 Hi everybody. Happy St. Pat's Day. My name is Sandy Barrett and we're here with this Fookie session on Brexit as it influences still Scotland, Ireland, and England itself. I'm here tonight to say happy St. Pat's Day and introduce my friend to talk about Ireland. My friend Graham Clark, who I met a numbers of years ago, probably a lot of years ago, although it seems like yesterday, I believe I met Graham about 1985 or 86 when he introduced me kind of to the whole issue of Ireland. I'd always thought about Ireland in some degree because I'm a Scott and after all the Irish and the Scots, although sometimes they don't seem to like each other very much, are really basically kind of the same people with a big religious difference usually between the Irish were Catholics and the Scots who are a majority Protestant. But I met Graham at a seminar that he gave with numbers of his Irish friends in Montpelier and that seminar was about how England had created these overseas areas of influence that were done by England that were very similar and those similarities that he pointed out in that seminar were between England and Ireland, England and Palestine and England and South Africa, which I found very interesting. And so I followed that kind of issue for ever since then about this treatment of England toward its then empire, which included the beginnings of its empire in the UK itself in Scotland and in Ireland, and then later in Palestine and in South Africa. So Graham is here because he worked has worked on a much part of his life on the Irish situation. He knows a great deal about it. He was active in organizing what was called the McBride principles in our state legislature. And he has a lot to say about Ireland, particularly in how it affects how Ireland has been affected and how Scotland has been affected by Brexit and will continue to be influenced by that. And I want to point out that with us tonight is Ian Stokes who is originally from England and he's a British man. And so I'm happy that he is here. He also is an activist on the Palestinian question. So I'm sure that he will have stuff to say. So here's Graham to begin our session. We're expecting at some point to have Greg Delanti who is an Irish poet from Ireland, taught at St. Mike's for years to perhaps chime in because after all, this is a celebration of a big holiday in this country usually, which is St. Patrick's Day, kind of the beginning of spring. Okay, so Graham, where are you? I am in Charleston, South Carolina. Yeah. Yeah, making my way back to Vermont from Vieques, Puerto Rico. So somebody can just alert me if and when Greg joins us. And I will not introduce him until that happens. So Sandy, thanks for the introduction. Asked me to talk a little bit about Brexit, about Ireland and about Scotland. So here we go. Graham, could I just intercede for one minute and maybe do you want the map? I was just going to say, Beth, can you put a map up? Because this is all about manmade lines of division. Yeah. Okay. Just as a historical note, and I didn't do any research on this, but the word gerrymandor does come from British rule in Ireland, where there was a, if my memory serves me correctly, a British landowner whose name wasn't gerrymandor. Maybe it was mandor gerry. But anyway, the British have had a long history of borders and colonies and the like. The United States used to be part of that great empire. So as we talk today, we're talking about two islands. And to the west, on the left of the map, is the island of Ireland, which was partitioned by the British in the early 1920s. And they took, there were four historic areas of Ireland. Ulster was the farthest to the north, and it was comprised of nine counties. So they gerrymandored the three most Catholic counties because they knew that it wasn't going to be politically viable and sustainable if to have domination over the native Irish. And so the most northern county in Ireland is in the south. And that you can see on the map. So we had a partition in Ireland, became six counties called Northern Ireland. And by 1937, many iterations became the country of Ireland, sometimes called the Republic of Ireland. And then you have the larger island to the east, which the largest landmass is England, Scotland to the north, Wales. So Great Britain today is comprised of Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England. And sometimes they'll be referred to as the four countries of Great Britain, although no one in Northern Ireland refers to themselves as a country. The Scottish certainly do. So there's, there's our divisions. You can see that within Northern Ireland, you have a division of North South. And then within the Irish and Northern Sea, you have kind of an east-west division between three out of the four political entities of Great Britain and Ireland. So, you know, 800 plus years of history between England and Ireland is not going to be covered in 15 minutes. So I'm going to skip right ahead to 1973, when the United Kingdom joined what was then called the European Community, or European Communities. That entity evolved into the European Union by 1993. For a whole bunch of nationalists make Great Britain great again. Thinking, English, sensibilities of pride, a lot of financial reasons, as we all know, in any political entity, not all organizations pay in the same. So in Vermont, when we have school funding, we find out that, you know, towns like Sherburne, Killington have historically, you know, paid in more than they've received back from the state. So England traditionally has paid in more to the European Union than they have received back. So that, I think, was part of the dialogue as well, which led to the idea of let us Britain exit the European Union, aka Brexit. So that referendum took place in 2016. It passed within the United Kingdom, 52 to 48. Scotland overwhelmingly voted to remain in the European Union. The city of Edinburgh was upwards almost close to 80% stay, 20% leave. Northern Ireland also voted to stay with it, you know, did not vote in favour of Brexit, voted to stay within the European Union, and Metropolitan London did as well. So it was Wales and other cities within England and the rural areas of England. So that led to many years of negotiation as to how in the heck would we do this? Because one, it's not easy to withdraw from a political and economic trade partnership that is 40 to 50 years going. And then you have this thing called the partition of Ireland. So we'll just freeze Brexit for a little bit other than to say it all got on paper worked out such that the United Kingdom had one year of transition after everything was agreed to. There was David Cameron's government fell because of Brexit, Theresa May's government fell, Boris Johnson was in and out. So long story short, there was a year transition which ended on New Year's Eve just this year. So we're only about 10 weeks into the reality of the United Kingdom not being part of the market, political entity and the trade markets of the European Union. Graham, could I ask a question? Sure. All right. One of the things that you didn't mention was the religious difference between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. And isn't it correct to say that the Northern Ireland is majority Protestant and Southern Ireland or the Republic is majority Catholic? Is that true? That would be a true statement. Yep. And that that has been a running difference between the two Irlands for a very long time, right? In other words, the struggles between the two Irlands is also a religious struggle, correct? Of sorts, sure. I mean the Scottish Protestants, my grandfather was Ebenezer MacIver born in Scotstown, Quebec. So I have on my mom's side a very strong Scottish Protestant background. My dad's side's very Irish Catholic. But the Scots were not Indigenous. The Scotch Irish were not Indigenous to Northern Ireland. They were right over. They were planted there. The Scottish planters to create a beach head, if you will, on the island of Ireland. But yes, so politically you have the majority of people in the repartitioned Ulster of only six counties when it was historically nine that identify with the United Kingdom politically and have a religious affiliation of the Church of England and Protestantism. Yes. Thanks. Thank you. And so what other questions are there to date? So what I was going to do is just try to touch on how the Peace Treaty, if you will, how the the Troubles, the Civil War, the IRA put down their guns and the British, the Unionist paramilitaries put down their guns in the late 90s. And then move that into present day issues relative to Brexit and the border, both the border on the island of Ireland and the east-west border of the Irish Sea. That'd be great. Does anybody else have any questions of anything that I've said? Ann, feel free to say that I'm giving a revisionist history or whatever. Well, well, Sandy kind of put me on the spot, I guess. No, no, I'm just inviting you to add. Yes, for sure. Well, yeah, I grew up in England. My mother was from Scottish parenthood, and I've always identified with Scotland. And I have a nephew who lives in Wales, and so he's bilingual, Welsh and English. And of course, Ireland has its own language, the Republic of Ireland. And so, you know, this idea of the United Kingdom is it's almost like the United States now. We're still fragment, both places still somewhat fragmented. I mean, Scotland, my Scottish grandfather, the thing he was always telling me about was the Battle of Cullodenmore, which was a very significant event in Scotland. The clan system was broken up and the English took over. I mean, the English crown always sort of struggled to maintain control of Scotland. And the Scottish Nationalist Party, which is now the strongest party in Scotland, and represented in Westminster. You know, I don't think they have it anymore, but they used to have a song which goes, Scots were hard with Wallace Bled. And this is a reference to William Wallace, who actually beat the English in a battle. And it was then, oh, it's a long story, it was considered treasonous what he did. And he said, well, it was never treason, because I was never a subject of the British crown. I mean, the United Kingdom was probably reached its highest level of unity when it was part of the European Union. And also Ireland, I mean, we're focusing on Ireland. Ireland, I think the Republic benefited hugely from the European Union economically, but at the same time, Ireland as a whole benefited because the, I think it was a major element of the troubles, the kind of undeclared war between the North and the Republic. All of that sort of became irrelevant, or at least manageable. So one of the big concerns, I mean, I said I grew up in England, I lived for 30 years in England, and I still read the newspapers and I talked to my brother who lives there. So I've been trying to understand Brexit, but I think that really what it comes down to is it's a tragedy in my mind because it's destroyed not just an element of the European Union. It doesn't destroy it, but it's just made it very much more difficult to trade, to travel, to do everything else between the UK and the rest of Europe or the rest of Europe. Go to the Scottish National Party that you referenced, and also the Good Friday Agreement, which was formalized in 1998 after many years of negotiation in part by Senator George Mitchell, bringing Ireland, England, and the two communities within Northern Ireland to a point where the troubles, the war between both the communities as well as between the British Army and the British military and politics against the nationalist Republican community created what is now 22 years of relative peace, although the peace walls still remain between the two communities in Belfast. They're talking about maybe they'll come down in three years, but they're 30 feet high. They've been there to divide the two communities and keep them at bay from each other, but just in this past month, the loyalist unionists slash Protestant paramilitaries have said they're withdrawing from the Good Friday Agreement because of Brexit. So Brexit was far too complicated. On the Irish side, I have no idea what folks were thinking about how that might work, but clearly they weren't thinking about their so-called fourth entity across the sea called Northern Ireland. And today, being St. Patrick's Day, Joe Biden, who's Irish American and was obviously a longtime colleague of George Mitchell and a longtime proponent of the Good Friday Agreement, both in his talks with Sinn Fein, which is the Republican party throughout Ireland, strongest in the North, their deputy leader met virtually with Joe Biden today, talking about the concerns that exist this very month about the really fragile nature of the peace of the Good Friday Agreement, of the North-South borderless trade that goes on in Ireland. And also, what's interesting is in two months, Scotland will be having their elections. So what happened as part of the Good Friday Agreement was England devolved powers to the Welsh for their parliament, devolved local control powers to the Scots for their parliament. Currently, the Scottish National Party is by far and away the largest party in their parliament. They do not have a majority, they're very close. And Northern Ireland has a parliament that was suspended for three years until a year ago when Sinn Fein rejoined the government in partnership with their previous arch-rivals, the Unionist DUP being the largest party of the Protestant Unionist section. So it'll be very interesting to see what happens in Scotland because not only is Brexit not off to a smooth start in Ireland, the Scottish Nationalist Party is running on a platform of an independent country that would join the European Union. And if they regain their majority, which they had previous to this past election, the intention is to put up for referendum a withdrawal of Scotland from the so-called United Kingdom. The last Scottish referendum was in 2014, and it lost 55 to 45. But with so many things going on since then, that will be very interesting. To Ireland, 300-mile border, which was manned heavily, womanned heavily by the British army with electronic surveillance, helicopters, every military piece of equipment you could have. And that border went from a hard border to a soft border with the 1998 Good Friday agreement, such that you can cross the border like you can cross the Vermont-New Hampshire border. Daddy, is he really? Well, let's say it's, I don't know, Bob, why don't you weigh in? It's easier than Vermont, Quebec, that's for sure. But basically, yeah, it's a line on a map, and it's not a border like it used to be and like we normally think of borders. So that trade of goods and people and ideas north and south, how does that work in Brexit? Because Europe's like, hey, you're not going to get an entrance to the European market through your borderless border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. And everybody on Ireland's like, you're not putting a border back in because the war will come back. So that is the conundrum. And the conundrum has been, most recently, the Single Market Act. So if Britain is not part of the European Union, what market are they part of? Well, they created a Single Market Act of the four countries in the UK to have free flowing of goods, except the Europeans are like, well, that's fine, you can have free flowing goods, but you can also have free flowing goods between Northern and Southern Ireland, because then now you're just in the EU. So what they did is they set up an east-west border on the Irish Sea, and no goods were coming in smoothly in January and February into Belfast. And the Unionists went nuts and said, no, no, this ain't happening. We're part of the UK. So how this is going to work remains to be seen. Can I have another question? So the Republic is part of Europe still, right? Absolutely. Okay. And the North is still part of the UK? Correct. And the UK is not part of, and the UK is not part of the EU because of Brexit. Okay. So that's a problem, as you say. And Scotland's like, well, we'll see where we stand soon. We have, you know, less than two months away national elections. So it's, you know. So the thing in Scotland, if Edinburgh, if the, in the Scottish Parliament, if the Scottish Nationalist Party wins a majority, what you're saying is there's going to be another referendum on the independence of Scotland? That's what they're saying. Yes. Yeah. That's what the SNP is saying. Yep. And you're also saying that Scotland, at least as far as anyone knows, wants to remain in Europe, right? The Scottish Nationalist Party is very clear that there will be a referendum to be an independent country that is affiliated with the European Union. Right. Not an independent country affiliated with the United Kingdom. Wow. But it won't necessarily happen or it wouldn't necessarily be on it by Westminster because, well Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the UK has said, no, we're not going to have another referendum in Scotland. Right. Yeah. So, you know, those are statements of intent. Obviously, Brexit was voted on in June of 2016 and it, it's taken five years just to get seven weeks of implementation, which is incredibly complicated. So, you know, you don't, you don't withdraw from long standing political entities easily. And without, but, but I think it's fair to say that that long protracted negotiation process, the sticking point was always the problem of the border in Ireland. And if, and that was apparently something that was never really anticipated when people went and voted for Brexit, they weren't aware of the reality of what this was doing to Ireland. And that's been the sticking point throughout those negotiations. Right. The partition of the island and its subsequent border, without a doubt, has been the hardest nut to crack in the very simple idea of, oh, let's have Britain exit. Be fine. Ireland, Ireland has always been a sticking point for the English, hasn't it, throughout history? Sure. Yeah, I mean, yes. Yeah, I mean, yes, self determination of the Irish and their will to do that by peaceful and or other means has been an ongoing part of the history. Yep. And it's also, it seems also part of the religious wars which consumed Europe for generations to with the Protestant Reformation a lot, it seems to me. However, I'm not an expert in that. Okay, well, well, what's going to happen, Graham? What do you think is going to happen? I mean, what does this mean for England, really, also that England is no longer in the EU? Does that I mean, there are definitely consequences for England itself? Is that right? Sure, I mean, yeah. Well, a lot of consequences. Yes, yeah, well, what's the what's the viability of that, of that political state? You know, it's hard to, I don't know. I think this, the Scottish vote will be very telling if it remains a 55-45 and that's not going to become an issue that certainly makes things seemingly a little easier for the British politicians in Westminster, if the SNP Scottish National Party wins a majority and wins a solid one, then that'll certainly complicate things all throughout that map. So there is a question to Graham. Are you seeing it in the chat from Jane? Jane, I think she's muted and now I don't see the talk anymore. Yeah, I wanted to ask about, sorry, about how Brexit is affecting trade with trade with the rest of the world, and how has that affected, yeah, anyway. Okay, so I can share a little bit. I mean, this, obviously, this is far more complicated than I understand, but I can share some bits of information relative to that question. The majority of trade for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland is with England, is with the UK, primarily with England. The majority of trade for England is not within the UK, so that's there. In January of this year, trade primarily exports but also imports was off 30 percent. Trade with the EU was 30 percent less this January than a year ago, trade with the EU. So those are some of the early returns on that trade. Clearly, the United States has a trade agreement with the EU, but they, because this is all eight weeks in, the United States does not have a trade agreement with the UK. They did because the UK was part of the EU. So, Biden had made it clear in his campaign and again today, both to the Prime Minister of the Republic of Ireland and the Sinn Fein vice chair that there will not be a trade agreement with the United Kingdom unless the Good Friday Agreement is absolutely adhered to. We've already seen the conundrum and the tensions there. Certainly, historically, the Northern Irish Protestants have felt like the Brits will jettison them in a minute for their own self-interest, united until we don't need to be united. So there's that concern and at times perhaps paranoia. So that, you know, the United Kingdom doesn't have trade agreements with anyone because it's a kingdom that is seven weeks into no trade agreements. It has trade agreements with the European Union. That was part of the deal, but the European Union two days ago sued the UK over their not following the trade agreement relative to Northern and Southern Irish flow of goods. So, you know, and Boris Johnson's like, we have the ability to do that. The government of Ireland, the Sinn Fein and the SDLP, the main Nationalist Republicans slash Catholic parties and the Scottish National Parliament, I don't know where Wales stands on this Scottish Nationalist Party, are all saying Westminster's in a power grab. The whole idea of these devolved local control powers, they're running rough shot over because they're saying we have to impose the free flow of goods within the UK. And yeah, this devolved stuff from 1998, that doesn't quite work so well anymore. Okay, so the English, in other words, what you're saying is they are trying to re-impose their rule on these rather unruly peoples who regard themselves as other nationalities, as members of other nations, Scotland and Ireland, correct? And the English. Two things, Sandy. One, the EU is suing as of this week, and the Irish government agrees with that, that England's not playing by the rules relative to the EU-UK trade. And the devolved parliaments in, at least in Scotland, and elements in Northern Ireland are also saying England is not, Westminster is not upholding their agreement to local control devolved powers that came about in the late 90s. So both of those things have been coming to the floor just in the last month. Because of Brexit. Because of Brexit. Okay, any other questions? Okay, I would like to ask, oh, there's somebody else, there's three people in the chat, but I don't know who they are. And I'd just like to say for Armando, I think the Yankees bullpen looks really weak this year. So I think the Red Sox are in good shape, Armando. Well, that's good because and it's kind of tied because the Red Sox represent an Irish city of Boston, correct? But let me ask you something else. So what will happen in Scotland if a referendum passes for independence, and it passes? What are the, what's Westminster going to do with that? First of all, what could they do if Nicholas Sturgeon, who's the leader of the SMP, what if she says we're going to put this referendum on the ballot in Scotland? You think England will say you can't do that? And if England says you can't do that, then what? Well, it sounds like the Catalonians putting independence on the ballot in Barcelona. Yeah, no, not so fast. Right. So except that the English are perceived as as draconian as I don't think the Spanish, I don't know, King, I guess, but nevertheless, it is kind of the same situation if Scotland declares itself independent, what will the what will Westminster and Morris Johnson do about it? What do you think? Probably have a crisis and call for snap elections. I don't know. It will not be welcomed and it will whatever happens will not happen all that quickly. Right. Stating the obvious. What, you know, the larger question might, well, who knows, will be, you know, does the British, do the English citizens come to realize that this idea of Brexit actually is far more complicated and not in their self-interest as much as 52% of them thought. And what anyway, what if the citizens, I mean, the citizens of England, if you want to call them citizens, I mean, they are still a monarchy. Yeah, well, there you go. Right. The citizens of England voted for Brexit. Right. So what can they do now? I mean, if there's another election that says, no, we want to rejoin Europe, Europe, it's not going to be happy about that, I wouldn't guess. Why did they vote for it in the first place? Anybody have any ideas? Ian, do you want to weigh in on what your thought of that is? Well, I'm not particularly close anymore to what's happening in Scotland. I mean, I read about it, but actually, if you'll allow me just to go back to Ireland, maybe, Graham, you could speak a little bit about the history of Ireland, which, as I understand it, was ruled, the whole of Ireland was ruled by Britain until, I think, 1918 or thereabouts. Until 1922, right? Okay, so after the First World War. And that was the result of like a revolution or an insurrection or something in Ireland. And the British just couldn't keep control of Ireland and had to give Ireland its independence. And it became a republic, so completely independent of the British crown, with the exception of this little piece in the North, the Northern Ireland. But I mean, we still, well, and of course, the history of Ireland also, economically, it was incredibly disadvantaged. And while Britain was ruling Ireland, they really exploit, as I understand it, exploited the agriculture of Ireland so that there were terrible famines. And Irish people emigrated to the United States in huge numbers. And that really only that emigration, I believe, really only stopped with Republic of Ireland joining the European Union. So, you know, Ireland is a different place from the UK. And with a history which, you know, not surprisingly, because it was a very difficult time for Ireland when it was ruled by Britain. And subsequently, so, you know, there are strong feelings in Ireland. I mean, I think maybe more so than Scotland. Although, you know, we've been talking about Scottish independence, that's a big movement. But Ireland has a history over the last 100 years, which really, I think, formed this current situation. Well, one thing I wanted to bring up, too, is what Ian is talking about. Yes, this struggle with Ireland has been going on for a very long time, probably since the Middle Ages, really, 800 or 900, with the English trying to conquer Ireland. And that, I believe, erupted in the Civil War during the First World War. When there was a war between, I would get, between Northern the Protestants and the Catholics on the island and against England. As a result of that war, there was a compromise that was a subject of a great movie called Michael Collins. And so that war was a compromise with the Northern Irish, more Protestant part of Ireland, siding with England. And then this Republic of Ireland, largely Catholic, was created independent of England. I want to point out something else. This is where the roots of the IRA, isn't it, Graham? The IRA was the Irish Republican Army. It was deemed a terrorist group by the United States. But I want to mention this because it hit me one time. It was the Irish Republican Army, which meant that it was also anti-monarchical or anti-king and queen. Southern Ireland is a Republic. Northern Ireland is still under the control of the monarch. And the monarch is not terribly in favor right now anywhere, but it never has been in the southern, in southern Ireland. And so, I mean, this struggle has its roots so far back. And also the English, it seems to me, there's a large percentage of English people who've never wanted to be part of Europe in the first place. And so once again, why was it that the English voted for Brexit? And that's what I was curious on your take. So before we go there, just a couple of things. There was, Home Rule came about in Westminster, Home Rule for Ireland. I think the first Home Rule legislation was maybe 1912. It was the fourth Home Rule. The third Home Rule passed, but it was during World War I. And that was 1918. That was two years after the Irish Republican Army led the Easter uprising, which was an effort to militarily in Dublin, overthrow and kick the British out, led to mass executions and whatnot. Subsequent to that, the British like, all right, let's get this done with Home Rule number three. We'll solve this Irish problem. World War I's going on. So by 1922, finally, Home Rule came about, but it wasn't for Republic of Ireland. It was the Free State which led to a, so it was partitioned six and 26. Ulster gets the three most Catholic counties in the North become part of the Free State of Ireland. And the two political parties were the different IRA political parties, the different Sinn Féin political parties that supported total independence versus those that did not support total independence. And that led to the Irish Civil War amongst the Free Southern Irish, if you will. The Republic of Ireland came about 15 years later in 1937. Okay. I think there's some people in chat. And I don't know how to do it. Beth, do you know how to, oh, Beth, is she still there? Well, Jane is asking how the Brexit affects trade with the rest of the world outside of the EU. Right. She already asked that, I think, Beth, and that has been discussed. There seems to be five. I see the number five over. Diane, did you want to jump in? You're providing some information. Okay. All I was doing was, I was checking on how long Ireland was part of the UK, Great Britain. And it looks like it was only 122 years. It's not like it went back to the Middle Ages. It goes prior to 1800, Ireland was its own independent place. No. That's not true. No. That's what history shows when I looked it up. It was probably not part of the United Kingdom because there wasn't a thing called the United Kingdom. Ireland. Those were my words. Yeah. Ireland was indigenous tribal clans, much like Scotland by the, you know, the thing is the 800 year war. So 1200s, 1300s, the Irish clans start losing their independence to elements coming over from England. It wasn't the UK at the time. But I, yeah. So you're saying Ireland was intermixed with England. Subjugated. Yeah. Subjugated. Yeah. As was Scotland. And Scotland in 17, I think, oh, seven was finally subjugated by the English, maybe at the Battle of Culloden, actually, Graham, which you mentioned. And Scotland was basically at war with the English, and they won, frankly. And William Wallace was a rebel against that. But Scotland was finally in an act of union made part of England. But I'm not certain that the Scots ever really wanted it that way or the Irish wanted it that way. It just kind of happened because England has always been the stronger imperial power, in fact, in the entire world, until really World War II. No, that's an exaggeration because the Spaniards and the Portuguese were before England. So, but so if you go back to Scotland, Mary Queen of Scots, she was the critical link between England and Scotland. Right. And she was a Catholic also. Right. That was the critical right. Right. Right. Right. Okay. Any other, any other, there's other people that seem to have questions or comments. No. Well, Bob doesn't have his microphone. Otherwise, he'd be weighing in, but he wrote that partition happened under the threat of all out war from England. Right. Right. And that partition was 1922, correct? Yes, 23, right after World War I, which was one of the results really also of World War I that were all over the planet. That was a very important war with numbers of borders drawn, borders changed by the victors who were England, France, and the United States, although the United States did not play a huge part in the treaty of their side as the other two did. Anyway, any other questions? To me, this is a really important subject because it also goes to, can Europe survive the exit of England and what is happening in the EU? Is it a good thing that the English got out for good for the English? Is it good for Europe? Is it damaging to Europe? I think it has really broad implications for the whole idea of keeping Europe together. Anyone else have any other thoughts? Ram, any final? Well, I mean, you're, you know, plenty of, you know, the wars in Europe weren't all that long ago. Right. Right. When you look at the European communities just in 1973, starting to come together, it's a very new concept. I was talking with a friend of mine who was once getting a tour of Venice, or Florence, rather, and he said to the tour guide, boy, you know a lot about Florence. Must have been here. He said, no, my family's Venetian. We just moved here 600 years ago. He was being dead serious. No, so the, those, how people identify, right? I was just in the island of Vieques off of Puerto Rico. Do not call anyone on that island, Puerto Rican. They will quickly scold you and say, no, we're, we're Viquenzes. So, right, we, people have a long, long history of identifying themselves, religiously, politically, geopolitically, and those roots usurp and go over borders in many, many ways. So, finding common grounds, climate change really doesn't care about borders, right? And the human beings working together to solve some of our human created problems are absolutely essential as people jockey to identify and try to create both their self-determination within their political states, but also hopefully we can see the commonality that we have around the precarious nature of our planet. But I want to just say one other thing, and thank you very much, Graham, for doing this and for all you others who did enter the discussion. However, the Irish, you know, did emigrate massively here. And I want to kind of recall to all of us on this St. Patrick's Day that the Irish were incredibly oppressed here as well in this country, largely because, I guess, because they were poor and Catholic. And the country at that time, which was probably pretty early on during the Civil War and after, the country was largely identified as Protestant. And so the Catholics really formed a minority. And I want to remind us of that because we've only had one Catholic president before Biden, that Catholic president, of course, was JFK. And do you remember those of us who are old enough to remember the kind of prejudice that existed when John F. Kennedy became president of the United States? And this is only the second Catholic president that we've had. So this question of Ireland has been in our history as well as in the history of the UK and Europe. Any other final thoughts before we call it a day till next week? Next week we're going to be talking about the Fourth Amendment of our US Constitution. And T.J. Donovan is going to give a talk on the Fourth Amendment. The Fourth Amendment is the amendment in our Constitution that guarantees our privacy in our homes and in our bodies, by the way, that the government cannot search either without a search warrant and that search warrant has to be granted by a judge who says there's probable cause that the government should have that authority to break into our houses and maybe into our bodies. All right, so thank you very much. Andy, I would just invite everyone and anyone to go online to look at Greg Delanti's work. He is considered the poet laureate of the Irish in America. Greg has a long history of social justice and environmental justice, spending time with the Sue and Standing Rock. And on this day, for all the oppression the Irish have felt, it's one of the most outwardly generous groups of people, the world over, both in terms of government spending. And when you go on to the Hopi Navajo COVID GoFundMe page, you will be blown away by the fact that almost 50% of the donations come from Ireland because of the Irish oral history, knowing that the Cherokee nation stood by them when they were being in the so-called famine, which was really just British agricultural rule. And so we have a lot to learn, I think, from the people of Ireland. Agreed. Thank you. I want to just mention something. This is Lou. Greg Delanti was on, he is right now teaching a class to my roommate. He's a St. Mike's professor, correct? Yes. Yeah. So it was just a coincidence that my roommate just came downstairs for a break and that's what she said. There we go. So the paths cross. Nice. Anyway, thank you. All of you have some Irish luck. See you later. Yeah, good luck to us. Bye, everyone.