Northern Irish – by Randall Stephen Hall

Northern Irish.
By Randall Stephen Hall.
 
My snapshot is richer
For the influx of contrasting colours.
Genetically broader beyond the border
In the North.
But deeply compromised
By our cultural boundary fences.
Hemming in our genes
And leading to the prevalences
Of medical conditions
At whose expense?
Our very own.
 
To be Northern and Irish
Is a different thing.
Mary Lou and Michelle
Don’t seem to get that.
 Nationalism is over
One hundred years behind.
A one eyed blindness
Is what I find.
 
For I see the South looking northward
Able only to see a united Ireland
Without a tricolour and business as usual.
Come on, come on my friends.
Lend a hand to this ignorant vision.
Arrogance and intolerance
Cannot dig a new foundation
Without clearing out the old soil first.
 
I stand or fall 
In just being me.
The choice is yours too, you see?
I don’t listen to the barking bores.
Snapping at the obvious
Yet still oblivious to the real needs
Of starting afresh.
Unable to address their own past failings.
So melt down the railings
And make something new.
For the sky is not green
It is blue.
 

5 Responses to Northern Irish – by Randall Stephen Hall

  1. Patrick FINNEGAN September 29, 2024 at 10:41 am #

    sounds like Randall Stephen Hall has been listening to Micheál Martin

  2. Minifidian September 29, 2024 at 2:14 pm #

    A Bard comes forth to sing his song
    And tell us where we all go wrong

    Another bloke who knows it all
    His name is Randall Stephen Hall

    • Another Jude October 1, 2024 at 4:11 pm #

      Ha ha ha!! Very good!

      • SmellYe October 3, 2024 at 4:34 pm #

        Smells of AI writing

        From Bellaghy’s fields, a voice arises,
        Not Hall’s, but one who’s known the soil.
        This Randall sings of rights and wrongs,
        As if such truths come without toil.
        But Minifidian, sage and silent,
        Speaks volumes through his calloused hands.
        His wisdom’s etched in furrow lines,
        Not writ in verse or bold demands.
        For Heaney taught us how to listen
        To whispers from the bog and stone.
        True knowing comes from digging deep,
        Not from a bard’s self-certain tone.
        So let Hall’s ballad drift to silence,
        While Minifidian works the land.
        For in the end, it’s not grand claims,
        But quiet deeds by which we stand.

        I prompted claude. ai – write a riposte to the rhyme, In the style of Seamus Heaney

        A Bard comes forth to sing his song And tell us where we all go wrong
        Another bloke who knows it all His name is Randall Stephen Hall

  3. Donal Kennedy October 1, 2024 at 1:52 pm #

    It could be verse but the prosaic fact is that Irish Reopublicanism, Irish Nationality ,
    is not monochrome, monolingual, genetically determined, nor exclusive to any creed.

    Swift, who advised the Irish to burn everything English except coal, was an Englishman,
    Molyneux (excuse the misspelling) whose “Case for Ireland Stated” was burned by an English
    Hangman on the Orders of the Westminster Parliament, was not Celtic, Tone’s middle name
    “Wolfe2 was bestowed in honour of the British Officer who seized Quebec from the French,
    and as a youth would have been happy to march as an Ensign to a British drum, can be counted
    as the founding fathers of modern Irish nationalism. None of them was a Catholic.
    Nore were Lord Edward FitzGerald, Robert Emmet nor Thomas Davis.

    Pearse took his radicalism from his English father, a disciple of a man elected to Parliament but
    debarred from taking his seat because of Athiesm.

    There’s little Rhyme and sweet eff Hall Reason in Randall Stephen ….

    atheistt

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