Nancy Pelosi marks St Patrick’s Day with poem by Bono about Ukraine

U2 singer's poem, read at the annual Friends of Ireland lunch, encompasses Irish mythology and the Russia-Ukraine war

Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker and one of the most powerful Democrats in the country, has marked St Patrick's Day by reading aloud a poem by Bono that encompassed both Irish mythology and the crisis in Ukraine.

Pelosi was attending the annual Friends of Ireland lunch in Washington DC on Thursday, when she said she had been sent some verse.

Oh, St Patrick he drove out the snakes
With his prayers but that's not all it takes
For the snake symbolises
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