Why I Won’t Drive in Ireland

My Irish grandfather landed in New York one hundred years ago this summer. He eventually wound up in San Francisco where he raised a family and become a high ranking official at the SF Water Company. He was struck down by a heart attack only three weeks before leaving on a long-planned trip of a lifetime — a return to his birth home in New Ross, County Wexford. There he would have reunited with the life he left behind. But it was not to be.

My dad was still a young man finding his way at the time. His first duty upon his father’s death was to write the obituary. I imagine this was a particularly difficult task for him. Throughout his life my dad couldn’t talk about his father without his voice breaking. They had unfinished business of some sort — and my dad was robbed of the chance to clear the air.

Nature abhors a vacuum. With my dad clammed up about his father, our identification with our Irish heritage took on special meaning. It was a safe and accessible way for my dad and the rest of us to connect with what was lost.

I grew up immersed in emotionally-charged Irish cultural references. We shouted The Wild Colonial Boy every Thanksgiving; sayings like “The Irish don’t get even, they get revenge,” still evoke a stubborn pride; and novels like Trinity with Conor Larkin defying his oppressors, led me to think of Ireland as a kingdom of charm and heroes.

One summer during my twenties I cut away from friends backpacking through Europe to head west, eventually landing in Rosslare Harbor, south of Dublin. The Irish and their humor had me at hello. I recognized the quick, witty banter, the friendly nature that is particular to this tribe wherever it exists, and the self deprecating stories which provide the opening for every subsequent carefully crafted sarcasm.

I married into an Irish American family which gave me the opportunity to share my romanticized version of Ireland with a new cousin, Colman Murphy of Dublin. He had come over for our wedding and as I regaled him with anecdotes emphasizing my loyalty to the Brogue; shared observations about the charming people of his country; and the music -don’t you love the music- I noticed he wasn’t fully buying it. Had I met my first hard boiled Irishman?

Reluctantly I listened as we started a conversation that has continued for years. Colman has added complexity to my view of the homeland. Historical forces like invasion and persecution played a part in shaping that seemingly light-hearted temperament. For the Irish it was smarter to be friendly when anything less might get you killed. And the Irish brogue is more associated with poverty in a way that an Irish accent is not, reflecting a suffering that led millions to leave, never to return.

Now, a century to the season since my grandfather boarded a ship for America, I sit on Colman Murphy’s couch in Sandymount, Dublin enjoying the hospitality and good humor of a man who never left. I must know by now that Ireland is not a land of fairies and characters from a book, but of complicated humans like my grandfather, who escaped to a new world and brought his Irish nature with him.

But while I may be hearing an Irish accent and not a brogue when I walk the streets of Dublin today, I do not believe the character and charms of these people can be explained through an historical equation. There is something special going on here, and it isn’t due to any marauding, soon to be vanquished oppressor.

Colman himself, well studied and aware of the provenance of his people and their ways, can’t help but reveal his Irish magic as he charms his way through the countryside, enjoying a dinner with a man with whom he just had a traffic accident. He is unassuming and self deprecating and has an Irishman’s pride and conviction you wouldn’t want to test. He also happens to disappear for hours at a time, which makes my children believe in leprechauns.

Later this morning I will walk to the Village for an Irish breakfast and to spy on these people who look like and act like me. I won’t be driving, of course. While the Quiet Man preferred a horse drawn carriage, I must admit these modern relations are maniacs on the road.