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jawnbcThe Fates have spoken: I am in NYC for St Patrick’s Day for the first time in over 15 years. And as my flight back to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
querrelle is in the late afternoon, there’s no possibility of heading into the city to watch the parade live.
Our family is full-on Oirish-Catlick-Merkun, so we were always taken out of school on Faile Phádraic to march with County Offaly (Pop was from Birr). In fact Pop, Da and my sister Kathleen have each held leadership roles in the Offaly club over the years. We had to muster for 9h30, spent a good 3 hours shuffling on our feeting moving not at all, then march with pride down Fifth Avenue, along the green line.
After the parade there was always a party, including a band, often in the function room above an uptown Chinese restaurant. Beer was free, there was piles of food, and the craic was plentiful. And there would be singing: lilting airs, nationalist chants, and the lamentations. Migration. Destitution. Transportation. Death. The Oirish have a knack for beautifully rendering the pain and heartache of it all.
By a lonely harbor wall, she watched the last star fall
As the prison ship sailed out against the sky
For she lived to hope and pray for her love in Botany Bay
It’s so lonely round the fields of Athenry
Songs like this rendered the room quiet, if only for a moment. Then the band struck up something uptempo, and couples (married, son and mother, daughter and father, cousin and cousin, and almost any other female-male permutation you can think of) would do an Irish two-step or waltz. Occasionally some of the girls would step dance (if they weren’t exhausted from step-dancing down Fifth), and usually at least one pissed old man would try to join them. Through it all we atesalt corned beef and cabbage, though the former isn’t really indigenous to Eire.
But invariably, some drunken jackeen would start hollering for “A Mother’s Love’s a Blessing”, and there would be foot stomping and shouting until the band complied.
A mother’s love’s a blessing no matter where you roam
Keep her while she’s living you’ll miss her when shes gone
Love her as in childhood though feeble, old and grey
For you’ll never miss your mother when shes buried beneath the clay
Today ‘tis a lyric I couldn’t bear to hear. But back then, the donkey men (donkey as in from rural Ireland) would start bawling, and if their Ma was in the room be after telling her “how much I’ll miss ya when ya’s gone Ma!” To which their Mas would reply “ah you’re a good son!”
My last NYC St Patrick’s Day parade was in 1987. I was newly out to my family, and things were tense with the ‘rents. I also was working, so I couldn’t march, but I sure could drink my lunch, buy a stoopid hat, and watch part of the parade from the street. And, as soon as time permitted, hit the bars. Except this year I went to a kweer bar in the Village, Julius’s, known for its hard drinkin’ homos. It took several beers before the emptiness of day was erased: I was moving in a different direction, my sense of “us” was being reorganized. It was hard.
And there was no singing.
20 years on, the techtonics of coming out/coming into a kweer identity have settled. And while I still love the old songs, I’ve come to appreciate--hunger for--Irish folk with a more contemporary perspective. Thus, in honour of Saint Patrick’s Day, I offer a ballad by the brilliant Paul Brady: The Island. And do pay attention to the lyrics....
I want to take you to the island
And trace your footprints in the sand
And in the evening when the sun goes down
We’ll make love to the sound of the ocean
Happy Saint Patrick’s Day
querrelle is in the late afternoon, there’s no possibility of heading into the city to watch the parade live. Our family is full-on Oirish-Catlick-Merkun, so we were always taken out of school on Faile Phádraic to march with County Offaly (Pop was from Birr). In fact Pop, Da and my sister Kathleen have each held leadership roles in the Offaly club over the years. We had to muster for 9h30, spent a good 3 hours shuffling on our feeting moving not at all, then march with pride down Fifth Avenue, along the green line.
After the parade there was always a party, including a band, often in the function room above an uptown Chinese restaurant. Beer was free, there was piles of food, and the craic was plentiful. And there would be singing: lilting airs, nationalist chants, and the lamentations. Migration. Destitution. Transportation. Death. The Oirish have a knack for beautifully rendering the pain and heartache of it all.
By a lonely harbor wall, she watched the last star fall
As the prison ship sailed out against the sky
For she lived to hope and pray for her love in Botany Bay
It’s so lonely round the fields of Athenry
Songs like this rendered the room quiet, if only for a moment. Then the band struck up something uptempo, and couples (married, son and mother, daughter and father, cousin and cousin, and almost any other female-male permutation you can think of) would do an Irish two-step or waltz. Occasionally some of the girls would step dance (if they weren’t exhausted from step-dancing down Fifth), and usually at least one pissed old man would try to join them. Through it all we ate
But invariably, some drunken jackeen would start hollering for “A Mother’s Love’s a Blessing”, and there would be foot stomping and shouting until the band complied.
A mother’s love’s a blessing no matter where you roam
Keep her while she’s living you’ll miss her when shes gone
Love her as in childhood though feeble, old and grey
For you’ll never miss your mother when shes buried beneath the clay
Today ‘tis a lyric I couldn’t bear to hear. But back then, the donkey men (donkey as in from rural Ireland) would start bawling, and if their Ma was in the room be after telling her “how much I’ll miss ya when ya’s gone Ma!” To which their Mas would reply “ah you’re a good son!”
My last NYC St Patrick’s Day parade was in 1987. I was newly out to my family, and things were tense with the ‘rents. I also was working, so I couldn’t march, but I sure could drink my lunch, buy a stoopid hat, and watch part of the parade from the street. And, as soon as time permitted, hit the bars. Except this year I went to a kweer bar in the Village, Julius’s, known for its hard drinkin’ homos. It took several beers before the emptiness of day was erased: I was moving in a different direction, my sense of “us” was being reorganized. It was hard.
And there was no singing.
20 years on, the techtonics of coming out/coming into a kweer identity have settled. And while I still love the old songs, I’ve come to appreciate--hunger for--Irish folk with a more contemporary perspective. Thus, in honour of Saint Patrick’s Day, I offer a ballad by the brilliant Paul Brady: The Island. And do pay attention to the lyrics....
I want to take you to the island
And trace your footprints in the sand
And in the evening when the sun goes down
We’ll make love to the sound of the ocean
Happy Saint Patrick’s Day
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no subject
Date: 2005-03-17 05:06 pm (UTC)Only 14 miles from my home, Portumna.
Are we cousins?
no subject
Date: 2005-03-17 05:21 pm (UTC)Actually Pop is from Birr, but Nanny is from TIR NA NEASRACH! Anna Kathleen Gibbons. Her people still (mega) farm in the area. She refers to her hometown as Clonkela thoug--but I don't think that's a real village . . .
I kinda like the idea of us each having a bit o' the other inside us!
no subject
Date: 2005-03-17 05:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-17 05:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-17 05:31 pm (UTC)I thought you were a Kerryman, or at least your ma was from down there?
no subject
Date: 2005-03-17 05:43 pm (UTC)Ask your Nana if she remembers Eamon Hayes (Dad)of Bob Hayes (Grandad) from the Chemist in Portumna.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-17 07:59 pm (UTC)Small frickin' world!
Departure time...ciao!
no subject
Date: 2005-03-17 08:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-17 07:05 pm (UTC)Must repress maudlin moment.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-17 08:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-17 08:07 pm (UTC)Safe home!
no subject
Date: 2005-03-18 02:10 am (UTC)