Wednesday, May 16, 2007
We Are Cheyenne
With the announcement of power-sharing in Northern Ireland last week, I was thinking about how relationships had changed over the eight hundred years of British rule in Ulster (Britain's first colony), and more specifically in the four hundred years since the end of Gaelic governance there in the nation of Northern O'Neal.
Coincidentally, 2007 also marks the 400 year anniversary of the end of indigenous rule in Jamestown, Virginia--the second British colony. Which gives rise to the notion of power-sharing here, hopefully in less time than it took in the land of my ancestors.
As other British colonies can attest to, reconciliation is a treacherous task, made all the more difficult by the entrenched prejudice of colonial descendants, the most notorious of which are religious fundamentalists like Reverend Ian Paisley and the late Reverend Jerry Falwell. Yet it is achievable. The Irish have proved it.
Coincidentally, 2007 also marks the 400 year anniversary of the end of indigenous rule in Jamestown, Virginia--the second British colony. Which gives rise to the notion of power-sharing here, hopefully in less time than it took in the land of my ancestors.
As other British colonies can attest to, reconciliation is a treacherous task, made all the more difficult by the entrenched prejudice of colonial descendants, the most notorious of which are religious fundamentalists like Reverend Ian Paisley and the late Reverend Jerry Falwell. Yet it is achievable. The Irish have proved it.
