Why was Robert Emmet a rebel, Uncle?
Oh, I suppose he didn"t like to have the English here.
What English, Uncle? I"ve never seen any English knockin" "bout
The soldiers, Johnny, the English soldiers
What, is it Tom an" Mick you mean?
No, no...They"re not English –
They"re Irish-but they"re soldiers, aren"t they?
Yes, yes they"re soldiers.
They"re Irish soldiers then Uncle, that"s what they are.
No no, no; not Irish soldiers
Well, what sort of soldiers are they?
English, English soldiers really
Ah yes, it’s that time of the year when the red poppy forces us to ask questions about who we are and where we have come from. The above quote comes from Sean O’Casey’s autobiography. It covers events which occurred exactly 100 years ago and these events will be marked/celebrated/ignored/argued over for the next ten years as we hurtle towards 2022 and the Centenary of the Free State. However each November we will see the Poppy.
We think that there were about 210,000 ‘Toms and Micks’ fighting for the British Army in the period 1914-18. 50,000 of them died. If we assumed that each came from a family of six, we can see that is a significant number of Irish people directly affected by the war. And yet the poppy provokes waves of wrath whenever it was and is mentioned.
So why wear a poppy? Firstly it isn’t about supporting war or the British Army. The money raised does not go to fund war or the Army itself. The poppy appeal is run by the British Legion in Ireland and the cash is used to support services to ex-members who may have been injured in conflict. So that might mean your granddad or great-uncle. Or it could mean a young Irish recruit injured in Iraq or Afghanistan. Yes, Irish people still join the British Army.
I went to Trinity College Dublin so maybe became used to seeing the poppy worn. It still was a strange sight, don’t get me wrong. This was the 90s.
It was only in the last few years when the poppy has slowly re-entered Irish society. People wear them and people have the confidence to sell them on the street. The normalization was brought home to me last year when I saw the door man of Brown Thomas in Dublin wearing his poppy with pride.
So, if you think you want to wear a poppy then wear a poppy. No big deal. You’re still Irish. You’re just remembering other Irish men and women. No shame in that.
