1992…yeah, I’d love to learn more about it My wife’s family is so ****ing English it hurts me as an Irish American lol…she can trace her mom’s mom back to arriving in North Carolina when you got here because the English govt set it up for you be here.
What are hell are you talking about. He invited me to his place with the idea of killing me and made it public. WTF are you talking about? I made no personal threats to him until after he threatened me
Just wanna make sure it’s clear that you’re invited to the potato boil or the shepherd’s pie dinner. I wish I could introduce you to my grandfather, because he’d be astonished at how much you care about his family’s history and humanity.
One of the stories you might know from Irish Independence was that when the with the UK was signed creating an independent Ireland and the 6 counties of Ulster remaining in the UK. Many Irish opposed the treaty. Eamon Valera who had been the president of the new provisional government split with Michael Collins who had been the military leader and Justice Minister of the provisional government. Collins had been one of the signatories of the treaty and was considered now the de facto leader. He felt that the treaty while far from perfect was the best chance for peace. Valara wanted to keep on fighting. Civil war broke out and Collins was assasinated by Valara's troops. Collins' side did win though. The main point though is that maybe love did win out on the Island of Ireland it took a lot of blood before it did. In the case of the Palestinians Hamas defeated the PA in Gaza and the PA was crtitically weakened. This meant that the main player on the Palestinian side has no interest in peace. This could've been the case if Eamon Valera won the Irish Civil War.
I'm '93. Those genealogy websites and tests are crazy now, sometimes you can go way back on certain branches. Once you go back 7 generations or so you're talking about like 128 ancestors. Go back far enough and we are all related no matter what color or ethnicity you are. That's what is so sad about all these wars and conflicts. Brothers killing brothers.
Next time I'm Houston am down to boil some potatoes. This has more though to do with that I'm a nerd who absorbs history and that the Hong Kong resistance to the British didn't have as many good songs or pubs.
Amen…it’s awful. I think we might figure it out one day. But still want to talk Native American history if you’re up for it
Could not agree more. Find humor where you can. Double down on helping your loved ones. Try to make other people's journey a little easier. But we are headed for a truly shitty few decades. If I'm wrong, I will richly welcome everyone making fun of me.
On Saturday my primary worry was how the Stros bats were going to deal with Twins pitching. Which I still am concerned about. it just doesn't quite seem as important as it did.
It just seems like we're going to have a multi-polar more chaotic geopolitical time. People aren't as afraid of war as they were for a while. And of course, people took peace for granted. They are bored. And it looks like a huge number of people are moving toward Operation FAFO.
I was more worried about the disinformation aspect. Israel and hamas have been fighting since the beginning of time. What other conflict are you worried about? Ukraine sucks but it's not like a single American life has been lost? This is the first time in decades we don't have any us troops in combat areas
Only if there are a few in Iran. I’ve been to the ones outside of Cairo. If the IDF struck them, they’d likely shrug it off.
USA isn't going let israel hit iran. You know hitting Iran would bring 100+ oil immediately. It's election season and gas prices are the #1 thing folks are concerned about unfortunately
Can’t believe someone on a Rockets message board threw out Eamon de Valera. Drinks are absolutely on me. Eamon in my family growing up was like Bill Doran or my grandma calling Jim Deshaies her boyfriend lol. They fought a civil war over that treaty, and that resonated over most of my life. Good Friday Agreement was amazing, and honestly Bill Clinton was the right guy in the right moment for that. So was the United States of America. I thought about that a lot, knowing that my great great grandfather was Thomas Patrick McMahon who came over in 1860 and fought for a heavy artillery regiment out of Rhode Island that was heavily decorated after the battle in New Berne, NC. I don’t know where Thomas Patrick McMahon would have landed on that treaty dispute. I’ll never know. I’m not sure if he would have even cared after having put his life on the line for the United States against the south. Weird to me that I didn’t grow up Catholic, but my grandfather fell in love with the Episcopal Church here in America after he went to an Episcopalian funeral. I guess we were super American by then, because I’m so grateful to that Episcopal Church in Midtown Houston because it welcomed homeless and homosexuals in the late 80’s and early 90’s right before I left for college. My last Sunday there as an acolyte before I left for college, a gay man stood up for me in that amazingly beautiful chapel and asked the church to give me a farewell applause…I never forgot that. People are people. We all have our ****. Love is going to win.
I figured you might know about the Irish civil war and I even forgot the "de" in Eamon de Valera. Good to hear about your family story. Sorry to derail the thread though with talking about Irish history. I like to point out the good Friday peace treaty as one where things worked out between intractable enemies but it wasn't quick and a lot of blood preceded it. While Clinton was the good for Irish peace the Oslo agreement didn't last even Clinton's presidency.
https://www.pbs.org/show/once-upon-time-northern-ireland/ excellent 5 part doc on the troubles in northern ireland. so compelling i watched it twice.
