The 'triumphant' global spread of the Irish
US President Joe Biden and Taoiseach Micheál Martin on St Patrick's Day. Biden is proud of his Irish roots. File Picture.
The pure truth for those amongst ye who would be delighted if I disappeared from this space altogether ASAP as I thought likely last week, is that the golden jab of blazing good weather over Killaloe since then has totally revived my old bones and brain and ye are likely to have to put up with my alleged balderdash for a long time to come.
I'm not one bit sorry about that new reality of course and the bold Lazarus is currently hibernating. Long may that last.
Meantime can we deal this week with a global situation that should jab us all with justified pride about the achievements, especially in the USA, of the generations of our ancestors forced to flee a famine-stricken little island in a bygone era of poverty, pain and prejudice.
Another fragment of the pure folkloric truth is that the so-called Coffin Ships and their survivors after horrific enforced emigrations from Ireland have hugely enriched the New World at every level.
We should be very proud of them.
Is it not a historic fact that those left behind on the impoverished island also achieved what was apparently impossible?
They were the closest neighbours to one of the most powerful colonial powers in the whole wide world at the time, an empire that occupied us as it was stamping its language and customs across the world.
Yet, against all the odds, the Irish people who did not emigrate were the first to expel the UK from all but one small corner of the island and establish our own republic.
The historic facts speak for themselves.
Come back in time with me now to the men and women who were forced to emigrate, especially to the United States and their achievements after being processed at Ellis Island and elsewhere and then, with only primary education and, in many cases, little facility with the English language, since they came from Gaeltacht areas.
So they went out through the USA to seek better lives than they had ever achieved before and by Heavens, they have since been hugely successful at every level of their adopted nation.
It is a sign of their triumph, for example, that the current president Joe Biden constantly expresses his pride at having Irish blood in his veins and his predecessor Obama dug deeply into his family tree to discover an ancestor, from that coffin-ship era, who had roots in Leinster.
The pure truth yet again...
To prove my point in the most entertaining way possible, sit down and watch the TV news bulletins dealing with the important stories of the day.
I guarantee ye will not be watching the screens for more than a few minutes before being bombarded with Irish Christian names and surnames.
For example, the clinching witness in the conviction of the George Floyd murderer was a professor named Tobin, the lady TV anchor announcing the verdict was Erin, the leader of the political Republicans in the Senate was a McConnell (no family connection with our lot!) and at least 30% of all the powerful voices dealing with the crucial social, political and economic issues of our time in the USA are uttered by men and women with Irish surnames or Christian names.
Start counting all the "Os" and "Mc's" and ye will have a long list before the programme is over. Mark my words on that one.
We'll leave it there for now because the golden sun is shining again over the Clare shores of Lough Derg and I'm heading out for another jab of it so that I will be ready for action again next week. Wish me well!
