Posted by Danalee Lavelle-Burroughs on March 17, 2000 at 11:16:01:
In Reply to: Re: Irish Songs posted by Lady Ann on March 17, 2000 at 09:33:39:
Right you are, Lady Ann! The anniversary of the Boyne is a knife in our backs...
My first husband, David MacMillan was Scottish from Stirlingshire. We married in Falkirk in '74. I should have known how it was to end from the outset; his Uncle David swore that he wouldn't attend the wedding because it was being held in a 'Chapel'. For a minute I could have sworn I was in Derry, not Stirlingshire. In the end, his lady wife prevailed and he went--grumbling all the way...I guess he thought he was going to be baptized when he walked o'er the threshold...
Danalee
: : Ach, you Scottish! Boyne. As in Battle of the Boyne. The unfortunate victory of King William and his "Orangemen" over the Catholic "Green"; and party and parcel to the troubles which have plagued us since time immemorial. My family hail from Louisburg, Co. Mayo--left in the 1840s. We are "Green" and proud to wear it! Danalee
: 'Tis indeed the Boyne. And the Battle of the Boyne is still being fought...literally...every July in Northern Ireland when the Orangemen take to the streets and march through Catholic neighborhoods. As an historical and cultural note, the Highlander Scots and the Irish are indeed kith and kin, originating from the same Celts (and Picts)that settled and migrated freely between Ireland and Northern Scotland. And both groups were (and still are) primarily Roman Catholic...it is the English and the Lowlander Scot (allied with and interbred with the English)that are primarily Protestant and interlopers on the Emerald Isle, having acquired their land there, for the most part, as soldiers of the invading Cromwell (he gave them Irish land in lieu of pay). Sooooo...we Highlanders, also victims of the English land grabbing, after the Battle of Culloden and during the Clearances, can truly empathize with our Irish cousins and celebrate the national pride in the wearing o' the green...
: Lady Ann