Thursday, March 17, 2022

Friday, March 17, 1922. St. Patrick's Day.

 Irish patriot Michael Collins addresses a crowed at Skibbereen in County Cork, Ireland.  The Irish Civil War was about to commences.

St. Patrick's Day 1922 was the first such day in an Ireland newly restored to independence after 500 years of English occupation.  It was also, unfortunately, one that was only quasi peaceful, as the Irish Civil War was about to break out.

While in the United States such things no longer occur, St. Patrick's Day also used to be a day of racist agitation by groups that saw their opposition to Catholicism as something to make a public protest about.  One such group with the Ku Klux Klan, which on this day held a parade in Washington, D.C.  The parade features this group of airborne racist flying above the demonstration dropping leaflets.


Interestingly enough, the swastika that appeared on the tail of this plane was not yet associated with Nazism, so the use here foreshadows the horrors that symbol would later be associated with.

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