jslarkin

My Mother was born in 1924, and very well remembered the events of WWII. As a child her stories were many, and while I do admit that it was the tales of ancient Ireland, our folklore, customs, and heritage that held me enthralled, so too did her tales of 1916, and the executions of those involved in that uprising, particularly Connolly. There were momentary tales of the war of independence and the Irish civil war, and she also taught me how to sing Kevin Barry, but on Joe McKelvey, a relative of hers, and one-time Northern commander of the IRA, only spoke about the person, not the republican from stories handed down to her, because he was dead, executed, two years before she was born.

There’s no doubt that a seed of Nationalism was planted in me, albeit innocently by her, however, in St Comgall’s primary school, I learned a lot more of ancient Hibernia, the legends, our ancestry, Na Fianna, and the stories known as The Cycles. I also learned how my people suffered under the tyrant, Cromwell, and the scorched earth policy of Chichester the Pirate, and of the great starvation passed by the English and those subservient to them, as a famine. There was also The United Irishmen, and their fight to free Ireland, a ressurection that failed, as has each and every one. However, it is the Easter Rising that is wed to the proclamation, and the template for true republicanism. That education came from teacher supreme, Seamus ‘Humpy’ McKenna, and patriotism, nationalism, grew in me, and as yet, resides in me.

It is very imortant though that we do not forget the Evil of Nazism during WW2, and neither should it be forgotten what many countries, and people, endured at the hands of those Nazi terrorists, that among them were Jewish, and Russian, and only for the Russian army, Nazism would not have been defeated. Nor should we forget that Nazism was both encouraged and financed by the British and the American’s, and that is being repeated again today by their encouragement, financing, and arming of the ‘New Ukrainian Nazi Terrorists, which seems to a lot of the western world, makes it okay, because they’re good Nazis, which is a load of balix.

But back to the Young Elizabeth. My mother always spoke of her as just a young girl who came to a throne with all its demands, and usually in an expression of sadness, yet respect for her, and adapting how she did to such a demanding role. When she spoke of the war years, you could see the watered haze reach her eyes, particularly when recalling the blitz, and told me once, that while the british people had a great affection for the Royal family, who had remained in London during the Nazi bombing when they could have left for other, safer pastures, the british people had a particular affinity with the young Princess Elizabeth.

So, in 1952, when the young princess became Queen Elizabeth II, people in the North of Ireland, like those in England, Wales, and Scotland, shared the same celebrations, the same love and respect for her.

Fact is, my mother was very fond of, if not a supporter of Elizabeth, and can remember on two occasions when along with other mothers from St Peter’s parish, gathered at the barriers in College St North, in Belfast, adjacent to Belfast Royal Academy, to watch the ‘twelfth parade’ go by. A few years later that had changed with the war known as The Troubles, and those boys who had stood with their Mothers at that barrier, now members of republican organisations.

But, there is another thing I never speak about let alone write about, that was my great-great, grandfather, James, and his brother, who had a shoemaker shop in Lower North Street, Belfast. It was a well-known shop, although I myself used to go to Fitzpatrick’s as a teenager to have my oxford brogues sole and heeled, albeit, James, long gone from this earthly realm by then. However, those two brothers, at one time, had a ‘Royal Decree’ issued to them to make footwear for old Queen Victoria herself! Not something one would have mentioned growing up where I did, as it would have no doubt, raised curiosities as to where ones allegiance lay, particularly through that ‘Royal Decree,’ and they must have been some shoemakers to have that issued to them.

The other thing is this, the English Queen has departed this mortal plain, and like any family – her children, her grandchildren, and her family, are mourning her, and can do without the social media facebook nonsense that is ugly and racist. Queen Elizabeth, was – for the mindless Irish morons on Facebook that have been demeaning the woman; a mother, a grandmother, and a great grandmother, and to attack her in death, attack her family in their mourning, amounts to more than just disrespect. The assassination of her character and the roles she enjoyed with her loved ones, is repugnant, and anyone, irrespective of who they are, or what they claim to represent – to participate in such obnoxious things, reveals them for what they are, bigots and sectarianists.

The fact is, that Facebook is a hive for the racist-sectarian-eejits, in the North of Ireland, and if it is not a young catholic boy whose death has been conveniently covered up to protect valuable culprits, it is a mother, a grandmother, and a great-grandmother, who had a role among her many roles, that of the Queen of England.

Those people do not represent me, my beliefs, my nationalist background, and my traditional Irish Catholic rearing that encompasses my heritage, and if my mother was alive today, she’d be aghast and saddened at the awful disparaging comments allowed on Facebook, that demean a mother and her family. A woman she spoke very highly of, and irrespective of being born into the privilege, was one of the people, and one with the people, and as a young girl, rose to the royal chair during a time Britain was still recovering from an awful war, in what was a big responsibility for her.

Therefore, to write what I have, honours my mothers’ respect for that young Elizabeth. It also – I hope, expresses my own, genuine feelings for a mother, a grandmother, and a great-grandmother. A woman with the same roles my own mother had that was within a family, and that’s the important thing, irrespective of any titles. Therefore, to those of you who have made, and continue to make, disrespectful, disgraceful comments, about the woman; I honestly hope you and your families never have to experience the same obnoxious onslaught you have involved yourselves in on the platform of maliciousness.

To the Royal family, I extend my sincere condolences on the death of a Mother, Grandmother, and Great-Grandmother, and to those mourning the death of their monarch, my genuine sympathy to all of you.

An Irishman