For St Patrick’s Day Mark Perryman outlines the meaning of the forthcoming Easter Rising Centenary for models of Britishness
St Patrick’s Day. Down the local, one of the best night outs of the year, a non-stop party drenched in all things Irish. A celebration of Ireland’s freedom, which can never be entirely separated from history either.
For decades it was Ireland that defined first the British Right, the Conservative and Unionist party remember, and then latterly the street-fighting Far Right too with their links loyalist paramilitaries and hatred of all things otherwise from Ireland. Today such connections are broken, the last remnants the unofficial insertion of ‘No Surrender’ into the National Anthem (sic) by a section of the football crowd at England internationals. No surrender? To what exactly. Continue reading
There will be a trade union presence on the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in London tomorrow, Sunday 17th March. The occasion is to commemorate the 100 years since the “Dublin Lockout!” This event was an important epoch in the history of Trade Unionism in Ireland as the anniversary is being promoted by the Dublin Trades Union Council and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.