Letter From America
Yes, this really is, from my suite I’m staying in here in Boston for the week. And yes, there were only 2 songs that came to mind for this blog, Simon and Garfunkel lost out, no prizes for working out which song. So if you want to go and find it…
But in all honesty, it could only come a distant second to this song, which if its based around the Scottish clearances, rather than the major Irish one, well I dont begrudge the Proclaimers that in the slightest. Yes, the Irish potato famine is about to raise its unruly head here lol!
I know, I was born in England, and all that. Doesnt stop me hating the English for what happened to all those poor Irish people 150 years ago, or slightly more. Equally I dont claim great historical knowledge of the events, only what I’ve read in various places, and seen monuments to in the West of Ireland especially. Its hard, at this distance in time to know just how badly the English treated the Irish at the time, but generally reports state it varies from very badly to horrifically!
Did I lkose any relatives in that time, either to famine, or the mass emigration in those awful ships to North America, no idea. But I suspect I must have done, and indeed but for a quirk of fate, I might be an American writing this, and not understand cricket in the slightest! Instead somewhere around the start of the 20th century, both of my ancestral families came to England.
I guess hating the English for what happened then is a bit harsh, life and times were very different, and so were attitudes, but all the same… There is Irish songs about the treatment of native folk by the English, but none provoke the same feelings for me as the Proclaimers song about the Clearances in their country.
So therefore, supporting the Celtic statement of English hard handedness in the past, I present
stevielounicks 
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