The Leprechaun*

A Story by Abishai100

Democratic narrative of an Asian-Indian patriot who becomes romanced by the sadness of the Irish Catholic minority in Northern Ireland!

An Irish Catholic democracy-diary inspired by the daring Neil Jordan film Michael Collins. God bless,

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This is a tale of the 'Social Contract' as seen through the lens of the leviathan of governance turbulence created by rifts in society. The rift is between the Irish Catholic minority and British Protestant majority in Belfast (Northern Ireland), which was once part of Catholic Ireland until the post-Independence partition in the early 20th Century which resulted in years of conflict and economic inequality between Catholics and Protestants still struggling to coexist as separate 'clans' in Northern Ireland.

However, I relate this tale to you today not as an Irishman but as an American of Catholic faith. I was born in India to Hindu parents and hail from a royal family actively involved in India's own independence movement against British rule in the early 20th Century. My relatives include the renowned Quit-India Movement female pioneer Aruna Asaf Ali. I'm from India, but I moved to America and studied in the Ivy League and became a Catholic-convert and started following Notre Dame Fightin' Irish college football.

I'm currently conducting a Christian sabbatical during which I make spirituality-themed stories and metaphysics stories of the 'grand human adventure' in modern and sometimes ancient times. I write about fairies, revolutionaries, priests, ghosts, terrorists, demons, damsels, and children! I also write political thrillers about blood-diamond terrorism-financing in Europe/Africa threatening modern Interpol-relations infiltrations! I have one true friend in my scholarly/priestly life, and it's my bird-friend Wendy.

Growing up in my royal Indian family involved with Indian independence folk-tales and history gave me the special opportunity to understand/appreciate the history of the British Empire and defiance against it for eventual democratic profit-sharing in the modern world. I began reading about the Irish freedom question in college, and I realized there're strong ideological and philosophical links between the Indian struggle and the Irish one.

Indian independence struggles have generated a plethora of books, movies, and evocative artworks which I really admire.

My family has in its library special collections and even books featuring the heroism of my own grand-aunt Aruna Asaf Ali!

When I began reading about the Irish struggle for freedom from British rule, I learned more and more about the deep differences between Catholicism and Protestantism and the generations of British colonial rule in Ireland which inspired centuries of rebellion among the suppressed Irish Catholic population. I learned about this stuff in college while I was developing my own personal deep fascination with the beautiful Catholic faith/religion itself.

I told myself after reading much revolutionary literature including those of James Joyce and Frantz Fanon that the Irish quest for Catholic sovereignty was one of sociocultural differences irreconcilable to the Protestant way of British life in the United Kingdom. The UK is a beautiful dominion, but the Irish Catholics living under that dominion often feel the socioeconomic disparities are too great to excuse the lifestyle claustrophobia felt by the Catholic minority living today in Belfast (Northern Ireland) under a British Protestant majority. This has created years of 20th Century rebellions, even and especially following the independence of Ireland and the partition of Northern Ireland.

As I became a Catholic devotee and big TV-fan of Notre Dame Fightin' Irish college football, I realized the popularity and appeal of Catholic faith and Catholic media in America (e.g., EWTN) didn't carry into the media profitability in Catholic-minority Northern Ireland. I realized the Notre Dame luxury I had in America didn't extend to the people of Belfast, and I felt like was too lucky as an American and felt obligated to share my Catholic passions in stories about this Irish struggle and why a Notre Dame student/fan might find such world history so interesting!

Sinn Fein is the political negotiation face of the Irish Catholic population in the UK and negotiates with British Parliament to obtain more employment equity for the Catholic minority living in Belfast (Northern Ireland) today, while new 'factions' of the IRA (Irish Republican Army), such as P-IRA, R-IRA, and F-IRA, work to create underground guerrilla actions designed to destabilize the governance notion in the media that British Protestant majority rule in Northern Ireland is historically expected or considered normal by the entire voting population. This is the true root of the post-Independence IRA terrorism in Belfast we've seen in American news programs.

Now, as part of that royal Indian family engaged in appreciation of India's freedom-movement against British rule, I've been accustomed to celebrating mostly Indian independence posters/artworks, naturally!

However, 9/11 awakened the world to the modern reality that globalization democracy idealism required serious attention to various levels of anti-globalization and anti-commerce terrorism threatening this very-same idealism.

I started making folk-doodles and stick-figure comic book characters/avatars representing a folk-Catholic appreciation among Americans of what comprised a cultural Irish Catholic 'identity' among consumers in Belfast who continued to try to live in Northern Ireland as a population minority with undesirable employment conditions/policies by British Parliament.

I married Shelbye Collins, distant-relation of Irish revolutionary Michael Collins, who worked alongside me at the Ivy League and told me much more about Irish politics than I'd ever understood on my own, through my readings of Northern Ireland political literature, Sinn Fein dialogue, and Parliament proceedings. It was my dear Shelbye who romanced me with the story of Peter Pan (JM Barrie).

I decided to start blogging online as a pro-Catholic democracy-debating 'vigilante' named Leprechaun, advocating awareness of the difficult socioeconomic disparities endured by the Irish Catholic minority living alongside the British Protestant majority in Belfast (Northern Ireland). I started writing about the special chance 'lucky Americans' like me had in using modern Western media to spread ideas/images of the Catholic passion for economic advancement in a modern Europe in which they continued to live as a Catholic minority!

As the net-blogging Catholic 'vigilante' known as Leprechaun, I donned special blog-portrait 'costumes' and visages such as that of maudlins/scarecrows/fairies in the hope of spreading the free-speech notion that Catholic-Protestant divisions in Northern Ireland should not be neglected in preference for petroleum-politics driven Israel-Palestine politics prioritization, given the fact that Catholics and Protestants today comprise the two largest Christian denominations/communities in the civilized/democratic world!

LEPRECHAUN (me/maudlin): "The Catholic depression in Northern Ireland goes to the issue of Christian community healing."

My blogs have become quite popular/iconic among my Catholic readers/fans, and they respect my thorough scholarship of the Christian Bible (I've read and annotated the entire reading in fact!). I sometimes post iconic/symbolic posters/flyers of the historic Irish political movement/troubles in my blogs as reminders of why this Catholic-Protestant rift in modern civilization is as important as the Israel-Palestine rift.

Enjoying the amenities of life in Haddonfield (USA) affords me the special opportunity to feel like a true American prince, but this opportunity comes with the special Catholic opportunity to create community messages about the opportunities to seek creative solutions to the modern disaster of the Catholic-Protestant rift in Northern Ireland which has resulted in the countless loss of lives of men, women, and yes, children, in this endless tribulation between the two dominant Christian denominations on Earth. Living in Haddonfield gives me a special spiritual feeling that media-advocacy can be akin to progressive political intelligence...and dance!

Mostly, I'm grateful to Shelbye for turning me on to the work of JM Barrie from which I obtain incredible inspiration as I 'spiritually converse' with my pet-bird true friend Wendy, who sits in my tree-cage outside my Haddonfield house-window as I compose my blogs/stories about this modern ditch in the global Christian community, a problem that separates Catholic and Protestant kids into two separate castles. This is not the stuff of playground fairy-tales, right?