A little Irish History at Christmas time.

An avid history buff I wish I could spend, or rather , invest more time, deviling into the past.

It's strange to me how some historic facts sneak into total oblivion.

It this just fate, an accident or is it more sinister?

Would someone in government censor historic facts by the act of omission?

Let me quote from the book, Ireland under English Rule, Volume 1." Over 100,000 young children, who were orphans of or had been taken from their Catholic parents, were sent abroad into slavery in the West Indies, Virgina and New England, that they might lose their faith and all knowledge of their nationality, for in most instances even their names were changed."


"During this period (1673) may thousand young men were driven into exile, to enter the armies of European nations or to settle on the frontiers of the American Colonies, there to become a bulwark against the Indians for the protection of the most favored settlers on the coast."

"Over half a million of the Irish disappeared."

For all my past reading of both US and Celtic history I never had an knowledge of Irish slaves.

To continue" In the year 1643 "Over 600,000 thousand men, women and children were slaughtered, or died from starvation. Forty thousand were able to escape to the Continent."

In the past many years we've all heard the "H" word when it comes to great human suffering caused by others and done in a deliberate manner and in a grand scale.

Just several months ago we all heard about a great cry from the Armenians bemoaning what happened to them during the first world war at the hands of the Ottoman Turks.

What's is the difference?

I believe that the Irish, for all their many faults, simply accepted their historic facts and moved on! They did not want, or perhaps, wish to dwell in the horrors or the past.

They did not wish to be entombed by their own dreadful history.

I also believe that all nations have similar history including our very own native Indians.

Of course maybe these facts were purposely omitted from our history books as the US and the United Kingdom became such rather good allies beginning with WWI. Perhaps we didn't want to offend them by bring up such and brutal facts.

And then, quite by accident I came across the photograph of the above Irish Christmas ormanents which speak louder than words.



Bill McInerney