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3 Letters of my self


On the appellation ‘Anglo-Celtic’


Most of the dearest friends of mine have been ‘Black.’

 

It’s not a conscious thing.

 

It just happens.

 

I find these friends of mine to be more genuine & of course, less easily scandalised.

 

We laugh in a way that my few white friends don’t that much.

 

Of course when you’re as ‘weird’ as I am… blah blah

 

On my Irishness

 

Investigate ‘Irish’ as a descriptor in Standard Australian English.

 

When a cricket ball swings the opposite way

It is said to “go Irish”

 

In my childhood,

 

Irish jokes were common place.

 

Remember,

It was the White Australia Policy


So there were different points of difference 

 

So the Irish were Sociologically speaking ‘Deviant.’

 

Due to my father’s leaving his post as Catholic Priest

 

To commence a romantic relationship with my beaten & divorced single mother of 3 and the children’s care

 

This Irish Immigrant

 

Found himself working in an Anglican Boy’s School

 

--

 

On my Irishness

 

What many the new generation of CALD broadcasters in my birth city of Naarm-Melbourne fail to recognise is that until very recently the Irish were enemies of the Commonwealth of Australia.

All throughout my childhood, a war of Independence was being fought daily after centuries of Colonialism, Indentured Slavery and British attempts at Genocide.

The Irish were regarded as ‘Terrorists’ by all Australian Media and Power Brokers.

They were denied membership of the Melbourne Cricket Club and many private clubs until fairly recently.

The fact that many Colonial Australians of Irish descent have chosen to ingratiate themselves with their former oppressors is a disgrace to the slain and enslaved memories of their ancestors.

Their lack of solidarity with the world’s and the nation’s marginalised and victimised I find unforgivable .

Their pettiness and ‘cuteness.’

It speaks to greed and lack of moral accountability, too often the opportunism of the modern ‘aspirational’ Person.

--

Of course, Colour plays a massive role, in daily life for all people ‘of colour’ via the scourges of Discrimination, Racism, overt & covert.

But that’s not my topic here.

Just wanting it known that I am both an Irishman and an Australian though I have lived nearly all my life here in Victoria.

 

--

 

But my childhood was harrowing with the war going on.

“There” and “here” blurred & collided.

 

And I blame the Trauma endured on the brutality of the British Government, the Power Brokers in my home city & suburb and the racism of my father’s employer far more than I do the personal failings of my father.

 

Letter to my former and gentlemanly English Teacher, who did much for me

 

Dear …,

 

The school saw my father, for its affections, and all us Doyles,

As ‘Other’

 

So

 

No thank you ….

 

I was right to resign my membership of the Old Boys when it was assumed during my HSC/VCE year, before its commencement date.

[The brutality and abuses of that place].

 

I am a member of the human race,

And no organisation’s brand

 

Has any claim of entitlement over me.

 

I fight hard for my freedom.

 

I am kind man, tolerant of personal traits and cultural beliefs, but I have a very clear line on certain matters,

 

Which I do not cross.

 

To borrow from the great Irish-Aboriginal Songman Kev Carmody:

 

“You can take my life and liberty friend,

But you will never buy my soul.”

 

Respectfully,

 

Malachi 

 

 

Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2021.

 

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