that the English were hanging men and women for wearing the color green. Being a child she thought that meant wearing out lawns by walking on them, inspired by signs in the parks "keep off the grass". A timid child to begin with, no doubt this didn't help her budding opposition to authority, especially that of the English.

We passed as a Scottish family living in London. The Irish was never mentioned outside the house. In her seventies, my mother decided to tell me that I was half Irish, and chuckled a little malevolently I thought. I knew the family names were Irish but had never identified with The Irish and certainly never supported the terrorism of the IRA setting off bombs at Christmas time in London department stores and underground subways or the religious sectarian violence in Northern Ireland.

It was enough to be challenged as a child about which religion I followed, when I visited a playground in Glasgow. I hadn't understood the word itself, religion. I replied that we were vegetarian (true) and ended up playing on the swings alone because nobody knew how to categorize me.

This separation among human beings starts early, in the home, in the mind, down through the ages. And it's time to stop. Since I know he wouldn't mind, I declare myself, along with that greatest of men, Mahatma Gandhi, to be a Christian (all types), a Jew, a Muslim, a Hindu, a Buddhist and anything else. I am One with everyone, not special, separate, better, different. I wear all colors on any day of the year, and the blood in my veins is shared via a common ancestor in Africa with all humanity. Today I am free and I celebrate.