The Corrs
Posted on 03/16/2006 4:40:06 PM PST by SJackson
For as long as I can remember, all I've ever heard about the Irish in general or the Irish in America or the meaning behind St. Patrick's Day was ... drink, drank, drunk. That's it. And I'm not alone.
Back in 2001, social activist Tom Hayden published a stunning book entitled "Irish on the Inside: In Search of the Soul of Irish America"; it's a memoir-social history-travelogue combined.
In a chapter called "Drinking, Sexuality, and Assimilation," Hayden writes: "Drinking was the only Irish legacy passed along to me. You drink because you're Irish, I learned, which soon became you're Irish because you drink. Writ large, it was a coping mechanism for the Irish as a whole."
Much of Hayden's book sharply examines how the catastrophe of the Great Potato Famine of the 1800s led to the exodus of millions from Ireland. After more than 150 years, the episode of the Great Hunger is emerging from the shadows of history. It's a long-overdue subject for study.
Hayden sums up this epoch: "It was the Great Hunger that created Irish America, or at least Catholic Irish America, as 2 million people began a forced exodus in the 1840s that did not abate for decades. According to one famine expert, 'in no other famine in the world was the proportion of people killed as large as in the Irish famines of the 1840s.'"
The disastrous effects and aftereffects of the Great Hunger were never merely a matter of any so-called natural disaster. In every social, economic and political way, the starvation, humiliation and shaming of the Irish in the era of the potato blight derived from the cruel and unusual policies of the brutal English colonial powers who had grotesquely exploited the Irish for many centuries.
And in every revolting manner possible, those same English colonial masters found ways to profit from the suffering and misery that impelled millions of ill-kempt, starved and poverty-stricken Irish to board the verminous Famine ships (aptly dubbed "coffin ships"), thus inducing an Irish Diaspora.
And yet, as a rule, those of us who grew up in Irish-American families learned little (if anything) about our history of oppression and persecution. Hayden is eloquent on this subject as well:
"Experiencing amnesia as a coping mechanism is not unique to the Irish. To my surprise, in the immediate years after World War II many Jewish Americans experienced a similar reluctance to face the trauma of the Holocaust. And, according to the historian Charles Johnson, 'in the black communities for many years after the emancipation there was great shame and embarrassment about the memory of enslavement.'"
So to paraphrase novelist Mario "The Godfather" Puzo, I'd like to make you a drink that you can't refuse. Alcohol-free, that is. It's high time we celebrated the true essence of the Irish.
What's that, you ask? Well, this St. Patrick's Day we could start by celebrating the exquisite use of Nobel-winning Irish poet W.B. Yeats' "Lake Isle of Innisfree" as a motif in Clint Eastwood's Oscar-winning "Million Dollar Baby." And three cheers to Clint for making "Mo Cuishle" (Gaelic for "pulse of my heart" or "my darling; my blood") an internationally revered expression.
This year, in fact, I suggest that we inaugurate a new annual pattern: On St. Patrick's Day let's shine a light on a sample of Irish or Irish-American literary achievement. That's where you'll find the "deep heart's core" of the Irish persona. And if Nobel laureate Eugene O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey Into Night" is too heavy for you, then you can opt for the Celtic wordplay and pugnacious ridicule on display in Pulitzer winner Maureen Dowd's twice-weekly New York Times columns.
If reading isn't your thing, then indulge in some music by the Chieftains or Mary Black. If you require visual splendor, you're in luck. There's a handful of "Riverdance" videos and DVDs, and about this mythopoeic dance phenomenon, Tom Hayden is also historically instructive: "The fabled Irish step dance was a legacy of post-Famine church sexual morality that insisted on limiting the body's movement to below the knees. 'Riverdance' unveiled and unbottled the sexual energy locked within the dance step, and freed an uninhibited dimension of the Irish soul."
Instead of yielding to the Leprechaun-soaked-in-ale stereotype, I'll binge on a slew of Irishman Jim Sheridan's best films ("My Left Foot," "In the Name of the Father," "The Boxer," "In America").
St. Patrick's Day should be about overcoming amnesia, not perpetuating it by getting drunk.
The potato blight, and the famine-disaster, was not caused by the English, but rather was a natural consequence of Catholic religious practices,
It's complete nonsense. I was quoting the person (using italics) who said it above and saying it was a history rewrite.
Yes, I enjoy a lot of Christy Moore's music, never seen him perform but I understand he puts everything he's got into it.
I also enjoy Dolores Keane, and Cathy Jordan, Maighread Ni Dhomhnaill and sister Triona, Mairead Ní Mhaonaigh, and so many more.
I dream of seeing Planxty perform, including Donal Lunny and Matt Malloy.
There are so many talented musicians, and that's just the Irish Celts, we could go into the Scots, Bretons, Basques, and Welsh, lol.
Sorry about that. Guess that's for Donald Meeker.
saw a picture of the corrs in the Life magazine insert from friday's paper.
they hsve to be the most gorgeous women in music today.
My visit to Ireland led me to believe there is more musical talent per capita there than anywhere in the world! Someone, just try to dispute it!
Planxty disbanded years ago, didn't they?
But maybe they re-form at times...
Little-known Irish historical note: numerous members of the Irish St. Patrick's Battalion in our army deserted to the enemy in the War with Mexico in 1848. They sided with the Catholics and are still regarded as heros by Mexico. In the San Angel suburb of Mexico City (a town during the war), there is a large plaque in the main square with their names inscribed along with a salute to "their noble actions." The US Army saw them as traitors and they were tried as such and hanged.
So it is your theory that the English were somehow capable of gene splicing, to create the potato blight?
Now there is some first class revisionism.
The Irish who fought on the side of the Confederacy were not included in pardons issued by the North, and many of them moved to Mexico. At night they would sing "Green Grow the Lilies".
And so pale faced persons of european descent were called "Gringos" by the Mexicans.
Well, I would submit that taking an oath to one government, and then taking a different side would make them traitors.
If one side was evil, then don't take an oath to them.
The Corrs
Planxty has performed a few concerts in Ireland the last couple years
and released a cd and dvd in 2004, terrific recordings.
How d'ye like that?
If it weren't for Planxty, I would never have known what genuine Irish traditional was; as, before that, I only knew about the Clancy Brothers and Chieftains.
Chieftains are alright, but you know what I mean...
Planxty opened the door for me. Of course, a lot of what they do are contemporary adaptations of traditional, like adding in the bouzouki or someting like that, y'know?
Also, don't forget, the troublesome priests that are in their 50's today where in their 20's then and cross pollinating "Liberation Theology" between Ireland and Central America, another location that Commie governments didn't like President Reagan.
Once again, thank the communist infiltration of the press. I was in Ireland for most of the summer of 1979, when the country was happily anticipating the visit of the new Pope John Paul II. They were also reading in the papers about the Sandinista "revolution" in Nicaragua. It was given a sympathetic treatment, to say the least.
The Irish have a hard time enjoying good times.
That is profoundly insightful.
In general, Catholics had a higher birth rate than protestants, long before effective chemical birth control. Why was that? To what extent was it due to Catholic faith in the joys of poverty and family? Was the lower Protestant birth rate due to the Protestant belief in middle class prosperity by restrain and self sufficiency?
On the other hand, some of the lower birth rates in the upper classes were due to the intention to avoid splitting the estates. Catholic tenents, with no land, had no such compunction.
People are complex, and diverse, but when you compare birth rates of two people who differ by religion, it is at least an useful shorthand to suggest that the birth rate differs because of religion.
The same is true of Muslims, and Mormons, who also have higher birth rates.
I am of Irish Catholic background, myself. I have an "Irish Twin" a brother who is separated in age from me by less than a year. Part of the year we are of the same age.
We used to say, after the 5th child, there wasn't much difference between Irish Catholics and Cockroaches. I have 5 children myself, but it took two wives to keep up with me.
Irish musicians get a tax deduction. That is why many muscians move there, and why many more students study music.
One reason for irish prosperity is the benefit of generations who left to work in other countries, and then returned (and were able to teach the languages of that foreign country). They got an additional benefit in tax law which allowed Microsoft to register their software (and other companies too) in Ireland, and then not pay the EU tarrif on shipments to other EU nations. That very small benefit ended up leveraging the Irish language proficiency, and has greatly benefited the Irish economy.
See post 4
and what about Cromwell's orphans ...the Prod Scots Irish like me
we are the largest cracker DNA source in Dixie but all I ever hear about are Yankee Paddies.
My blood.
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