Those that have gone before me

On this St. Patrick's Day, as in holidays past, I reflect on the lives of my Irish ancestors. Sadly, I know little about the lives of those that came to America from Ireland other than names, and dates of birth and death. I can imagine, though, that they lived hard lives. The Ireland of the mid to late 1800's was not a particularly hospitable place except for those of the Protestant ascendancy. The famine nearly gutted the country. Those that survived the famine but could not escape to the "new world" were not left with little opportunity.

Coming to America couldn't have been much easier. Civil war era Irish immigrants often ended up on the Union Army. Anti-Irish bigotry in the U. S. was high into the early 20th century. Nothing was handed to those that came here; they had to make their way.

I believe that my great-great grandfather was killed in a railroad yard in Detroit when he was crushed by train car. There was no worker's compensation scheme at the time and his wife was left to raise my great-grandmother and other children on what money she could scrape together by doing laundry for the Catholic church.

I really wish I knew more stories like this. I know that they bore burdens I could not even imagine in soft, cushy, post-modern America. The blessings I have are at least indirectly the result of the great sacrifices they made. If I could say one thing to those that have gone before it would be, "Thank you!"

(The photograph is of the church yard of Bangor Abbey, County Down, Northern Ireland, the resting place of some of my Irish (Protestant) Ancestors.)

Thank you, Frank

When I look back on my childhood, I wonder how I survived at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: The happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.
People everywhere brag and whimper about the woes of their early years, but nothing can compare with the Irish version: the poverty; the shiftless loquacious alcoholic father; the pious defeated mother moaning by the fire; pompous priests; bullying schoolmasters; the English and all the terrible things they did to us for 800 long years

So opens Frank McCourt's Pulitzer Prize winning book, Angela's Ashes, Sadly, Frank passed away yesterday at 78 of skin cancer-related complications.

Angela's Ashes, if not the best (non-fiction) book I've ever read, is certainly my favorite. It moved me in a way that no other book has. Mr. McCourt's ability to express sorrow in vivid but often humorous ways is unmatched. Though I'm hardly a literature expert, I'm somewhat well read. His lyrical style is as good as any I've seen.

Something about his writing, including his subsequent books, 'Tis and Teacher Man, reached all the way to my core. I found Angela's Ashes at a time in my life when I was trying to find myself. As a spoiled American I certainly could not relate to the depths of the poverty and misery experienced by McCourt familyand their confederates in Limerick, Ireland during the Great Depression. But there was a familiarity to it all.

At that time in my life, in the process of trying to find my own identity, I latched on pretty heavily to my Irish ancestry. Looking back, I think that was my way of connecting to my father who gave me most of my Irish blood. Perhaps, though, there was more to it. Maybe, just maybe, our DNA has a "memory" of its own. Those ancestors of mine that left Limerick, Ireland for America in the late 1880's likely experienced their own "miserable Irish Catholic childhoods." In a symbolic sense, Angela's Ashes, for me, was akin to finding one's great-grandfather's diary in the trunk in the attic. It wasn't my great-great-grandfather's story, but it certainly could have been.

Whatever the case may be, Frank's writing helped patch some holes in my existent. More accurately, Angela's Ashes caused me to look at myself and those who came before me with more depth of clarity, with more of an eye toward the long strands that connect our history (or family history) to us today.

Reading 'Tis and Teacher Man were less heady than all that. All stories that have beginnings need endings and these two books rounded out the story that we all wanted to see end happily. By those books I was reminded that no matter where you come from, you can make something of yourself with a lot determination and a little dumb luck. It never hurts to be reminded of that.

All that aside, Mr. McCourt's books are fantastic reads. They are highly entertaining. For the hours of reading pleasure I had, if nothing else, Frank deserves a big thank you.

God bless you, Frank. Thank you for sharing your incredible life with me/us.

What took you so long?

Nearly four years after the IRA permanently put its arms "beyond use," i.e. decommissioned, the Ulster Defence Alliance and the Ulster Volunteer Force, announced that those groups are also decommissioning. It appears that this is on the first stage of the Protestant paramilitary decommissioning.

I'm interested to see the reaction by Unionists/Loyalists and Nationalists/Republicans. I'm not convinced that they are happily coexisting, but this certainly can't hurt moving those communities closer together. The hardliners will never be happy, I'm afraid.

An Irish-free St. Patrick's Day

For most of my life I've observed St. Patrick's Day. For the last almost 20 years, it has been my favorite day on the calendar. In my younger days, I celebrated with lots of booze and fantastic music. More recently, SPD has been a family day. We have a nice meal and talk about what our heritage means to us.

This year I think I'm gonna sit this one out. In the past I was almost obsessed with my Celtic heritage (I'm Scottish and Welsh, too.) Irish history and politics were my passion. This time last year I was teaching myself the Irish language, and loving it.

But something happened that killed all that in me. I spent a lot of time on an Irish nationalist website. I went there for the cultural stuff, but I also believed I had found kindred spirits politically. Eventually they showed themselves to be things that I despise: Jew-hating, Iran-loving, America-bashing bigots. After some young punk on this particular website talked about how American GI's "raped their way through Europe" during WWII, I couldn't take it anymore. I left the website. I also shelved my Gaelic instruction books and CDs.

What I left there was the part of me that loved Ireland and the Irish people. I'd like to get it back but it's. . . just . . . gone. There's nothing there now. That piece of my heart is dead and I can't seem to revive it, try as I might.

In the wake of that garbage, I went back and re-examined how very little in my personal life has anything to do with a few sets of great-great grandparents finding their way over here from Ireland. I'm an American, I'm not an Irishman. I'm a Yankee, even. Other branches of my family have been in this country since the first few waves of Pilgrim ships started arriving in New England in the 1620s. That's probably more honestly who I am: a Yankee WASP.

It seems silly if you don't know what my life was like a year ago, but this is something like a death for me. Much of the connection (emotional, spiritual) I had to generations that came before is just nonexistent.

Maybe the holiday itself will re-ignite a fondness. For now, though, I plan on simply letting 3/17/09 pass as just another Tuesday in March. I'm hoping it doesn't.