‘Our boys went to Lebanon and trained Hezbollah!’ shouted the drunk Irish lad in the fish and chip shop as an Indian man behind the counter silently fried chips.
‘Chucky ar la!’ the lad shouted, or Tiocfaidh ar la, to correctly spell in Irish the slogan of the IRA, meaning ‘Our day will come.’ And he went on shouting this, over and over, as the Indian fellow stared down into the fryer, and the Friday night customers formed a queue in this small fast-food joint in a West Cork harbour town.
The Irish lad was not getting the message that the Hindu chap frying chips was probably not a massive Hezbollah or Hamas supporter, and he carried on shouting about Gaza and inviting the man behind the counter to join in with him.
The long-standing allegiance which the Irish feel for the Palestinians is becoming hysterical. This is probably why the authorities have just had to slap terrorism charges on a member of the scuzzy Northern Irish hip hop band no one had heard of before, charmingly entitled Kneecap, in honour of the way the IRA used to administer justice, after he allegedly waved a flag in support of Hezbollah, a proscribed organisation, at a London gig.
All over West Cork where we live, the Palestinian flags fly, including on farms. You are more likely to see the red, white, green and black flying than an Irish tricolour. In this, our nearest fish and chip shop, there are Palestinian flag key fobs for sale on the counter. We try to ignore them as we order, but their presence puts me off my cod.
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