No Bloody Homes Of Yer Own?

From The Transcripts:

Martin Galvin gives us a wee lesson in American History today and hopes that one day Ireland will celebrate the same history and the same holiday.


Radio Free Éireann
WBAI 99.5FM Pacifica Radio
New York City
listen on the internet: wbai.org Saturdays Noon EST
(begins time stamp ~2:00)

Martin: We want to wish everybody a Happy Thanksgiving, a Happy Black Friday, if you do and also a Happy Evacuation Day! What this means is:




Yesterday, November 25th , was a holiday that should not be forgotten. In 1783 at the end of the American Revolution – that was the day that British troops finally left New York, left America, at the end of the American Revolution.


And before going they hung a flag up on a pole and they greased it so that people had to climb up and cut it down before George Washington could enter and they fired a shot at the crowd who were no doubt singing things like:

Go home, British soldiers, go home!
Do you have no bloody homes of yer own?
But that was a holiday for a long period of time in New York, a street is named for that event, a flag was put up every year and, of course, it was superseded by when Abraham Lincoln proclaimed Thanksgiving Day during the American Civil War.

But anything to do with getting the British out is something we don’t want to forget on this programme and the Irish community shouldn’t forget and we still hope that we will have that Evacuation Day in Ireland.

(ends time stamp ~ 3:20)

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