God Save the Queen at Croke Park

Now that the media hype and back slapping concerning our attitude to the singing of God Save the Queen at Croke Park is over, I am wondering why we are all still caressing ourselves in such self satisfaction.
The whole idea of a monarchy is odious to me - never a mind a song written for a monarchy. Its an undemocratic institution - a powerful class hierarchy based on a selected blood line and in the British case, a selected religion and is therefore also sectarian.

The song itself, GSTQ, is an anthem about a head of state who is a hereditary monarch who is totally undemocratic and at odds with the basic norms of human rights.

If some wealthy leader arrived here from Africa who had been made King of his country without a vote and who was also from a specific religion that he had made himself head of - he wouldd be shown back to his private jet on the airport tarmac pretty quickly. In fact the media here would be calling for the head of whichever government minister went to meet him and praising those brave enough to challenge him about his undemocratic position.

In the hullabaloo over the singing of God Save the Queen at Croke Park, nobody bothered to investigate why anybody should stand an applaud an anthem to such an undemocratic institutuion in the year of 2007.