And That's No Blarney! By Janet Clark
Across the Atlantic Ocean lies an emerald isle, an enchanted land populated by pookas and fairies and leprechauns and other fine folk. In the southern part of this land is a county called Cork, and if you go to County Cork you'll find Blarney Castle. When you get to the castle, climb up the stairs, all one hundred and eleven of them, and if you make it to the top, then you can have a turn at kissing the Blarney stone. Everybody that kisses the Blarney stone receives the gift of gab, the birthright of all true Irishmen and women.
Five Fort Dodgers of Irish extraction, including one woman who was born in Ireland, agreed that one of the Irish people's outstanding characteristics is a love of language, both written and spoken. (Even if they don't kiss the Blarney stone.)
"They love to tell stories," said Agnes Kesterson, who was born in Donegal County, Ireland. "And they're real comical."
For example, there's the one about army private who complained to his sergeant about the food. All they got for dinner was bread, and stale bread at that.
"There's nothing wrong with that bread," said the sergeant. "A hundred years ago the people of Ireland would have been thrilled to have bread like that."
"I know," said the private. "But it was fresh then."
Yes, the Irish love stories. Their stories make light of the hard times that drove so many to come to America to build a new life. They help explain the unexplainable. And their stories bind them together, from one generation to the next.
Irish Myths and Tall Tales
On the northern coast of Ireland lies a strange rock formation called the Giant's Causeway. Hexagonal-shaped columns of rock, some of them six meters high, line the coast along the cliff's edge. The rocks were formed by a series of volcanic eruptions and the cooling of the molten lava about 60 million years ago. Or were they?
Legend has it the Giant's Causeway was really the work of Fin M'Coul, the giant of Knockmany Hill.
"He's a giant, and he had a little brawl with a fella, and he walked across Northern Ireland. He had a sweetheart who lived in Scotland, so he went to walk over to Scotland to see her," explained Peggy Murphy. "Where he stepped is now called the Giant's Causeway." Similar rock formations in Scotland give legs to the story of Fin M'Coul.
Murphy is a speech pathologist with the Fort Dodge Public and Catholic Schools, and she enjoys sharing Irish folktales with her students, especially in March, especially as St. Patrick's Day approaches. It's a good chance to celebrate her Irish heritage: Murphy's father is all Irish and her mother half, and she finds herself getting more Irish all the time, especially since traveling to Ireland last summer.
"I've gotten more Irish because people expect it of me," she said. "I have a certain reputation," especially among her students who know St. Patrick's Day is definitely one of Mrs. Murphy's favorite holidays.
Mythical creatures play a prominent part in Irish stories. Besides giants, Ireland is home to the pooka: an animal spirit with human characteristics. Horses, goats, donkey, bulls, eagles, can all be pookas. In "Jamie O'Rourke and the Pooka," another story that Murphy reads to her students, the pooka is a donkey. Before he became a pooka, the donkey was a human being, a lazy servant who would do no work; when he died, the servant was punished by taking on the form of a donkey and having to do the work he refused to do while alive. Both "Fin M'Coul, the Giant of Knockmany Hill," and "Jamie O'Rourke and the Pooka" are folktales adapted, written and illustrated by Tomie De Paola.
And everybody knows about the leprechauns. The "little people" are still seen from time to time in Ireland, rumor has it.
"We almost ran over a bunch of leprechauns one day," said Herb Conlon, former Fort Dodge mayor and full-blooded Irish-American. He and his wife Mary Kay were riding a bus in Ireland when they encountered the leprechauns. "They were crossing the road - they're only this high," he said. (Incidentally, when Herb visited the Blarney Castle, he was told there'd be no need for him to kiss the Blarney stone.)
Irish Traditions
Historically, the Irish people weren't a wealthy lot, but they were rich in their traditions. One well-known tradition is the Irish wake. For the Irish the wake was a time to release their emotions and to celebrate the life of the person who'd died.
"Wakes were a social event. They were a gathering of the clan," said Sister Delores Hannon, President of the Fort Dodge Catholic Schools, and full-blooded Irish woman. "It was a good wake if you laughed and if you cried." Where Hannon grew up, in Holbrook, a small community by Iowa City, everybody was Irish Catholic.
Agnes Kesterson, who grew up in Ireland and moved to America when she was 17-years-old to find work, said the wakes were held in the home of the person who'd died or in a family member's home. Family members prepared the body and then sat vigil.
"There's a crew of ladies that would set the table," Kesterson said. The ladies made tea-the Irish generally drank tea instead of coffee, she said-and prepared food for the mourners. While there was sometimes drinking of alcohol, "I never saw anybody get out of hand. And you set up all night long with the body."
"The clan gathered and they talked about the life of the person (who had died)," Hannon said.
The Irish also have a number of superstitions about death, Hannon said. If a bird got in the house, that meant somebody was going to die. Another superstition was that death always comes in threes. And they could always make that work, for even if quite a bit of time lapsed between the second and third deaths, they were still counted together. (Remember how Paddy died just last December, and Mick the month before... now here ‘tis May, and Maggie's passed away... see? Death always comes in threes!)
Hannon said the Irish have an interesting combination of traits, a basic enjoyment of life "threaded with a ribbon of pessimism". Perhaps that's what led to the traditional rush to baptize a baby almost as soon as she was born. Kesterson said that unless there was a problem, women generally gave birth at home,
"When the babies were born, it'd be just hours... that baby would be at the church to get baptized right away. Or the next morning right away," Kesterson said. There was no family gathering, just the baby's sponsors, and often the mother wasn't even up to attending the ceremony. But that didn't matter. "It was just important to get the baby baptized."
A traditional Irish Christmas meant decorating the house with holly, Kesterson said.
"We had the real holly in Ireland. It grew naturally," she said. Most people didn't put up a tree, but the green holly with its red berries gave the home a festive appearance. They baked special breads at Christmas time: breads with raisins and currents and treacle (molasses).
Oyster stew was a traditional Christmas Eve meal, said Hannon. And Herb Conlon said his grandfather liked to eat raw oysters by the pint, a tradition he has not carried on.
"We eat ‘em fried, not raw," he said.
Irish weddings also have their traditions and customs, writes Bridget Haggerty, author of Traditions of Irish Weddings. Brides carry a magic hanky, a beautiful linen handkerchief that, with just a few stitches, can be transformed into a christening bonnet for the couple's first baby. And it can be turned back into a hanky for the next family wedding. Another tradition: if the bride's new mother-in-law breaks a piece of cake on the bride's head as she enters the house after the wedding, they'll be friends for life.
And someone always sang the traditional Irish blessing at their children's weddings, the Conlons said. The blessing illustrates the deep faith of the Irish people and their love of family and friends. And that's no blarney!
Irish Blessing
May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face, the rain fall soft upon your fields,
And, until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.
From Today Magazine, March 2005