Being of Irish Heritage without being Irish!

 I was born of an Irish immigrant mother and a father who was most problematic. My mother NEVER referenced her heritage. Even when she associated with her siblings in our area, I was never invited to sit with them while they talked. While passing by the table, I often heard them laugh and seemingly enjoy their companionship. My father was most mean and I was the person to defend my mother from his abuse and take care of him when he was inebriated. I never argued with him. I just let the anger go in one ear and out the other. My relief was playing sports.

When I was 13 years old, I returned from being an altar boy at evening Lenten services to find my mother in bed paralyzed. Two days later she died. I was the altar boy at her funeral and I recall specifically standing next to the priest as he prayed over her casket and thanking God that she died to get out of the misery with my father.

I never celebrated St. Patrick’s Day and avoided wearing any clothing that celebrated my heritage. Being Irish represented such misery for me.

On our 25th wedding anniversary, Joan and I went to my mother’s birthplace and discovered a unbelievable world. Being Irish meant that the land you could own was less fertile. Without three hays, a family has a problem.  When we attended her church, we noticed some men smoking while they rested their arm on a brick wall. Questioning what I saw, I was told that it was a tradition based on the history that men did this to watch for signs of the British coming so that they could alert the people in the Church to leave.  We met a few distant relatives, but it was virtually unbelievable that there were supposedly 13 children who were born in this most small two story home, now vacant. Apparently, my mother never met some of the younger siblings.

We returned to find that “Out of Ireland” was playing in the Dedham movie theater. And what an eye opener it was.

If you were not the first born male or not married to the first born male, you had no choice but to leave Ireland. Such a forced decision resulted in their use of the term “Exiled”  to reference the forced need to leave the country they loved. To deal with this pain, the movie indicated that they would never talk about it. 

It surely explained my experience with my mother and her siblings that I knew. However, it did not give me new feelings of being of Irish heritage. I am left with so many who enjoy hearing their music, the scenery, and now a national government that seems to many steps ahead of many nations.