The Easter Bunny will be bringing the fun chocolate eggs before that.
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.
whoa...
I presume he came from DU!!
You did a GOOD job of negating his nasty remarks.
Oh, brother. Is EVERYBODY a victim?
Thank you for that, you will be a good addition to my ping list!
I don't think Ole Massa was out in the sun too much. But poor whites were, and Ole Massa sure taught them and the Blacks to hate each other like poison, and they still do, unfortunately.
Thank you!
President Reagan got as warm a reception in Ireland as Maggie Thatcher. Two decades earlier, another US President was welcomed in Ireland like the second coming. When President Reagan arrived in Ireland, he got the back of the hand from the general populace. I didn't like that either but I wasn't surprised. At the time, Europe was going mad with President Reagan's efforts to push Communism onto the ash heap of history. The demonstrations you see in Europe today against GW Bush and the Iraq war are nothing compared to the turnout in the 80's. Basically, most Europeans wanted Communism to win the Cold War and where angry that Reagan, Thatcher (and the seemingly nice, yet evil, Pope) were exposing the nasty side of totalitarianism and government repression.
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.
The Irish in Ireland (and even the US), have been very ambivalent about wealth. The newfound prosperity in Ireland is causing a general psychosis in Ireland with many waiting for impending doom. You can see it in the articles printed there and talking with the locals. The Irish have a hard time enjoying good times.
I know some publican's in Ireland who to this day refuse to be called a capitalist. It's as if I was condemning them to hell.
Ireland is just trying to prove that they can be wealthy and successful without getting handouts from relatives in the States and still providing that feel-good liberal safety net. This despite adapting the policies of Thatcher's England and Reagan's America. It would pain them too much to admit that. The Irish are no more anti-American than the Liberals in America itself.
I should also note that the previous resident in the White House got a fairly nice reception in Ireland with a few notable exceptions!
Thanks. I'm a nice person but my fighting gear is always handy. ;-]
High five.. You did most of it yourself!
Gee .. he has a way of making friends huh?
Not a bad analyisis.
No, you did great!!
Anyway, it's bedtime for me, I suppose our 'friend' will be gone by the time I get back tomorrow!!
Goodnight La Enchiladita, and thanks!! *hug from an Irishman*
Hugs from Kathleen...
Again, I have to say theirs a grain of truth in what georgia2006 is saying.
I haven't been to Ireland in a few years but when I'm there, I'm all over the good crac in the pubs. I was shocked! Schocked! I tell you, to come to understand the empathy that people I met had for Yassar Arafat. I've talked to plenty of strangers there as well as deprogrammed several relatives. I chalk it up to ignorance but I have to say I was surprised.
The Easter Bunny will be bringing the fun chocolate eggs before that.
Since we're talking St. Patrick's Day...
I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
... Through confession of the Oneness
Of the Creator of creation.
I arise today
Through the strength of Christ's birth and His baptism,
Through the strength of His crucifixion and His burial,
Through the strength of His resurrection and His ascension,
Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of doom.
I arise today
Through the strength of the love of cherubim,
In obedience of angels,
... In innocence of virgins,
In deeds of righteous men.
I arise today
Through the strength of heaven;
Light of the sun,
Splendor of fire,
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of the wind,
Depth of the sea,
Stability of the earth,
Firmness of the rock.
I arise today
Through God's strength to pilot me;
... God's hosts to save me
From snares of the devil,
From temptations of vices...
I summon today all these powers between me and evil,
Against every cruel merciless power that opposes my body and soul,
Against incantations of false prophets,
Against black laws of pagandom,
Against false laws of heretics,
Against craft of idolatry,
Against spells of women and smiths and wizards,
Against every knowledge that corrupts man's body and soul.
Christ shield me today.
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye that sees me,
Christ in the ear that hears me.
...
St. Patrick (ca. 377)
Those are the same people who shout "Up the 'RA!" after a pitcher of Guinness... Nothing new about it, but they're far from the majority.
I seriously doubt that every single person in Ireland will treat an Israeli visitor badly.""
not every single one, but the majority
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