"The Fighting Irish" Topic

"When this year's postponed St. Patrick's Day parade is rescheduled, the New York Army National Guard's 1st Battalion (the Fighting 69th Infantry Regiment), led by two Irish wolfhound mascots, will march up Fifth Avenue and mark its 169th year in the St. Patrick's Day parade. The tradition began in New York City in 1762; when the first parade honoring the patron saint of Ireland was held by Irish soldiers serving in the British army.

The Fighting 69th in its present form was organized by Irish revolutionary and Civil War Union general Thomas Francis Meagher of County Waterford. The raison d'être for inviting the 69th to lead the St. Patrick's Day parade in 1851 was to protect the Irish from the violence orchestrated by the anti-immigrant "Know-Nothings."

In a St. Patrick's Day speech in 1855, Meagher denounced anti-immigrant movements, insisting that America "does itself great wrong when it supposes, in view of that which occurs in the emigration from Ireland, that it can fail in its strength because of the addition which it receives from poor old Ireland, drawing out drops of her choicest blood, and infusing them into the veins of this young giant, that he may go forward with more rapid strides to achieve the brilliant conquest which awaits him in the future." …"
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Amicalement
Armand

Well said, and timely. Erin go Braugh.

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand