Saint Paddy's dream

"Skyroad" Côte ouest de l'Irlande dans le Connemara, janvier 2004

C'est décidé, cet été j'y retournerai... this is my wishful dream! Se perdre dans les lacs qui reflètent le ciel, poursuivre les moutons pour les photographier, ces plages vertes entrecoupées de blés sauvages et le vent...

Et puisque c'est la Saint Patrick, quelques idées parfois drôles ou sérieuses mais en tout cas bien reçues sur cette petite île!

The earliest written record of Ireland is from a 5th century BC Greek poem.

The Romans of the 4th century AD knew of the warlike tribes there not as Gaelic, or the Celts, but as the Scots.

St. Patrick wasn't Irish at all, he was a native of Britain, either Scotland in the north or Romanised England. Contrary to popular myth, he did not introduce Christianity to Ireland, it had already preceded him in some regions by earlier missionaries. He did not chase all snakes out of Ireland- the island had no indiginous species of snakes to begin with. Christianity did not become the established faith in Ireland til a century after Patrick's death in the 5th century AD.

The first large wave of Irish immigration to America wasn't the Great Potato Famine Diaspora of the 1850's, it was in the mid-1700's, mostly from Protestant Northern Ireland. Many of these early Irish-Americans settled the frontier in the Appalachian Mountains, and built the first "log cabins" later associated with American westward expansion.

The roots of American Appalachian Folk music are found in Irish Ceili folk music.

The "luck of the Irish" refers not to good, but bad luck. It's related to the famous "Murphy's Law" which states that if anything can go wrong, it inevitably will.

The first Irish-American US President wasn't John Kennedy, but Andrew Jackson (1820's), whose parents were Protestant immigrants from Ulster. The 2nd Irish-descended President was Ulysses S Grant, who was half-Irish.

The "Troubles" in Northern Ireland (Ulster) didn't begin with the IRA activities of the late 1960's & 70's, but had been going on & off for centuries, beginning with English conquest and re-population of Northern Ireland in the 17th century, led by William of Orange.

There are more ethnic Irish descendants in Amerca now than the entire population of Ireland itself. In the mid-19th century, Ireland's population peaked at about 8 million inhabitants. Today Ireland's population census is at 3.5 million.

The Great Famine which depopulated the island in 1850-60 began as a natural disaster (potato crops infected with a fungus), but became a man-made "genocidal" catastrophe by British policies which prevented famine relief. It resulted in the eventual birth of the IRA organization, funded by American Irish nationalists starting in the 1860's.

Tom Collins, one of the architects of Irish Independence during the Revolution (1916-22), was assassinated by former allies for agreeing to the Partition Treaty which divided the Irish Free State from Northern Ireland (Ulster).

The fight over Ulster is not a religious one between Catholics & Protestants, but a political one between Irish Nationalists and Unionists, who wish to remain under Crown rule.