Seattle’s Irish Community Celebrates St. Patrick’s Day
Irish citizens mark the holiday with hopes for Home Rule, drawing historical parallels between the British occupation of Ireland and the colonization of North America.
Fellow-citizens of Irish birth or descent celebrated yesterday the birthday of St. Patrick. The celebration was emphatically an occasion for the interchange of heartfelt congratulations among the friends of Irish freedom, for Ireland today sees the radiant vision of home rule almost ready to materialize into a legislative reality. The struggle that has lasted for more than ninety years is nearly over. The American who arraigns England for her ancient usage of Ireland knows perfectly well that England's title to Ireland is just as good as our own title to lands we have won from the Indian. It is the title of conquest. The American criticism of England is, like that of Gladstone, not at all directed at England's right to govern Ireland, but at her failure to discharge her obligation to give Ireland a good government.
“A jocund day for Ireland seems to stand tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.”
This piece offers a striking, if painful, look at how Irish immigrants in 1890s Seattle framed their own struggle for sovereignty by using the language of their own settler-colonial context, comparing the Irish struggle to the displacement of Indigenous peoples.
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