They shot him dead
For possession of a gun
Robert Erskine Childers
And for being an Englishman
English-Irish heritage
Imperialist and rebel
Rode his bike from Kerry
Right into his peril
In America they live with guns
Call it a human right
Then someone goes on a killing spree
A one-way vicious fight
The cops arrive it’s then too late
The damage has been done
They close the barn door after them
And after the horse has run
In Scotland the answer ’s ‘No’
We cannot give permission
You’ll have to use good arguments
It’s only the intermission
If we want independence
There is still a way to go
Patience is the only game
Life comes dropping slow
Brian Fahy
23 November 2022
+ It is a hundred years ago today that Robert Erskine Childers was executed in Dublin. His crime was possession of a hand gun in his home, a gift from Michael Collins two years earlier. But fraught times made such possession punishable by death.
+ In America, in Virginia, a man has shot dead several people in a Walmart store and injured many more, before shooting himself.
+ In the UK a court has ruled a referendum on Scottish independence not permissible. Better to keep on with the political discourse and see how the views grow or change, and to bring a great majority with you. Better that than the bloodshed that so damaged Ireland and Irish families for so many years. Today it is possible to see how Ireland may actually grow into a unity that one hundred years ago was so bitterly disputed.
Erris Poetry 