Was it my great grandpa?
\nOr my great-great grandpa
\nthat sailed here from that
\nwet, green land,
\nfleeing bad potatoes and pitiless rich men,
\nman-made catastrophe.
\nPlanted all one variety, against common sense,
\noh but they were tasty,
\nuntil the black rot came.
\nAnd millions died.<\/p>\n

So he set forth,
\nthat great or great-great young man.
\nTo a country where, shortly,
\nIrish Need Not Apply.
\n<\/i>To South Dakota
\nthe wild prarie land.
\nTo a life free, at least,
\nof the bloody bastards that
\nkilled so many of his own.<\/p>\n

A photograph of
\nsolemn children in Sunday best,
\narranged by size from tallest
\nto smallest.
\nGrandpa somewhere in the middle.
\nAnother picture,
\nGrandpa and I.
\nBoth bald and smiling
\nat one another,
\nwe look alike.
\nExactly alike.
\n
The Clancy brothers sang
\nthroughout my childhood.
\nI sang with them,
\nlearning every word of angry rebel songs
\nand sweet sweet love songs.
\nI was ashamed to be an American,
\nit was the ’60’s ya know.
\nSo it was Up the Irish and
\nup the IRA too,<\/p>\n

Cuchullain and Boadaicea my heroes.
\nSeeking connection,
\na sense of national pride,
\nI became a sympathizer
\nwith those who blew up
\nmen, women and children.
\nThey had a right after all,
\nfreedom fighters for a
\njust cause.
\nRevenge, perhaps,
\nfor outright genocide.<\/p>\n

The paper today
\nsaid its been 150 years
\nsince the time of the potato blight
\nand empty stomachs.
\nStarvation first, then
\ntyphoid and cholera.
\nBodies too weak to resist.
\nAnd millions died.
\nThe grain the could have
\nfed them,
\nthe grain\u00a0 grown<\/i> by them,
\nshipped to England.
\nWhile they died.<\/p>\n

Millions more fled
\nto Canada and America.
\nHuman ballast for
\ntimber ships,
\nreturning to clear-cut more forests
\nthat did not belong to them.
\nRaping a new frontier,
\nnot content with having just raped
\na small green island.
\nSeven weeks it took,
\nlocked below with
\ndead and dying.
\nSo crowded that children
\nshared beds with their dead
\nbrothers and sisters.<\/p>\n

My great or great-great granda
\ncame this way
\nWas he born on the ship?
\nI dont recall the story exactly.
\nIt must have been a
\nnightmare upon nightmare.<\/p>\n

I hope that the clean, clear
\nDakota air,
\nthe prarie hills and wildflowers,
\nthe call of a hawk
\nsoaring high above,
\ncleansed his mind.
\nOf his black dreams
\nof the black rot,
\nthe black hold.
\nAnd that a warm
\nblack Badlands night,
\npierced with a million stars
\nfor a million dead,
\nheld him close.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Was it my great grandpa? Or my great-great grandpa that sailed here from that wet, green land, fleeing bad potatoes and pitiless rich men, man-made catastrophe. Planted all one variety, against common sense, oh but they were tasty, until the black rot came. And millions died. So he set forth, that great or great-great young … Continue reading Here\u2019s a poem Cougrrr (Martha) wrote for St.Paddy’s Day<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[52,9,12,10],"class_list":["post-451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-graces-family","tag-grief","tag-ireland","tag-orielly","tag-potato-famine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grace.ernestlowe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grace.ernestlowe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grace.ernestlowe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grace.ernestlowe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grace.ernestlowe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=451"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/grace.ernestlowe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":452,"href":"https:\/\/grace.ernestlowe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451\/revisions\/452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grace.ernestlowe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grace.ernestlowe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grace.ernestlowe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}