By Peg Elliott Mayo
Local columnist | Posted: Wednesday, February 28, 2007 12:00 am
Irish character is always worth an unbelieving head wag or a groan. With the exception of Jews, I know of no culture more inclined to cast a mischievous, proud-to-be-different glance upon itself than the Irish, even those who have madly embraced English airs. Now that I've insulted and alienated half my readership, let's get to the chuckles.
Consider, when my grandfather (an Irish Protestant bigot emigrant) heard I was naming my first son Patrick, he furiously exploded with, "Every bog-trottin', corduroy-wearin' Tom, Dick and Harry in Ireland is named Patrick!"
Brendan Behan was the author of "Borstal Boy," a book starkly describing being a lad in an English prison. When, predictably, it was banned both by the Catholic Church and the English government, he wrote a bit of doggerel that goes to the tune of "McNamara's Band."
Oh, me name is Brendan Behan, I'm the latest of the banned,
Although we're small in numbers, we're best banned in the land,
We read at wakes and weddings and at every parish hall
And under library counters, sure you'll have no trouble at all.
He accurately remarked, "I'm a drinker with a writing problem." As Oscar Wilde said, "Work is the curse of the drinking class." Drink - usquebaugh - Good Stuff - Waters of Life has been an Irish problem, now and then, when the frost is on the meadow and there's whiskey in the jug.
Behan worked religiously at staying in public awareness during his flamboyant decline. "If you don't get up and go downtown you'll hear nothing, nor find out what they're saying about you. And God send, they are saying something. Good or bad, it's better than being ignored." Spoken like an Irish Aries. "I was born a pet, God love me!"
On his deathbed, dying of diabetes aggravated by his constant intake of the Good Stuff, he spoke to the nun who was tending him, "Sure you're a good woman, sister. May all of your sons be bishops."
George Bernard Shaw, an Irishman by birth and an Englishman by insane choice, said: "Ireland, sir, for good or evil is like no other place under heaven, and no man can touch its sod or breathe its air without becoming better or worse."
Like Oregon, you know it's summer in Ireland when the rain gets warmer. The Irish gave the bagpipes to the Scots as a joke, but the Scots haven't seen the joke yet.
"The great Gaels of Ireland are men that God made mad. For all their wars are merry, and all their songs are sad." G.K. Chesterton said the last, but he was the mad one: no war is merry and if the Belfast Hornpipe is sad, I'm a ballerina.
On an Irish golf course, after a truly terrible shot, a caddie was heard to say, "Even if the ball was wrapped in bacon, Lassie couldn't find it."
Another Irishman, Oscar Fingall O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, precious in his mannerisms and ruthless with his vitriolic assessments, also went bad. That is to say, he became an Englishman with hangman's wit and wretched judgment. A fop, given to gardenias in his lapel, he remarked, "A man without style and verve is a sorry specimen." He went to gaol.
He also remarked, "In matters of grave importance, it is style not sincerity that makes the vital choice." You can see why he went east across the water: he was too silly for Australia and not strong enough to work to build America's railroads. He had to go where he would be admired for his ignorance.
A favorite quote about the Irish is by a Jew, Sigmund Freud. "This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever." What Siggy didn't get was the Irish already had confession. They lived a life of penance under British rule and absolution came in hard work, appropriate immodesty and a wild tussle on a cold night. What's hard to understand about that? Who needs psychoanalysis?
Peg Elliott Mayo invites comment at uncommonideas@rivervoices.com. See her Web page and blog at www.rivervoices.com.