In 1945, Winston Churchill said that Britain could have easily taken over Ireland during World War 2 and that "it would have been quite natural" for them to do so. In one of the most famous radio broadcasts ever delivered in Ireland, Eamon De Valera issued this famous response in which he pointed out that "there was one small nation which had resisted aggression for not one or two but for 800 years" and which "had never surrendered her soul."
Yesterday, a similar insult to Churchill's was delivered to the Irish nation in the shape of a video on the TMZ website, suggesting that we were a backward race who did not know who Jay Z and Beyonce were. A more objectionable insult has never been uttered against another nation state. Even the Sunday Times' Stephen Jones would have drawn the line.
Justifiable outrage followed. People wrote long essays in the Youtube comments section underneath the video but we were waiting for a true champion, a modern day Eamon De Valera, to emerge and defend us.
And he has arrived.
Cormac Moore, of the Crackedi radio show on Iradio (they also do a smashing sports feature on Thursday night. It's really brilliant. Check it out.) has issued this truly stirring response to the scurrilous people of TMZ. Kids will study this monologue in school in sixty years time. It will become part of the glorious story of Irish resistance and fighting spirit. In the most moving passage he reminded Americans that Jay Z and Beyonce (or Beyan-key as Radio Kerry's Weeshie Fogarty once had it) were left alone because "We (the Irish) like tea and craic and leaving people alone cause we're sound."
You'll have to forgive me the emotion as I write these words. Truly, as was said of Dev, he spoke for all of us.
The whole set piece made me want to go out and belt out the national anthem like Peter O'Mahony on a crowded train or outside the American embassy.
Here's Cormac's voicemail message for @TMZ https://t.co/VPDVNJCXbv #IrelandInspires
— iRadio Official (@ThisisiRadio) March 13, 2014
H/T : Cormac Moore
