GREENHORNS AND NARROWBACKS

Jerry Harkins

Some years ago, I wrote a short treatise called Narrowback’s History of Ireland. As I explained at the time, it represented, “…a pale shadow of the unstarted book length project to which the late Howard E. Harkins devoted the last 30 years of his life.” As it turned out, the market for such an effort was not exuberant. I now realize that it might have helped had I been a bit more forthcoming about the word “narrowback.” I did say it refers to a “…certain habit of mind characteristic of the American children and grandchildren of the Irish immigrants…a kind of intellectual hubris that assures one that knowledge is important only when it is certain to be on the test.” In other words, Irish history happened a long time ago, some of it even before people had television, and it is just not compelling to a generation brought up on Blackberries and American Idol.

Irish Americans are perfectly prepared to strut and fret their shamrocks, leprechauns and green beer on March 17—loudly, pugnaciously even, and always generously informed by “the creature taken.” Fortunately, however, celebration does not require actual knowledge of what is being celebrated. It is sufficient to drink, dance and be merry. The spirituality of a fifth century saint is simply less riveting than all the other things that compete for the attention of the hyperactive, multitasking Irish American community. Now that I think on it, even explaining the term probably will not increase sales of the book. Nevertheless.

Irish Americans tend to come in two flavors: those who know and care little about the heritage and those who possess vast amounts of misinformation to which they are ready to swear. The old community storyteller—the Seanchaí—is no longer the central feature of every circle of friends. Thus, the student interested in Irish American culture is forced to seek it in the surviving Irish fraternal organizations which are almost universally embarrassing. Exhibit A is the 80,000-member Ancient Order of Hibernians, a society whose original mission was to protect Catholic churches against the ravages of Protestant intellectuals intent on burning them down. They (I mean, of course, the AOH stalwarts but if you want to to think it was the Protestant intellectuals, well no one will fault you.) performed this much-needed and often heroic service in Ireland in the aftermath of the Lord Protector Cromwell’s depredations and in nineteenth century New York in defense against the Know Nothings and other defenders of Jeffersonian democracy. Today, however, they are reduced to campaigning against abortion, agitating for a united Ireland and protecting the purity of the St. Patrick’s Day parade by keeping the gays out. For years, they resisted having a woman named Grand Marshall of the parade so as not to offend the hierarchy. These are, of course, worthy causes even if they are a bit down market. However successful, assimilated and intermarried they become, Irish Americans still present a hang dog face to the world. Defeat and depression rise miasma-like from the prose of our writers. Jimmy Breslin, Pete Hamill, the McCourt brothers, and the others are merely following in the footsteps of the master, Eugene O’Neill. Do you remember Con Melody? “I have not loved the World, nor the World me.” He wants you to know (a) he is miserable and (b) he has read Lord Byron. “I’m done — finished — no future but the past.” Back to Pete. The first sentence of the biography on his official website is this: “Pete Hamill is a novelist, essayist and journalist whose career has endured for more than forty years.” Endured! You could look it up. It means to suffer. Like Jesus endured the cross only a lot longer.

Look at our periodicals. You’ll have to do it by yourself as I get bored looking at the vacant mug of the local bishop at yet another affair honoring some nondescript real estate speculator and, of course, “the lovely Mrs. Speculator.” Number One among the Top Hundred Irish-American Real Estate Speculators Of 2009. The Irish Roots Of Barack O’bama. At present we are being told that he is only 3% Irish (2 of his 64 great-great-great-great-grandparents) but the number is sure to rise over the next eight years. (If the morons who run the church had succeeded in banning him from speaking at the Notre Dame commencement exercises, we might have been spared this speculation.) Listen to Tommy Michael Smyth, perennial co-host of NBC’s parade coverage, as he extols the virtues of one obscure marcher after another. The people are interchangeable, it’s their achievements you have to pay attention to. Congratulations, Timmy, on the new job. Timmy is the new assistant deputy sewer commissioner. Hello, there, Mike, how are the marvelous grandchildren? The nine-year-old has just earned a girl scout badge for macramé. And here’s Father John Pat just back from six months rest cure in Arizona. Sobriety and two strokes off the handicap. Nice going, Father.

Nearly a half century after Jack Kennedy, we are desperate to protect whatever acceptance we might have gained. In part of course it is history, in part geography. For a thousand years and more we were sorely oppressed by the English and the holy Roman church, thralls to the former, pawns to the latter. And we were not like other Europeans. We lived at the end of the world far removed from the history of our nearest neighbors and speaking a language that was neither Latinate nor Teutonic. As European artists struggled through the centuries to create ever more accurate representations of their world, we were dealing in abstract symbols. Until the British came, ours was the most egalitarian and humane society the world had ever seen.

But Ireland fell on hard times. The song is true: the idiot Brits made it a capital offense to wear green clothes. The Flight of the Earls, the Wild Geese, the Penal Laws, the Ascendency, the Transportation, Cromwell and don’t forget the Famine. The Great Hunger, An Gorta Mor. The Troubles. That kind of experience leaves a scar on the soul of a people. It never heals and it takes generations to be rid of the nightmares.

At last though Ireland is changing. The English are gone, the clergy exorcised and, since the 1990’s, there have been years when the Irish have posted the highest standard of living in the EU. The Celtic Tiger attracted immigrants from all over the world. It took unspeakable sex scandals to throw off the yoke of the Roman church. The Irish have a long way to go but they have outlawed discrimination against gays and are about to enact the Civil Partnerships Act. Despite the bitter opposition of the hierarchy, Irish men and women, married and otherwise, can now buy condoms without a doctor’s prescription. And they seem to be doing it. The birth rate is still the highest in the EU but it has been declining every year since 2003. Ireland now has the 150th highest birth rate in the world. The United States is Number 151.

It is too soon to deplore or celebrate these changes or even to predict what Ireland will be like in ten years or a hundred and, anyway, that’s not the point. Ireland has changed already but hard-core Irish Americans have not. The total community is divided roughly 90 to 10, indifferent to hard core. The latter live in myth instead of history while the former are innocent of both. There are tens of thousands of the latter who refer to the government in Dublin as traitors and puppets for being heirs to the 1921 treaty. Among the former, neither they nor their parents know anything of the principals of that time, of O’Higgins or Collins. Indeed, they don’t recognize de Valera or Rossa as Irish names never mind someone called Barú. Names like Wolfe Tone, Napper Tandy and Daniel O’Connell are simply words in songs their parents used to sing. On Saint Paddy’s Day, you’ll hear The Minstrel Boy a hundred times but you won’t find one Irish American in a million who knows anything about Thomas Moore.

The fault, dear friends, is not in our stars but in our institutions. The church and the fraternal organizations have found it profitable to keep us beholden to them and to their surrealistic vision of the mother country. Only a dying minority keep even that faith today and they abide in ignorance and despair. The rest are embarrassed and have tried to rid themselves and their children of the myth and the history both. They have succeeded and so have abandoned the glorious heritage.