Nite cap: Green Day (Updated)
St. Patricks Day 2025 was a revelation, and not in a good way
UPDATE: When this post went out I got a lovely email from an Irish woman named Mary Sue McGorray, who is a true confirmation of how lovely the people of that country are in my personal experience. She corrected one piece of the history I put at the top of the earlier version of this post, and it’s an important one. Because in addition to the fact that Saint Patrick was not actually Irish, it’s important to know how he went from his native England to Ireland when he was a teen: namely, slavery. From History.com:
Early in the 5th century, an Irish ship beat against the waves along the western coast of Great Britain. On the far edge of the crumbling Roman Empire, a band of Irish marauders crept into a secluded cove and raided the village of Bannavem Taburniae.
Among the plunder captured by the band of warriors dispatched by Ireland’s King Niall of the Nine Hostages was a 16-year-old boy named Succat. Although brought to Ireland against his will, the teenager would go on to become Ireland’s patron saint. St. Patrick may have been a foreigner who arrived in Ireland in the hold of a pagan king’s slave ship, but he would become synonymous with the island itself.
Established facts about Patrick’s youth are few, and much of what is known comes from the saint himself in his short autobiography, the Confessio. According to the traditional narrative, Patrick was born into a well-to-do family around 386 A.D. and grew up along Great Britain’s western coast, likely in Wales, which was part of the Roman Empire at the time. His father was a Christian deacon and a minor Roman official, his grandfather a priest.
The raid that tore him away from his family was not all that unusual in the early 5th century, says Philip Freeman, author of St. Patrick of Ireland: A Biography. “We know from a few other late Roman sources that the Irish had been raiding western Britain regularly for at least a century before Patrick was captured in the early 400s, just as the Saxons had been raiding in the east of Britain,” he says.
“One of the most horrifying features of the period is the wholesale enslavement of freemen and -women,” writes Thomas Cahill in How the Irish Saved Civilization. “In the slavery business, no tribe was fiercer or more feared than the Irish.” As Roman power waned, forays by Irish raiders grew more common. On a regular basis, they plundered animals and clothes and snatched children from their sleep in the middle of the night. They abducted young men to herd sheep and cows and young women to serve them.
Ripped from his home, Patrick herded sheep for a local chieftain on the slopes of Mount Slemish in County Antrim in the north of Ireland. Deprived of food and clothes, Patrick lived in virtual isolation. His only companions were his flock and his newfound faith. Amid the desolation, Patrick’s Christianity blossomed. He prayed as many as 100 times during the day—and matched that total at night.
Patrick wrote in the Confessio that six years into his captivity, an angel appeared in a dream and told him, “You have fasted well. Very soon you will return to your native country.” The angel told him of a ship leaving Ireland, and the young man walked across 200 miles of peat bogs and forests before arriving at a port, possibly Wexford, where he found a cargo ship bound for the European continent.
After the captain refused him passage, Patrick began to pray. Before he could finish, though, a sailor from the ship came shouting, “Come quickly – those men are calling you!” After learning that the captain changed his mind, Patrick sailed away from Ireland, believing that God’s protection must have been responsible for his unlikely escape.
St. Patrick biographer Freeman says that although the escape was unusual, it likely occurred. “It would have been a harrowing and difficult journey, but we have stories of escaped slaves from elsewhere in the Roman world.”
And while Roman slavery wasn’t chattel slavery, where the enslaved were the equivalent of cows or hogs, with the “owner” also “owning” the children and children’s children of the captives; children he sometimes created himself via rape — a form of slavery invented in and practiced solely in what is now the United States of America, by slave breeders like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison — the historical memory of enslavement has clearly informed Irish feistiness when it comes to fighting for freedom. And that seems to consistently be true, whether it’s their own from Britain, or that of America’s enslaved Africans during Frederick Douglas’ time … peep this little known Black history fact:
Douglass is permanently linked to both Ireland and Haiti, although his visits to these former European colonies took place decades apart. In 1845-1846, Douglass— then just 27 years-old— visited Ireland for a speaking tour against slavery. He was a visitor to Haiti from 1889 to 1891, beginning at the age of 71 for what can be labeled as both a prestigious function but controversial mission: As an ambassador to facilitate the sale of a portion of the world’s first black republic.
… or that of Palestinians facing decades of subjugation in the occupied West Bank and Gaza by the Israeli state.
Of course these histories are incredibly complicated, when it comes to the history of Britain’s first colony and its later American one: the great famine that drove so many Irish to America where they often faced intense rejection due to their Catholicism and ethnicity in the early to mid 19th century, Irish Union brigades during the civil war (plus the occasional violent anti-draft riot) and the post-war cleavage between Irish and African-Americans who faced very different trajectories as they competed in urban centers for jobs and rights. To say nothing of America’s first Irish Catholic president, and his and his brother’s eventual movement toward a courageous, life-risking stand for civil rights, as well as the second. But the Republic of Ireland has unquestionably become a moral center in Europe when it comes to standing up against colonialism. It’s clearly personal.
Other myths that can hereby be busted: St. Patrick didn’t really drive all of the snakes out of Ireland, because snakes weren’t actually endemic to Ireland because of the whole “surrounded by water” thing, and the clover he used in his Christian conversion lessons had three leaves, not four, although if a clover grows a fourth leaf it’s considered a good luck sign…) And again, with that rather lengthy update, I digress…
Given that Trump still allowed Saint Patrick’s Day to be officially celebrated in his post-DEI America, I think it’s fitting to remind folks of what his White House guest for the occasion paid a $250,000 settlement for…
LONDON (AP) — A woman who claimed mixed martial arts fighter Conor McGregor “brutally raped and battered” her in a Dublin hotel penthouse was awarded nearly 250,000 Euros ($257,000) on Friday by a civil court jury in Ireland.
Nikita Hand said the Dec. 9, 2018, assault after a night of partying left her heavily bruised and suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
McGregor testified that he never forced the woman to do anything against her will and said she fabricated the allegations after the two had consensual sex. His lawyer had called Hand a gold digger.
The fighter, once the face of the Ultimate Fighting Championship but now past his prime, shook his head as the jury of eight women and four men found him liable for assault after deliberating about six hours in the High Court in Dublin.
He was mobbed by cameras as he left court but did not comment. He later said on the social platform X that he would appeal the verdict and the “modest award.”
Hand’s voice cracked and her hands trembled as she read a statement outside the courthouse, saying she would never forget what happened to her but would now be able to move on with her life. She thanked her family, partner, friends, jurors, the judge and all the supporters that had reached out to her online, but particularly her daughter. …
…“He’s not a man, he’s a coward,” attorney John Gordon said in his closing speech. “A devious coward and you should treat him for what he is.”
Gordon said his client never pretended to be a saint and was only looking to have fun when she sent McGregor a message through Instagram after attending a Christmas party. He said Hand knew McGregor socially and that they had grown up in the same area.
She said he picked her and a friend up in a car and shared cocaine with them, which McGregor admitted in court, on the way to the Beacon Hotel.
Hand said she told McGregor she didn’t want to have sex with him and that she was menstruating. She said she told him “no” as he started kissing her but he eventually pinned her to a bed and she couldn’t move.
McGregor put her in a chokehold and later told her, “now you know how I felt in the octagon where I tapped out three times,” referring to a UFC match when he had to admit defeat, she said.
Hand had to take several breaks in emotional testimony over three days. She said McGregor threatened to kill her during the encounter and she feared she would never see her young daughter again.
Eventually, he let go of her.
“I remember saying I was sorry, as I felt that I did something wrong and I wanted to reassure him that I wouldn’t tell anyone so he wouldn’t hurt me again,” she testified.
She said she then let him do what he wanted and he had sex with her.
A paramedic who examined Hand the next day testified that she had never before seen someone with that intensity of bruising. A doctor told jurors Hand had multiple injuries.
Hand said the trauma of the attack had left her unable to work as a hairdresser, she fell behind on her mortgage and had to move out of her house.
Police investigated the woman’s complaint but prosecutors declined to bring charges, saying there was insufficient evidence and a conviction was unlikely.
And yet, here’s how Conor’s St. Patrick’s Day turned out…
To reiterate, in my experience, people from Ireland are some of the coolest, kindest people you will meet. Trump could have picked any one of them, but he chose this guy. Wonder why?
Much needed music break!
Hey fam, remember this song???
We sure miss you, Whitney! Meanwhile…
Drop kicked
Why are the Dropkick Murphys doing all the things to make me into a superfan? Why are they doing that??? MeidasTouch has the video of their latest triumphant Trump slam:
They also wagered a Trumper that his maga hat was foreign made, unlike their merch, and you know who won.
And now, a public service announcement:
I’m not a lawyer, so don’t consider this legal advice, but per every lawyer I’ve looked up this information with, bars can enforce a dress code and deny you entry based on an item of clothing (“no shirts, no shoes, no service.” etc.) so long as they don’t discriminate based on your race, sex, age, disability status, veteran status or gender identity. Not letting you into a bar or other private business because you’re still wearing a maga hat four months after the election is not discrimination (even if you’re with a Black person who’s also culty enough to be wearing a maga hat, ma’am...) And no, being maga is not a protected class under civil rights laws. At least, not yet…
And note that as she defends herself, the maga Karen not only plays the “I was with a Black man” card, she also repeats the misgendering of the bartender, that apparently got her kicked out in the first place.
Maybe go to a maga bar next time? And show your support to the Chatterbox bar here.
Equal opportunity horror
The Trump deportation circus is hitting people from all over the globe, not just from Central and South America.
They have snatched a Canadian business consultant who appeared in American Pie…
Venezuelan construction workers who they’ve shipped to a notorious El Salvadoran prison…
An immigration advocate previously named one of TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people…
And of course, pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, who they have disappeared into a Louisiana prison, from where he has written this Letter from a Louisiana Jail. It begins:
My name is Mahmoud Khalil and I am a political prisoner. I am writing to you from a detention facility inLouisiana where I wake to cold mornings and spend long days bearing witness to the quiet injusticesunderway against a great many people precluded from the protections of the law.
Who has the right to have rights? It is certainly not the humans crowded into the cells here. It isn’t theSenegalese man I met who has been deprived of his liberty for a year, his legal situation in limbo and hisfamily an ocean away. It isn’t the 21-year-old detainee I met, who stepped foot in this country at age nine,only to be deported without so much as a hearing.
Justice escapes the contours of this nation’s immigration facilities.
Read the whole letter here.
And this seems appropriate…
Chaser
With anger rising over Chuck Schumer’s cowardice in the face of Trump and Elon, Nancy sticks the knife in…
SAN FRANCISCO — Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi offered a sharp critique of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Tuesday, suggesting he had forfeited a crucial bargaining chip by allowing a vote on Republicans’ government funding bill.
“I myself don’t give away anything for nothing,” Pelosi told reporters during a news conference at a children’s hospital in San Francisco. “I think that’s what happened the other day.”
Pelosi — who spoke during an event to oppose House Republicans’ proposed cuts to Medicaid — said she still supports Schumer, her longtime ally who’s come under fire from within his own party in recent days over his decision to allow the GOP’s bill to avert a government shutdown through last Friday.
But Pelosi, in response to a question, suggested that if Schumer hadn’t cleared the way, it would have given Democrats more leverage to fight proposed cuts to Medicaid and other social safety-net programs.
“We could have, in my view, perhaps, gotten them to agree to a third way,” Pelosi said. She said a potential outcome could have been a bipartisan continuing resolution to delay a shutdown for up to four weeks while negotiations continued.
She added, “They may not have agreed to it, but at least the public would have seen they’re not agreeing to it — and that then they would have been shutting (the) government down.”
She ain’t wrong… And the calls for Chuck to resign his leadership post and do something else with his time are only growing… watch this space.
I'm sorry that MSNBC makes stupid decisions, but I'm so very happy that you're on Substack so I can subscribe and read your incredible essays. Having almost totally Irish ancestors I was appalled to see Conor McGregor celebrated at the WH but, not surprised since Trump is an adjudicated rapist and a lot of his cabinet have also committed, or been accused, of sexual assault. Apparently it's a requirement for the WH. The Dropkick Murphys are great and I hope the Chatterbox has more business because of this.
How sick is this? This president loves his fellow sexual predators