The TV's on, 6-something p.m.,
I watch Tom Brokaw speak in even tones
Like they must train every newscaster to speak in.
This time it's about Ireland; Belfast, to be exact,
And the footage plays of the Catholic girls
Trying to walk through Protestant neighborhoods
To get to school, but the "Prods" don't want them
"Trespassing" on their property,
And throw rocks and bricks at the little girls,
While the police come and beat the Protestants back with clubs.
And while small Catholic girls with adorable accents
Sob on camera, the lyrics of a chorus song
Play in my head, the song we sang last fall.

I'll tell my ma when I go home,
The boys won't leave the girls alone.
They pulled my hair and stole my comb,
But that's all right 'til I go home.

...Now it's not just the boys who won't leave those little girls alone.
Even as we sang the song the war raged on,
And even last year I wondered how
Two factions of the same religion could
Do these things to each other in the name of the very same
Savior, the same Christ they both serve.
I think of all my Catholic friends
And realize that if we lived in Ireland instead,
Those same people that I've laughed and cried with here
Would most likely hate me.
I'd most likely hate them, 'cause I'm Protestant.
Why?
How did America get one message, and Ireland another?
And don't we see what kind of message we're sending,
That this is another thing to add to the list
Of the injustices Christians have committed in religious fervor?
Add this to the Middle Ages, the Spanish Inquisition.
One more reason, as though any were needed,
For atheists and non-Christians to call us hypocrites,
For them to recite us our own commandments,
And show us just how easy it is to forget
That we represent love in its purest form.

She is handsome, she is pretty,
She is the belle of Belfast City.
She is courting one, two, three,
Please won't you tell me, who is she?

...Whoever she is, I have her country's blood in me.
I think of some of my friends,
Who, like me, are partly of Irish ancestry,
And wonder what they think of all this,
If they consider this madness as much as I do.
And I'm reminded of David, the Irish boy
That was in several of my classes in sixth grade.
He was only in my school, in America, for a month or so.
Then he went back to Ireland.
He was short, with perfect Irish features and a voice to match.
We never asked him why he was here.
The year this war began slips my mind,
But could it be that he had to flee from the war,
That he and his family were taking refuge with relatives for a while?
I don't know.
He went back--is he there now?
And what does he think of this?
I pray a bomb or stray bullet, or whatever, hasn't found him.

Albert Mooney says he loves her,
All the boys are fighting for her.
They rap on the door and they ring the bell,
Saying, "Oh, my true love, are you well?"

...He was never my love, but is David well?
I think of Bono, the U2 lead singer,
Irish to the core, protesting in his songs,
Like me, against the madness of this war.
He's even come to Ireland.
Didn't a bomb disrupt his talks one day,
Or was that someone else?
I don't remember.
They don't seem to have listened yet, anyway.
Is this even a war over religion anymore,
Or, as some opinions maintain, just a counting of the dead?
A you-killed-my-brother-so-I'll-kill-you war?

Out she comes as white as snow,
Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes.
Old Johnny Murray, he says she'll die
If she doesn't get the fellow with the roving eye.

...How long until Ireland's white snow stops turning red?
Red like Rojane, the religious faction I made up for the Applebus saga.
I got the word by twisting "rojo", the Spanish for red,
Though the group itself wasn't meant to be Spanish.
I never realized then the clarity of D'rai's words to Maik,
"[The Indilanis] don't believe that killing off the other religion
Is the solution to their problem."
It's not the solution to Ireland's, either.
Tomorrow will be the first day of school for me,
But I have a feeling that in the midst of all my last-minute preparations
And the breakneck pace of tomorrow morning,
The plight of Irish children will be with me still.

She is handsome, she is pretty,
She is the belle of Belfast City.
She is courting one, two, three,
Please, won't you tell me, who is she?