🔥 A Fire Still Smoldering: The Genocidal Behavior of the English in Ireland, and the Spiritual Betrayal of a People
⚔️ An Ancient Invasion: The Seed of Empire
Long before the Crown’s ships crossed the vast oceans to plant flags across Turtle Island and beyond, its thirst for dominion was already quenching itself on the green hills of Ireland.
1169–1171: Anglo-Norman Invasion
The so-called invitation of Norman warlords, backed by the English crown, was no mere alliance—it was the planting of a foreign root into sacred Irish soil. It marked the beginning of a centuries-long desecration. This was not merely a land grab. It was the first chapter in an imperial playbook: divide, convert, colonize.
🩸 Tudor and Stuart Conquests: The Unmasking of Terror
From the 1500s onward, the policy of subjugation escalated. The English Crown launched campaign after campaign, not just against the Irish, but against their very essence:
Land theft broke the sacred bond between people and place.
Brehon laws—an ancient, Indigenous justice system—were outlawed.
Gaelic language and Catholic faith were criminalized.
Entire villages were burned, crops salted, and elders slain.
The Desmond Rebellions, the Nine Years’ War, the Plantation of Ulster—these were not simply battles of empire. They were calculated erasures of Indigenous ways of knowing, governing, and living.
This was not war. This was spiritual murder. This was genocide.
☠️ Cromwell’s Scorched Earth: “To Hell or to Connacht”
In 1649, Cromwell arrived with the cold heart of conquest. His Puritan righteousness masked genocidal rage.
Drogheda and Wexford were baptized not in holy water, but in the blood of priests and children.
Thousands were enslaved, shipped like cattle to Barbados and Jamaica—early echoes of the transatlantic slave trade.
The Irish became property. Their grief was repackaged as “order.”
This was not justice. This was colonial theology in full armor, where the sword was used to baptize and the Bible was burned.
🌾 The Great Hunger: Starvation as Strategy
Between 1845 and 1852, when the potato crop failed, it did not lead to famine—it led to weaponized starvation. This where Kindred Spirits was born.
“The Almighty has sent the calamity to teach the Irish a lesson.” — Charles Trevelyan.
Even as Irish mothers cradled dying children, ships loaded with Irish grain and beef sailed for English markets.
1 million dead. 1.5 million exiled. And countless generations traumatized.
Let this be said without hesitation: This was genocide. Not all by sword. But by silence, neglect, and moral rot masquerading as economic doctrine.
🧠 Cultural Genocide and the War on Spirit
The colonial mission was never merely to conquer land—it was to destroy memory.
Irish children were beaten for speaking Gaelic.
Harps, songs, and sacred gatherings were banned or mocked.
Irish Catholics became tenants on their land, spiritually criminalized and educationally starved.
It was the same strategy used on our Nations—across the Great Plains, in the Andes, in the Dreamtime lands—to erase the Sacred and install the Crown.
🌍 From Turtle Island to Éire: A Shared Wound, A Shared Prayer
We, the Indigenous Peoples of the Earth, recognize in the Irish story our reflection:
Spiritual lifeways attacked.
Children taken.
Lands plundered.
Communities divided.
We see it in the Indian Act. In the Trail of Tears. In the burning of the sweat lodges. In the outlawing of sundances and sacred fires.
Empire speaks many languages. But its wounds all cry the same.'
🌱 Resilience: The Sacred Fire Never Died
And yet, through all this, the spirit of the Irish people did not break. It bent. It bled. But it did not break.
From the Easter Rising to the Gaelic Revival, from poets to peacemakers, the Irish have walked the long road from shadow toward dawn.
And now, as Indigenous Peoples of the North and South, the East and West of Abya Yala, Africa, the Pacific and beyond we rise with our Irish relatives. We rise for the Sacred Tree of all Peoples.
🇮🇪 The Question of Irish Reunification: A Spiritual Reckoning
The call for Irish reunification is not merely political—it is ancestral. It is a return, not just of borders, but of belonging.
If the English Crown, or any inheritor of its legacy, truly seeks healing, let them:
Withdraw from stolen land, not only in the North of Ireland, but across the Earth.
Denounce Papal Bulls and the Doctrine of Discovery, not with apologies but with action.
Return artifacts, wealth, and sacred sites to their rightful Peoples.
Acknowledge the genocide—in Ireland, in Turtle Island, in Africa, India, the Middle East, and in every land around Mother Earth, that was not their brand of "Christianity."
Only then can we begin a transition, not just in Ireland, but for our Entire Human Family.
🕯️ Final Word: Truth, Memory, and the Path Forward
To speak these truths is not to dwell in pain. It is to light the sacred fire of memory.
Let this be known: The English colonization of Ireland was not civilizing—it was genocidal.
Let this be remembered: The Irish spirit lives. The sacred songs rise again.
Let this be shared: We are One Human Family. We will not be divided by the Crown. Not again. Not ever.
Let us now gather around the Sacred Fire—Dakota, Irish, Māori, Mapuche, Saami, Palestinian, Yoruba, and beyond. Let us remember the pain. Let us honor the dead. Let us rise together—for Truth, Justice, and the Restoration of Sacred Balance.
With Warm Love and Greetings,
Hereditary Chief Phil Lane Jr,
Šuŋkmanu na Čhaŋnúpa Sápa, Hiŋháŋ Wičhášta–Phizí–Deloria Thióšpaye kiŋ, Iháŋktȟuŋwaŋ na Chickasaw Nations.
Chairperson-Four Worlds, Compassion Games International, Four Directions
Member of the Council of the Condor, Hummingbird, Quetzal, and Eagle, and the Elders’ Council of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society.
