I shared in yesterday’s editorial board meeting that my great grandfather was a young man when his family left Belfast. I mentioned my family came from the Protestant side of the mounting religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants, so we wear orange on St Patrick’s Day. My mom followed up with the following:

“The Irish Civil War of the 1920s was "resolved " By a partition of the country Into 26 counties green and six northeast counties orange, under English rule.

This was unacceptable to many, which ultimately led to the Irish Republican Army and the terrorism of the 1970s against the English government, known as the Troubles. 30 years of urban guerrilla terrorism which was brought to an end in 1998 with the Good Friday accords.

John Black and family emigrated at the beginning of the Irish civil disturbances back in 1906 when he was 16 years old. Anne Murray Black and her husband, John Black , (Your great, great grandfather) left Belfast with six of their nine children (the older ones stayed behind). One of the six children was your great grandfather, and my grandfather, John Black.”

John Black’s daughter, Ruth, married John Morrow, from whom I got my middle name which I used on TV and now online. My mom also sent a link to a catchy Irish song called The Orange & The Green, about someone born to a Green mother and an Orange father, singing, “Me being strictly neutral I bashed everyone in sight.”