"The World Needs Ireland"

No bagpipe skirled in all Ireland, said dispatches; Dublin pubs were shuttered. Quarantined Eire wore her shamrocks grimly. But in the U.S. the transplanted Irish kept St. Patrick's memory green. The customary twist was given the British lion's tail. Parades, pageants and Irish wit decorated the day.

Up New York City's famed Fifth Avenue, spirits undamped by a chill rain that made banners limp and drumheads soggy, tramped 48,000 of the faithful, colleens and patriarchs mostly, as the young Hibernians are off fighting again.

The chief lion-baiting took place in Boston. Some wag invited a detail of British tars to march in the St. Patrick's parade. This aroused the bellicose South Boston Citizens Association, the parade sponsors. "Very regrettable misunderstanding," snorted Parade Marshal John Walsh. "There'll be no foreign armed forces parading here." The British did not march. (Boston Irish also celebrate March 17 as Evacuation Day, in memory of the departure of the British redcoats in 1776.)

The Irish wit--and wisdom--came notably from Fordham University's president, the Very Rev. Robert I. Gannon S.J. Said he: "The world needs Ireland. The world needs De Valera. For no matter what else he is--and he has his faults--he is a man of principle--and hence a most conspicuous figure in international affairs.

"He was told that if he would march his people into the war without asking embarrassing questions he could sit afterwards at the peace table 'with Ireland's traditional friends.' I presume that referred to Haile Selassie and Chiang Kaishek.

"We good Americans need faith, not only in God, but, while the battle is on, in our leaders as well. After the war they will be held to strict account for every detail of their stewardship--but here and now we don't even bring up Pearl Harbor."

Mostly middle-aged men were on hand to savor this Celtic irony. Lieut. General Alexander A. Vandegrift, commandant of U.S. Marines, explained the absentees: there are 550 men "by the name of Reilly alone" in the Marine Corps.

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