Tomás Ó Flatharta

A Patrick’s Day “Drowning of the Shamrock” celebration in Washington DC’s White House, including Irish politicians and the USA President, is a long-established tradition. President Joe Biden is an Irish-American who enjoyed a warm welcome “home” to Mayo and Louth in 2023. Biden’s Irish-American links are very strong and genuine – but many people who welcomed him to Ireland less than a year ago have broken with “Genocide Joe” because of USA political and military support of the Israeli murderous assault on the people of Gaza and Palestine.

An articulate response came from a Derry GAA All-Ireland winner, who is related by marriage to Mr Biden – Joe Brolly’s wife is Laurita Blewitt, a third cousin of Mr Biden.

The leaders of Sinn Féin are going to the White House to shake hands with “Genocide Joe” on March 17 2024.

Here is one typical online response :

And here is a revealing response by the Sinn Féin Dublin West TD Paul Donnelly

Far better progressive ways of celebrating Patrick’s Day at home and abroad are an option – “Weigh up the corpses of Gaza, and a jolly in the USA. It’s not too much to ask” – Bernadette McAliskey

People are rightly angry about this. We should remember that SF opposed the call to expel the Israeli ambassador. They shifted under pressure of the movement. If they can be pressured to change on this, in turn it will put pressure on Varadkar.

Paul Murphy TD, People Before Profit, Dublin South-West

In 2010 friends and comrades in New York organised “Saint Paddy’s Day for All”, an alternative to official celebrations which banned gay people. Sinn Féin preferred to attend the White House.

Joe Higgins, at the time a member of the European Parliament from the Dublin constituency, sent the Saint Paddy’s Day for All organizers the following solidarity message :

A chairde,

On behalf of my colleagues in the Socialist Party in Ireland and our sister party in the United States, Socialist Alternative, I wish to extend our warmest greetings to this year’s St. Pat’s for All Parade.

It is remarkable that despite having progressed so far, we still see such enormous divisions perpetuated in society, between black and white, gay and straight, young and old. I commend you for organising today’s celebration on the basis of inclusiveness and “cherishing all the children equally”.

Today should not just be about abstractly celebrating Irish culture and heritage but it should also be about remembering the fine tradition of struggling against discrimination, against bigotry and against oppression that has defined much of Irish history, from the fight against religious sectarianism and oppression of the United Irishmen to the mighty trade union struggles of James Connolly and Jim Larkin. That tradition is not just confined to Ireland but was carried from this island to America and into the mighty labour struggles of the 19^th and 20^th centuries and into the likes of the San Patricios, a battalion of Irish and European ex-pats and immigrants who defected from the US army during the Mexican-American war and took a stand with their Mexican brothers and sisters against imperialism.

Remembering these traditions are all the more important in this period, where ordinary people across the world are being forced to pay for an economic crisis that they had no part in creating. There are those who are openly using this period in order to whip up the old prejudices of racism, of homophobia and of religious intolerance. They would like to see us divided so that we are weaker, so that we fight amongst each other rather than against the attacks on our living standards and on our rights. But we must stand together and respond to that. We must respond to that with the old trade union maxim that “an injury to one is an injury to all”. The struggle to end discrimination is not an isolated struggle and belongs to us all and I ask that in between the celebrations today that you remember that.

Le meas,

Joe Higgins MEP

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John Meehan January 25 2024