Céad míle fáilte

The other night, at The Pogues show, I got talking to some guys in the audience, and they started talking about Jimmy Buffett. What his concerts were like, the atmosphere, the lifestyle, and so on. You know it: the Hawaiian shirts, the laid-back vibe, the big outdoor shows and everyone drinking margaritas. It's never been my scene, but hey, a lot of people like it, so that's fine.

But then I got thinking: isn't everyone at this Pogues show pretty much doing the same thing? We're singing along to a batch of well-worn favorites, drinking our specialty drinks (Guinness or whiskey), and more or less proclaiming to be part of some sort of special subgroup in America: Pogues Nation, or Shaneheads. The pseudo-descendants of the Irish diaspora.

And tomorrow is our big day, the day the tricolor gets pulled out and the green clothes and the mumblings of "Danny Boy" or "The Wild Rover" filter through the air.

And it's not even my day, or my group, so to speak. There might be some Irish on my dad's side of the family, but beats me if I know how much. I'm mostly Scottish and German and some English, so my predilection towards all things Celtic is pretty much a sham.


So what's the big deal with the Irish? We could all be victims of marketing. That's what Pete McCarthy struggled with in his book McCarthy's Bar. We could be swilling the Guinness at the Authentic Irish Pubs that dot the suburban landscape because that's been the latest craze, where before that it was Hawaiian tiki lounges in the 50s and 60s.

But can you adopt a lifestyle that isn't your own by rights of ancestry? Is being "Irish" in America no different than being a Parrothead? I think the millions of true Irish-Americans across the country would disagree. Those with actual families back in West Cork or Dublin or Kinsale. I wonder if they get a little cheesed off at the appropriation of a genuine ethic background, especially on St. Patrick's Day, when "everyone's a little bit Irish."

I suppose St. Patrick's Day, and the Irish experience in America, has become the shorthand version of everyone's immigrant past: poor families escape starvation and tyrannical rule to come to America, struggle, and eventually make good. Plus it involves drinking, which helps. And everyone likes a good protest song sing-a-long. So we take our own ancestral immigrant background and celebrate it on Paddy's Day.


I've been traveling to Ireland for several years now, to get myself past my original concepts of what "Irish" is and isn't. It certainly isn't corned beef and cabbage; it isn't craggy-faced old men singing "Danny Boy"; and it isn't a land made entirely of green fields and little white thatched-roof cottages.

All of that stuff is there, of course, for those that come over and want the "authentic" Irish experience. (Except the corned beef and cabbage; I've never once seen that on a menu in Ireland. I'm guessing that's a New York-Irish immigrant thing.)

For a while Ireland was, for me, the rowdy music of The Pogues; the poems of Yeats; and the Guinness in the pubs. Three things I took to immediately. But they don't exactly tell the entire story. That's why I keep going over there. I want to keep pushing past the familiar, well-trotted-out bits of what supposedly makes Ireland Ireland, and understand the place on a deeper level.

After six years of travel over there, I feel like I've just barely begun to understand the place. The stuff I used to know, like the songs and the legends and the troubled history, it's all there, and it's definitely a part of Ireland. But that's like saying that the U.S. is nothing but bluegrass and John Henry and robber barons.

It still intrigues me endlessly. The more I know, the more I want to know. And I know I'm not alone in that sentiment, considering the massive amount of attention paid to Ireland and Irish culture here in America. But if my fascination were merely a Parrothead-style appreciation for whiskey and The Chieftains, that wouldn't do the place and the people proper justice.

It's more than that. What that is, I don't quite know, but I love this long, slow process of finding out.

Happy Paddy's Day, everyone.

I'm a Man You Don't Meet Every Day

Paddy's Day is this Saturday, of course, so don't mind my mindless obsession with all things Irish taking over the blog design for a few days.

Girl at work asks me today, "you're Irish, right?" And I replied, no, I'm much more Scottish than Irish. Probably more English than Irish, actually. (Probably more German than all of it put together, but being German is so unfashionable these days. If nothing else, I know I have a fair amount of Celtic blood running through me.)

"But why do you travel to Ireland so much?" she asked.

I've fixated on the place enough these days, so I'm not going to answer that question right now. Or at least I'm not going to try and answer it all at once. That would take far too long.



I like the fact that I have Irish friends now, and Irish readers, because it forces me to think harder about the place, forces me to avoid getting flowery with my descriptions and opinions. Every time I want to write some fawning piece about the music or the green fields I think of Linus or one of the others rolling their eyes and inwardly laughing at the American romantic ideal of Ireland.

Can't get it out of my fucking head, though. This week especially, with all the typical PBS programming and canned Irish music on the radio as the 17th approaches. My folks are headed over there in a few weeks, and Diana gets a brief glimpse of Dublin before heading to Wales this summer.

The Duders and I started making plans to take a trip this summer; I was going to give Eric and Erica the grand tour, from Dublin to Galway and other parts here and there. Erica is now expecting the second child of the Clan Duder (yay for them!), so no trip for them this summer.

But hey, I've been over there four times in the past five years, so there's no need for me to go again this summer.

Except.

Except I know perfectly well that I'll wind up over there again this summer, because there's no stopping it.

Been looking at plane tickets and already started saving some cash. The generous tax return from the U.S. government will help me plan out a nice little trip: back to Ireland, sure, but to the continent as well, Amsterdam and Austria and some other places not yet decided.

Glasgow, maybe, to see Colin and the NTS, and some hiking in the Highlands.



Wanted to head over there to live for a while, last year, but I just couldn't put it all together. I'm singing the same song you've heard before, but I'll repeat a verse or two for you now while it's late, and I'm leaning back in my chair with a glass of red wine in my hand.

It's that old song about the boy who wants to pack his bags and head someplace new, but love and duty and commitment to friends and family keeps him back, and so he stays in one place and slowly lets himself rot.

Never much believed in things happening for a reason. They just happen; no master plan, I say.

One thing that I thought might happen didn't happen this week, which makes me a bit sad, but at the same time I wipe my brow and say "whew!" and thank Christ I don't have to commit to that life.

Another chance, one more opportunity to try out something new.

There's a Yet, or a But in all of this. I love much of the life I live. Family gatherings where we order pizza and swap tales, Friday nights out with co-workers and good friends; these are all wonderful aspects of my life that I am sure I would miss terribly if I were to ever move away.

I've always been a torn person, which is another way of saying that I've never been very good at commitment. Which is another way of saying that I lack balls. Never could leave the safety net of what I know, and that cuts right to the heart of what my nemesis/phantom commenter likes to point out to me every now and then.

So at this point this song has gone on way too long, and I'm just repeating themes already introduced into this storyline.

But I'll tell you this: the boy needs to have something change and the boy wants to do something different.

What's Irish for "Deus ex machina"?