“To be Irish is to know that in the end the world will break your heart.” ― Daniel Patrick Moynihan
I just returned from two weeks in Ireland—The Emerald Isle, the Land of Saints and Scholars, The Celtic Tiger. It’s a relatively small island—about the size of South Carolina or Indiana. Of its 32 counties, 6 make up Northern Ireland and 26 are in the Republic of Ireland. Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, requiring us to have a separate Visa to enter, though there was no check point or border guard. The border crossing was similar to crossing from Minnesota to Wisconsin—seamless. That was not always the case. Ireland has had a tumultuous history, though you would not know it from the peaceful land and people I encountered.
The land forms us in so many ways. Ireland is full of rocks and stones, bogs and peat, remnants of ancient abbeys and hermitages. Glaciers scraped, scoured, washed away soil to expose stones, and left large out-of-place boulders called erratics, remnants of an ancient earth. Resourceful Irish people took the stones and built structures and walls that still stand hundreds and even thousands of years later. Some passage tombs with large flat stone roofs are older than the Egyptian pyramids.
Whereas we in the United States are a people of immigrants, the Irish are a people of emigrants. They have moved out of their island and into new horizons—many on short notice and unplanned.
Irish migration wasn’t necessarily by choice. The potato famine of the mid 1800s sent 1-2 million Irish to other lands. Another million died in Ireland. Not all Irish came to the United States; many went to Australia, New Zealand, and South America. While often treated with hostility, they persisted in making a new home.
We resisted the immigrating Irish. According to author and historian Christopher Klein, the Irish refugees seeking haven in America were poor and disease-ridden. We were afraid they would take jobs away from Americans and strain welfare budgets. To the strict Puritans, the Irish practiced an alien religion and pledged allegiance to a foreign leader. They feared they were bringing crime with them. They were accused of being rapists. It seems to be our immigrant story; our imaginations run wild with fears of exploitation. Very few of us have ancestors that were welcomed. Yet they survived long enough to allow the matching and marrying and birthing that brought us to life. Now, we wonder if the next wave of immigrants is good enough to join us.
The Irish integration succeeded by many measures. Among our presidents with Irish roots are Andrew Jackson, Ronald Reagan, John Kennedy, and Joseph Biden. Other well-known people of Irish heritage include Gene Kelly, Bruce Springsteen, Walt Disney, and Eugene O’Neill. We embrace their poets, delight in their stories, and dance to their music.
“Those in power write the history, while those who suffer write the songs.”
Traditional Irish singer
Many of us remember The Troubles, 30 years of terror between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Supposedly it was about religion but that is too simplistic. Like so many struggles, it was also about power and control and how one franchise would be safer than another. Would Britain keep us safe? Would independence free us? Would a religion based in Rome try to control us? The religious struggles began when King Henry VIII broke from the Roman Catholic Church in the 16th century and founded the Church of England. Not all the Irish were willing to change to his religion. More than four centuries later, after years of rancor and too many deaths, Ireland’s two factions sat down and agreed to a peace treaty on Good Friday, 1998. The violence ended.
We toured the Kilmainham Gaol—the Dublin jail—which holds stories of political prisoners as well as common criminals. The stories include many who fought for Irish independence including the 1798 rebellion, the 1916 Easter Rising, and the 1920 Irish civil war. The dark dank cells built to hold a single prisoner held as many as five when acrimony and fear swelled the jail’s occupants. The jail was closed in 1924 after 128 years of use. Stories echo in the stone walls of that empty building. One cell holds the mural of Mrs. William Plunkett, a political prisoner and artist. She married her husband in the prison just hours before he was executed for his role in the 1916 Easter Rising. The jailers allowed them 10 minutes together after the ceremony. She painted her grief on the stonewall for us to see a hundred years later. Artists memorialize their grief in tangible ways, connecting their lives to ours.
Not only did we see that grief, but we also heard it in the Irish music—a single harp playing next to the poet W. B. Yeats’ grave outside a stone church. His epithet read, “Cast a cold eye / On life, on death. / Horseman, pass by!” We listened to ballads at an Irish pub that sang of the sorrows and losses of life. We engaged with musicians who learned the fine art of Irish music at the knee of their parents and passed it onto their children and grandchildren from ear to hand to tapping foot. Music carries the stories, the sorrows, the generational grief. Frank Harte, a traditional Irish singer said, “Those in power write the history, while those who suffer write the songs.”
I recently learned that I had Irish heritage. DNA exploration hinted that maybe the case. Then I met with a man who shared my last name along with a friend whose grandmother’s birth name was also mine. They came with the same origin story. A 14-year-old girl who came to the colony of Maryland in the late 1600s to become a wife, probably not by choice. She was 14 years old. A new land. Family forever gone. A girl. She accompanied me on this journey to her homeland. What might it have been like for her?
As I return from Ireland, I see the echoes of their history in our own land. The fears of new people who seek refuge from life-threatening poverty and distorted economic systems. I see people detained in crowded prisons for political, rather than criminal, reasons. I wonder whether our great grandchildren will tour our closed prisons and hear repeated stories of overcrowding and mistreatment.
Ireland, now nicknamed The Celtic Tiger, is enjoying an economic revival fostered by accepting the difference that once divided it—Catholic and Protestant working together for peace. When the weariness of war gives way to a longing for peace, we can live in harmony and prosper. Must we keep learning that over and over?
Thank you, Ireland, for your wisdom.
Mary Lou Logsdon is a spiritual director in the Twin Cities. Her soon to be published book, Passage: Reflections on Life’s Pace and Patterns is a collection of her essays. She can be reached at logsdon.marylou@gmail.com.
