Simultaneously celebrating St. Patricks Day and addressing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Nancy Pelosi read a new poem written by Bono on Thursday at the annual Friends of Ireland luncheon.
“Bono has been a very Irish part of our lives,” the Speaker of the House said before launching into the poem, which contains the line, “Ireland’s sorrow and pain / Is now the Ukraine / And Saint Patrick’s name now Zelenskyy.”
The U2 frontman’s poem compared the legend of St. Patrick, who drove all the snakes of Ireland into the sea, to the war in Ukraine. In Bono’s metaphor, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is St. Patrick, and Russian President Vladimir Putin represents the snakes.
The poem reads in part, “Oh St. Patrick, he drove out the snakes / With his prayers, but that’s not all it takes / For the snake symbolizes / An evil that rises / And hides in your heart / As it breaks / And the evil has risen my friends.”
President Joe Biden, among others on Capitol Hill, were in attendance.
Watch the video of Pelosi and read Bono’s poem in full below.
Oh St. Patrick, he drove out the snakes
With his prayers, but that’s not all it takes
For the snake symbolizes
An evil that rises
And hides in your heart
As it breaks
And the evil has risen my friends
From the darkness that lives in some men
But in sorrow and fear
That’s when saints can appear
To drive out those old snakes once again
And they struggle for us to be free
From the psycho in this human family
Ireland’s sorrow and pain
Is now the Ukraine
And Saint Patrick’s name now Zelenskyy
Speaker Pelosi reads #StPatricksDay poem by Bono, which reads in part:
"Ireland's sorrow and pain
Is now the Ukraine
And Saint Patrick's name now Zelenskyy."She then introduces Riverdance. pic.twitter/NzPY1VP2bN
— CSPAN (@cspan) March 17, 2022
