Becoming Irish
Although she was an Irish-American, a deeper understanding of her roots, with frequent trips to Ireland, led this writer to pursue dual-citizenship.
By Ann Curran
Photos by Ann Curran
Above: View from the Dolan cottage in Dunquin, Ireland. The Atlantic Ocean is in the distance, with the Great Blasket Island on the right.
I was born Irish-American but didn't notice for a while. With four grandparents from Ireland, I am about as Irish as anyone could be coming indirectly from an island routinely overrun and settled by any gang that could build a boat. There's good reason why some Irish look Scandinavian, some bear French names like Molyneaux and D'Arcy, and some, like part of my family, were called "the black Irish" because of their dark hair, attributed to trade with Spain. And they weren't trading wigs.
But we were not a family that waved the Irish flag. When I was growing up in Shadyside, my mother wouldn't even go to the St. Patrick's Day parade, declaring they were "a bunch of drunks." We didn't go to Irish socials as our Irish-born neighbors, the Muldowneys, did. We didn't learn Irish dances. My grandmother lived with us. She had left Ireland, possibly in utero, and passed along one bit of the Irish language to us: "pog mo thoin," which means "kiss my arse," as the Irish say. When my Irish-speaking cousin Taig Curran of Spiddal, County Galway, asked me, "Do you have the Irish?" meaning the language spoken in the Irish Gaeltacht, where he lives, I produced the phrase, both shocking and amusing him.
My Aunt Margaret, who also lived with us, belonged to a snooty group called the Gaelic Arts Society. She took me as a teenager to see an Irish troupe of dancers at the late Syria Mosque in Oakland. I was totally charmed and suddenly proud to be Irish. And, of course, John F. Kennedy magnified that pride even more.
But my real move toward becoming a card-carrying Irish citizen came in 1968, when, encouraged by Patricia Sullivan Dolan, a fellow English instructor at Community College of Allegheny County, I and my husband, Ed Wintermantel, a fourth-generation American who doesn't think of himself as German-American, took a three-week tour of Ireland and its missing six counties, called Northern Ireland. For two weeks we toured the whole island. The third week we met relatives. The experiences were black and white.
On the tour we found teenage pickets marching outside our hotel in Limerick. Our first introduction to the keen Irish sense of individual rights - and wrongs. Up in Eyre Square in Galway, we saw a sculpture of Irish poet Padraic O Conaire. I had a great-grandmother named Anne Conner and felt connected. We stopped at the grave of William Butler Yeats, one of the four Irish writers to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in the 20th century. I realized the Irish respect for poets and artists of any sort. Since 1969, artists living in the Irish Republic are exempt from income tax on works they sell.
We noticed that the Irish cherish the word and have lots of fun with words and rhythm. Kids and adults regularly get up and recite, sing, play an instrument or dance in the local pub, in the family parlor or at neighborhood gatherings. Even the painfully shy break into this joyful, uninhibited behavior.
Left: A group of Americans and Irish gather together to celebrate Thanksgiving at the Dolans' cottage in Dunquin, Ireland.
In the late-1960s (and sometimes even today in the hinterlands), cars and buses waited for herds of cows or sheep to clear the roads. Farmers still carried their milk into the village creameries in large metal containers in a cart drawn by a donkey. They heated their homes with turf gathered in bogs and also hauled in by the donkey. The pace of life was slower. Believe me, it has picked up since Ireland joined the European Union; people abandoned the black bike as a means of transportation and just about everyone prospered.
In Northern Ireland, we learned that Irish Catholics and Protestants still argue about where St. Patrick is buried, among other pertinent issues. On tour, we dined in some of the old great houses, formerly occupied by British landlords, and discovered that the Irish sunbathe fully clothed, which is recommended in their mild climate. With the humidity, 70 degrees feels like a heat wave. We also saw the Giant's Causeway and loved the myth of a giant's building a roadway across the water to Scotland to explain the phenomenon.
Touring the north as a travel writer for this magazine in 1978, I saw a different Ireland touched with hate and fear. Standing in the Europa Hotel lobby in Belfast, we heard that that very spot had been bombed eight times. By 2001 the Europa had become "Europe's most bombed hotel," with 32 strikes, according to Let's Go travel guide. Also in Belfast, I saw very young armed soldiers. The scariest thing about them was their own obvious fear. No one likes an armed and nervous soldier. Belfast is a much more peaceful place these days - usually.
But throughout our first three weeks and first trip to Ireland and Northern Ireland, we were overwhelmed with the green fields and valleys, the whole unspoiled rural world and the sea. The kindness, friendliness and humor of the people also impressed us. The Lakes of Killarney were just luscious frosting on the cake. Of course, we kissed the Blarney Stone (twice for me by now). We felt sorry for some older Americans who waited too long to visit and couldn't navigate the castle's corkscrew stairway up to the kissing level.
I love being in a manageable-sized country where you can cross from the Atlantic in the west to the Irish Sea in three hours. Though we were surprised to learn that some of my relatives in the west of Ireland had never made the trip to Dublin. I love the water everywhere, including the rain. I love the people who, regardless of level of education, have an opinion on everything and a sincere empathy for any underdog anywhere. That's no doubt prompted by centuries of living under the British thumb and having family members working as missionaries or living as immigrants all over the globe.