Blazing Reader:
As singer and songwriter David Rovics says, this is "a story that was purposefully forgotten."
In the 1840s, a million Irish fled to the United States escaping the tyranny of their occupied homeland. When they arrived the men were given a gun, a uniform and orders to commit the same atrocities they were fleeing — but this time upon the Mexicans.
"Mexico abolished slavery in 1810," writes journalist Ken McCarthy. "Slave owners from Texas and other states were furious with that and wanted to turn Mexico into a slave nation again to expand their operations and cut off escape to the south."
As David Rovics sings, they were asked to be "Part of a conquering army with the morals of a bayonet blade."
Instead, thousands of Irishmen deserted the US Army and became Mexican citizens.
Two hundred of those deserters, however, didn't merely refuse to cooperate with evil, they vowed to oppose it: They joined the Mexican army to stop the invasion, murder and enslavement of the Mexican people.
As Rovics' song proclaims:
We were the red-headed fighters for freedom
Amidst these brown-skinned women and men
Side by side we fought against tyranny
And I daresay we'd do it again
It's a song about humans acting human: putting truth, justice and freedom above race, culture and nationality.
You can listen to a live recording of Rovics performing his ballad to the "St. Patrick's Battalion" on Ken McCarthy's Brasscheck TV or hear a cover with a real Irish lilt on Seth Staton Watkins' YouTube channel.
Stay sane, be brave,
—John C. A. Manley
John C. A. Manley is the author of Much Ado About Corona, All The Humans Are Sleeping and other works of philosophical fiction that are "so completely engaging that you find yourself alternately laughing, gasping, hanging on for dear life." Get free samples of his stories by becoming a Blazing Pine Cone email subscriber.
