The Final Touch of Hope: Across the Centuries of Irish Ascension

Summer L.

A year ago this day, I stood beneath the boiling water of my own shower head. I contemplated what this world might look like if I simply ceased to exist. Would the possible disadvantages for those abandoned in my wake outweigh the personal benefits of my timely disappearance? I could not imagine that there was truly any need for me to remain in this monstrous world, suffering at the hands of those who believed themselves to be so incredibly superior to me. The heat burned through the thinnest layers of my skin, turning my complexion bright red. My fingers were itching for the razor on the shelf; craving the rush I knew I would get if I just nicked my wrist with the blade—if I could just bring myself to inflict the pain I deserved and let the droplets of blood drop to the shower floor.

I didn’t want to kill myself; that would have an impact – it would hurt people. I wanted to switch it off. I wanted to make the pain stop. I am tragedy incarnate and I have only ever found one person who could see through my façade. He was the only person who has ever looked out for me, the only person who has ever noticed my pain. He would tell me not to give in, he always told me I was worth everything.

Although I hate to admit it, he was never the one to make me change my mind.

History is written by the survivors and I aspire to be a name in the books I study and yearn to belong within. I flip the pages, searching the chronicles of my ancestors’ past as they grappled with the cruel leadership of the colonizing powers.

I refuse to follow in their footsteps, falling down a dangerous path because nobody would

believe in them. Their tragedies survive in my mind for I can finally appreciate the truth in the words: the Irish do not forget. Our memories live on past the years of oppression and

suppression.

Strength of willpower bubbles through my veins. My ancestors never gave in—not during a

plethora of uprisings and revolutions against the great colonizing power of the western world. They held on to their cultural identity, even when laws were made against them. My ancestors struggled onwards when they were faced with the threat of execution for speaking their language and practicing their traditions on their own land. My ancestors never gave up; not even throughout the Great Famine.

The Great Famine was my people's' genocide—sometimes referred to as The Potato Famine or The Great Hunger. Names that downplay the severity of my country’s tragic past. Names that erase the reasons my people act the way we do today.

We suffered for nearly four centuries under the evil rule of a colonial power, soldiers wearing a crown adorned in the blood of their victims; the blood of my ancestors.

The 1800s marked the start of a new era on our green isle, a dark time for an innocent nation. An agricultural disease reached our land from the European mainland: a potato blight. The potatoes in our ground were ruined, turned black with infestation. Potatoes were rotting in the ground, and thus, the Irish people were labelled with an obsession of potatoes. My people were starving, an extreme lack of food tormenting them. The colonial powers had always taken all of our crops; all but the potatoes. When our potatoes began to die, our rulers continued to steal all of our food. Cruel colonial powers have ruined foreign lands since the beginning of time and, in this specific instance, they profited from the exploitation and destruction of my land.

As an important power of the modern world, the British Empire was forced to at least appear as if they were trying to repair the situation in Ireland. They set up soup kitchens, offering food to those who were willing to anglicise their family names. They created road work schemes, setting starving civilians to work on building roads and bridges. The majority of people working on these projects, starved to death and were left as a pile of decomposing corpses on a side road until they were shoved into a mass grave.

My country is still suffering the consequences of this terrible tragedy—our population has yet to recover, our language is still in decline, and our culture will never revive to the level it was once at.

My history still impacts my behaviors today; my history has both ruined the livelihood of

millions and saved my life.

My people will always protect those in whom they see a reflection of our past. When a country is denied its freedom, its brothers will always fight by its side.

The question being asked today: why is Ireland such an advocate for Palestine?

We have been in their position and we refuse to forget the pain. We will fight for their freedom with the same fierceness we fought for ours—no matter how many of our fights ended in mass death and tragedy.

Memory is an intrinsic component of humanity—raw and delicate, it hurts but it is necessary. We need to remember the past to prevent these tragedies from repeating themselves in future generations.