This is a piece I wrote c. 2000 as a birthday gift to an Irish friend. It’s a poem by one of his favourite Irish poets, James Clarence Mangan.
Despite its Middle Eastern feel, the poem is in fact filled with derogatory references to the English, for instance Ingleezee = English; and Djaun Bool, which clearly is John Bull, ‘a national personification of Great Britain in general and England in particular, especially in political cartoons and similar graphic works ... but has not been accepted in Scotland or Wales because he is viewed there as English rather than British.... Although embraced by Unionists, Bull is rejected by Nationalists in Northern Ireland as well’.
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