UPDATED 20/3: Saint Patrick's Day greetings to ye all!

Here we are again, another Saint Paddy's Day gone by and Eire still divided. Not that it matters as much as it did when you and I were young, Magee. Today's Ireland bears little resemblance to that for which our ancestors fought. 

Faith, didn't they elect a prime minister who's not only a brown furriner, but gay to boot! And didn't his very woke government just bring forward a prooposal to change the Republic's constitution away from traditional Christian family values? On March 8th, the government called on citizens to vote in two referendums called "the Family Amendment" and "the Care Amendment".

The first of these proposals asked to remove a reference to marriage as the basis "on which the family is founded" and replace it with a clause that says families can be founded "on marriage or on other durable relationships". Like "gay marriage", you see.

The care amendment proposed to remove women's role in the home, by deleting a statement that says "mothers shouldn't be obligated by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their home duties" and adding a clause saying the state will strive to support "the provision of care by members of a family to one another".  

Thanks be to God and the Blessed Virgin, the Plain Peepul of Ireland still have enough of the Faith to reject the proposed amendments. 67.69% of voters in the referendum said "NO" to the first amendment. The second, anti-family amendment, was rejected by 73.93%! Did the wokesters in Dublin really think the Irish were going to vote against motherhood?! 

Well, enough politics. To all the Irish -- including those who identify as Irish, those who feel like they're Irish, and those who wish they were Irish [and who doesn't?! Ed.] -- wherever they are -- in Derry, Sligo, Coleraine, Tullamore, Adjala Township and/or south Boston -- HAPPY SAINT PATRICK'S DAY TO YEZ. 

Recommended reading: na Gopaleen, Myles (pseudonym of Flann O'Brien): The Best of Myles, Picador 1977. 

In particular, Walt likes the chapters titled "The Brother" (how could yez not laugh?) and "The Plain People of Ireland". 

Many denizens of the auld sod won't be able to read the parts written in Irish Gaelic. [Faith now, I can't read it meself! Ed.] But the Irish are still the Irish, even if they live in a part of Ireland separated from the rest by the foreign (read: English) oppressors. God bless all of them, and haste the day that the Six Counties will be reunited with the rest of the country.

GREAT UPDATE added 20/3/24: "It's a long road that has no turnings." (Auld Irish saying.) Glory be! Ireland's "progressive" (read: woke as all get out) Prime Minister Leo Varadkar has announced he is resigning for "personal and political" reasons. 

This news comes less than two weeks after he was soundly defeated on a referendum (see above) to redefine marriage and the role of women in the nation's constitution. Click here to read the whole story on Breitbart News. St. Patrick must indeed be smiling on his people.

Celebrate Mother's Day, celebrate life!

Genesis tells us that Eve is the mother of all humans. In the New Testament we learn that the Blessed Virgin Mary is the Mother of God, hence the Mother of all Christians. Let us give thanks to God for our Heavenly Mother and for our own human mothers.

Here are some amazing but true stories of motherhood.

The youngest mother whose history is authenticated is Lina Medina, who delivered a 6½-pound boy by caesarean section in Lima, Peru in 1939. Her age was only 5 years and 7 months. The child was raised as her brother and only discovered that Lina was his mother when he was 10.

Jayne Bleackley is the mother who holds the record for the shortest interval between two children born in separate confinements. She gave birth to Joseph Robert on September 3, 1999, and Annie Jessica Joyce on March 30, 2000. The babies were born 208 days apart.

Elizabeth Ann Buttle is the mother who holds the record for the longest interval between the birth of two children. She gave birth to Belinda on May 19,1956 and Joseph on November 20, 1997. The babies were born 41 years 185 days apart. Elizabeth was 60 years old when her son Joseph was born.

The highest officially recorded number of children born to one mother is 69, to the first wife of Feodor Vassilyev (1707-1782) of Shuya, Russia. Between 1725 and 1765, in a total of 27 confinements, she gave birth to 16 pairs of twins, seven sets of triplets, and four sets of quadruplets. 67 of them survived infancy.

The modern world record for giving birth is held by Leontina Albina from San Antonio, Chile. Leontina claims to be the mother of 64 children, but only 55 of them are documented. She is listed in the 1999 Guinness World Records but was dropped from later editions.

Click here for more trivia on mothers and motherhood.