Today is what many Irish-American Scranton residents and their cabbage-headed supporters call “Parade Day,” as if dawn in the Electric City broke as a high holy day they celebrate by pulling the nails from their hands, ascending into heaven and sitting at the right hand of God.

One problem: snow postponed today’s St. Patrick’s Day parade.

So there’s no better time to ask when in the name of Jesus Scranton Irish Americans will stop wearing kilts and fawning over bagpipe bands?

The Scots wear kilts.

Members of the British army, including the Scots, play bagpipes.

The Irish play a very different traditional musical pipe, unique Irish uilleann war pipes the English outlawed as part of their savage and failed attempt to eradicate the Irish culture and people. In ancient times Irish warriors painted their skin with wild berries and ran into battle naked. You didn’t see them posing in plaid kilts at weddings and parades and groveling over bagpipes.

Streaking actually dates back to the Garden of Eden which of course was located in the village of Cornamona, County Galway, where my grandfather was born.

No kilts there, lads.

So stop with the kilts and cheering Brit bagpipes, shallow amadon behavior that trivializes Irish history by supporting another nation and the Brit war machine that tried and failed to occupy Ireland forever – a monarchy that still holds onto six counties in the northeastern part of the island that one day will rise as a nation once again.

Uniting Ireland is where attention should lie, not in importing cigar-smoking out-of-town pipe bands (often made up with New York cops and firefighters who really should know better) with beer on their breath as they march into local bars and American Legion halls.

In 50 years of visiting Ireland, other than parade pretenders, I’ve never seen any Irish man or woman wearing a kilt. Here at home I’ve never seen the style in the countless Irish bars across America I have visited where Irish immigrants drink.

I’m also confident saying no Scranton Irish immigrant ever wore a kilt to work in the coal mines or even drinking their tea among lace curtain swells in President Joe Biden’s dull Green Ridge neighborhood when he was a kid and his old man held down a full-time job.

Let me repeat: British troops play bagpipes.

Colonial oppressors apparently need a soundtrack when they try to conquer native people. I picketed a Black Watch bagpipe concert in Hershey once to draw attention to that cruel Scottish infantry battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland that completed 11 combat tours and fought against freedom in Northern Ireland.

So knock it off.

Give Ireland back to the Irish.

Let the Scots take pride in their ancient heritage as they continue to fight for nationhood and take back their country from the Crown.

Let English war pipers pipe their last refrain as they lose control over their lost empire and realize once and for all that self-determination and not their pompous blowhard behavior defines liberty.

If my ruffian Irish attitude gets your kilt in a twist, may the road rise up to meet you and kick you right in your stage Irish arse.

Put that in your bagpipe and smoke it.