What being Irish-American means for the other 364 days of the year
In almost every Irish bar in any town across America, look hard enough along the walls of memorabilia and bric-a-brac and you’ll find, somewhere, an image of President John F. Kennedy. The reverence most Irish-Americans have for JFK is more than just another stereotypical trope. It forms part of the idea of Irish-American identity.
That line from The Departed hits the nail on the head: “twenty years after an Irishman couldn’t get a fucking job, we had the presidency — may he rest in peace.” JFK was one of our own. Countless many who came before had struggled against adversity and persecution in this country so their sons and daughters might thrive. His achievement had been our achievement. He symbolizes the Irish story, an embodiment of the American dream.
And so, every March 17, this is why we celebrate. Right?
Granting the average St. Patrick’s day reveler even this level of awareness as to why they’re celebrating is admittedly generous. Too often, when Americans speak proudly of their Irish heritage it reflects only the baseless pride of tribalism. After all, key to that ingenuity which allowed the Irish to thrive here was the tribal impulse. The sense that first and foremost, “we look out for our own.” Being part of a group feels good, even if by definition it implies the exclusion of others.
But between the clanking of Guinesses and endless renditions of “Whiskey in the Jar,” St. Patrick’s Day 2017 offered a few opportunities to reconsider what it really means to be Irish-American.
You may have seen, on Facebook, a viral clip of Ireland’s Prime Minister using the St. Patrick’s Day proceedings at the White House to stick it to Trump and his brand of American nativism. Trump was just feet away and had to stand dumbly through the speech, making the clip a welcome bit of social media schadenfreude. But the words of Prime Minister Kenny’s speech have a more lasting resonance:
It’s fitting that we gather here each year to celebrate St. Patrick and his legacy. He too of course was an immigrant. And though he is, of course, the patron saint of Ireland, for many people around the globe he’s also a symbol of — indeed the patron of — immigrants.
…Ireland came to America because, deprived of liberty, deprived of opportunity, of safety, of even food itself, the Irish believed. And four decades before Lady Liberty lifted her lamp, we were the wretched refuse on the teeming shore. We believed in the shelter of America, in the compassion of America, in the opportunity of America. We came and we became Americans. We lived the words of John F. Kennedy long before he uttered them: We asked not what America can do for us, but what we could do for America. And we still do.
So here’s cherished JFK again. Only now, he’s not a symbol of the tribe’s achievement but a reminder of the lessons of a shared experience of persecution, flight, and injustice. Being Irish-American is about keeping those lessons alive; more urgently still it is about bringing those lessons to bear on the similar injustices that persist in our country to this very day.
If JFK is proof that the Irish have made it in America, he is also a reminder of our obligation to those who still struggle.
There was another video this weekend that probably didn’t break through your social feed, a live stream of a rally in New York called Irish Stand. This hastily organized “call for justice” was made up of Irish, American and global voices raised in unity for justice and equality.
There, speaking to a full audience in the Riverside Church, where Martin Luther King once spoke truth to power, organizing playwright Lisa Tierney-Keogh offered this definition of Irish identity:
It is not shamrocks and parades and wearing green that makes you Irish, what makes you Irish is an understanding of our deep and complex history of forced migration, starvation, oppression and discrimination, and a responsibility to see those suffering similar fates and stand up and say “no, we will not stand idly by.” To be Irish is to be compassionate, to be tolerant, to promote equality, to fight peacefully for civil rights and liberties.
Irish Stand is about creating a connection between our communities and offering support to those who are most vulnerable and feel under threat. Let us recognize that what’s new to some has been known and felt by many people for far too long. African American communities, queer and trans folks, people with disabilities, documented and undocumented immigrants experience pain and trauma and discrimination every day. Recognition of the past, the present, the everyday lived life is one step closer to reckoning. This is what happens when human being recognize that we all deserve to feel like we belong.
Those things we traditionally associate with ethnic identity are our differences: the racial, the cultural, the linguistic. While cherishing cultural heritage for its own sake has its place, such differences can all too often serve to divide us— the grounds for the creation of an “other.” The fault in the very notion of ethno-nationalism is that such definitions vary in indefinable shades, melt and change in so many ways. The truest and most lasting aspect of Irish-American identity is the lens through which shared experiences have left us to view the world as it is today.
A member of the Kennedy clan, Robert’s son Max, also spoke at Irish Stand. Recounting the early political history of Irish-Americans, his words put into greater context the significance of JFK as an Irish-American symbol.
If an elderly woman needed a coat in the winter, an Irish politician gave her a coat. If a family lost its breadwinner, the Irish politician gave them a little help with their rent. When a man or woman needed a job, the Irish politician went down to the docks or to the factory, and made sure that everyone who was willing to work could have a job. We had each others backs, and we still stand…
His conclusion that in America “we have institutionalized the goodness of the Irish heart” is a tribute to the vision for American society that John F. Kennedy championed, impossible as it some times seemed. Today, those institutions are undeniably under threat.
The first Irish Catholic President’s portrait should not adorn our walls as some tawdry icon of tribal pride. We have learned better. Let it be a reminder of the privilege to be born Irish-American, a reminder of the obligations we inherit, not just to our own but to all.
Let his portrait stand for honesty, the kind which agitates our conscience asking “is there not more work still to be done?”
The moment of St. Patrick’s day celebration is over. How will you show your Irish pride for the remaining 364 days?
