Irish Crystal

by Andrew M. Greeley

  “There’s terrible evil all around us, Dermot. Isn’t something horrible going to happen?”

  “To us?”

  “Maybe. I don’t think so.”

  “Can we stop it?”

  “I don’t know … Isn’t there’s going to be a big explosion somewhere?”

  “Does Nelliecoyne know about it?”

  Our older daughter was fey. The other two kids apparently not. The canines? Only sometimes. Thunderstorms were explosions for them.

  “She knows it’s going to happen. She says I shouldn’t worry about it. It won’t interfere with First Communion.”

  “That’s a relief … Terrorists?”

  “It’s not like the evil before September 11.”

  “What should we be doing?”

  “Reading our Irish history. Still, nothing good is going to happen.”

  Something good, however, did happen. The following afternoon, Judge Romana Garcia and Commander Cindasue McCloud, USCG, appeared on our porch, the latter, perhaps two weeks away from childbirth breathing heavily after climbing the steps. They announced that they had Ms. McGrail’s citizenship documentation and had come to make her a “shunuff Yank.”

  Ethne brought the older kids home from school. She had collected Katiesue on the way. Our small one dashed downstairs in her nightie, glasses in hand.

  “Gwasses, Ma!”

  Damian came from the back of the house with the two beasts, who were excited by the crowd but were quiet and polite when introduced to the judge. Danuta appeared from the kitchen.

  There would be a hog-killin’ do at the Murphys’on Friday to celebrate our new Yank. This was the private ceremony.

  The judge told us how much American citizenship meant to people for whom it was a new gift and how silly we were to forget what a treasure it was. Her parents are immigrants and they celebrate citizenship every year on the anniversary of their oath of allegiance.

  Nuala replied that now she was a real Yank as well as real Irish, with the help of her husband and especially her children, she’d do her best to live up to the traditions of both republics.

  The small ones were duly impressed.

  “Why did you come all the way out here to make Mother a Yank?” Nelliecoyne asked.

  “Because she’s such a special woman, Nellie.”

  “Shunuff!”

  Using our family Bible, my wife swore her allegiance to the United States of America, so help her God. We all cheered, Socra Marie louder than the rest of us. My wife cried. Naturally.

  We drank a cup of tea in celebration. Nuala sang “Shenandoah,” her favorite American folk song. We promised we’d see each other at the Murphys’ on Friday night.

  “We a-singing shunuff ’merican songs, about the Yewnited States ’merica.”

  “Shunuff,” Socra Marie agreed.

  “You knew they were coming,” my wife still a-cryin’.

  “Woman, I did. They said you were entitled to something personal and private. Now I think you and I ought have a drop of the creature to celebrate.”

  We withdrew to our study and toasted the Yewnited States in our best Jameson’s hundred-year reserve. I thought about possessing me very own Yank, but decided it would be better later on in her bedroom.

  “How will Cindasue prepare for her party and herself pregnant and working all day?”

  “I imagine that the Ryan clan and the Coyne clan will sweep into the place.”

  “Won’t I walk down and help?”

  “Woman, you will not. It’s a party for you.”

  “I’ll have to make something.”

  “No way.”

  “Won’t I make me soda bread!”

  I accepted that compromise. Everyone, except perhaps Ramona, would bring their own soda bread. My wife’s would be the best. Wasn’t it a West Galway special recipe?

  As it turned out, Nuala Anne made five batches of soda bread, a yield which outnumbered everyone else’s—and disappeared before the partygoers turned to other people’s soda bread.

  I was eating some of it as she prepared the fifth batch that morning.

  “Dermot Michael Coyne, will you ever stop eating me soda bread! I’ll have to make another batch. Go over to the Murphys’ house and eat your mom’s. It’s almost as good as mine.”

  I hugged her in a nonerotic way and said, “Doesn’t me wife make the best soda bread in all the world!”

  She sighed loudly.

  “I wish we weren’t having this friggin’ party.”

  “Why not? It’s a great thing you’ve done and yourself now being a Yank and a Mick!”

  “’Tis true.” She sighed again. “But there’s evil in the air.”

  “We beat all the bad’uns. That’s part of the celebration.”

  “No, we’ve haven’t, Dermot love.” She slipped the final huge loaf of bread into the oven. “They’re out there. ’Tis a very heavy day?’

  “‘Tis not. ’Tis a glorious April day, specially made for a big party on Southport Avenue.”

  “It’s closing in, Dermot,” she insisted. “Something terrible is going to happen.”

  Then she shook it off and went back to her music room to practice her singing. She was going to sing ’Mercan music, mostly spiritual and gospel, an advance tryout for her record, Nuala Anne Sings Gospel!

  The exchange heightened my unease. I had always figured that if Nuala Anne couldn’t stop something bad from happening, then I couldn’t either. I had to wait till it happened and pick up the pieces. Since there was nothing I could do, there was no point in my worrying.

  Just the same I had called Mike Casey and asked him to ring the party and the street with a lot of his people. I didn’t want any of the immigrant haters messing things up.

  I’ve always believed that the Coynes go all out for parties. I learned that they are pikers compared to the Ryan-Murphy clan. The event was more of a mass meeting than a party, a noisy Celtic patronal feast than a welcome to a new American.

  “Me always a-saying Papists are crazy,” Cindasue murmured as the two clans took over her house. She looked very tired and very pregnant.

  “When that little no-count boy chile a coming?” I asked my wife—whose predictions on matters relating to the birth of children—time, weight, gender are frighteningly accurate.

  She glanced at her diminutive friend.

  “Thursday afternoon.”

  It was not a matter for discussion.

  The party exhausted me, not that I did much work. However, the sight of so many people contributing to the food and the drink and fun wore me out.

  “Go sit down and rest, Dermot Michael,” Nuala said to me. “You’ve exhausted yourself just watching.”

  I thought that was an unnecessary dig, especially since I had cooked up the idea of the party.

  Our dogs were enjoying themselves enormously. Rarely did they have so many children with whom to play.

  Finally, the little Archbishop arrived to say Mass for us. We all gathered in the yard, under an amazingly warm April sky. My brother George helped him to get his robes on properly, for Blackie always a challenge.

  “This event,” he said, “reminds me of the story of the Irishmen who got off the boat at Ellis Island, walked along the dock, and watched another boat pull in. The newcomers swarmed down the gangplank, babbling in a foreign language.

  “‘This is a fine country, Mick,’ he said, ‘but there’s one thing wrong.’

  “‘What’s that, Paddy?’

  “‘Too many foreigners!’

  “The Irish, you see, are never foreigners.”

  For a homily he told a story that fit in with the events of recent days.

  “Once upon a time a new family moved into an elegant suburban parish, one which was very progressive. It had all kinds of committees, and ministries, and there were meetings all the time, and teenagers went to Appalachia in the spring to help build homes, and adults ran soup kitchens for the homeless, and there were clothing drives and blood do
nations, and the people in the parish figured that they were pretty good at what they did. But the new family was a challenge. They had dark skins but they were not African-Americans or Hispanics. They talked a funny, guttural-sounding language, and seemed to have a lot of money. There were a father and a mother and three kids of grammar-school age and two grandparents, and they had a lot of visitors in their big home. They improved the landscape of the house and painted the window frames and put up a backboard on the garage. They had three cars—a Lexus, a Caddy, and a Lincoln Aviator and the women in the family, including the girl who was probably in eighth grade never appeared outside the house, except in the latest fashion. The word spread around the neighborhood that they were drug dealers. Then another neighborhood rumor began that they were Arabs, probably Saudi oil millionaires. Then yet another rumor reported that they were, would you believe IRAQI! Well, someone in the parish called the FBI and the Bureau said they knew all about them and were watching them closely. Then some of the kids said that the Lincoln Aviator was packed with things that looked like they might be bombs. The neighborhood began a nightly “watch” in which cars drove by the house, just to make sure there were no dangerous meetings. All they observed were big but quiet parties of very well-dressed men and women. Well, when school began, didn’t the three kids show up for the first day of Catholic school, wearing the approved uniforms. So a committee of the parishioners went to see the pastor to protest letting these “non-Catholics” into the Catholic school. They’re Catholics, the pastor said. They’re Iraqi, the chairman of the committee insisted. They’re Chaldees replied the pastor. What’s a Chaldee? Iraqi Christians. They were Christians when we Irish were still painting our faces blue. They have a parish downtown, but the family moved out here so they could send their kids to a Catholic school. The older girl is quite a basketball player. They made a big donation to the parish. They own a string of camera stores. The committee went home, thinking that the pastor had been joking with them. They looked up Chaldee on the Net. Sure enough they were Catholics. They wondered why all Catholics couldn’t look alike!”

  Laughter and applause from the congregation.

  Nuala’s official singing was scheduled for suppertime. Nonetheless, she led us in singing the music from Liam Lawton’s Mass for Celtic Saints.

  Our kids were running themselves ragged. The two younger ones had had naps earlier in the day. Nelliecoyne wandered around looking worried, as though she were worrying for her mother.

  Less and less did I like this two generations of dark ones.

  Socra Marie and her inseparable buddy Katiesue were already running on empty, but there would be no slowing down until they both collapsed.

  “Happen they a-fallin’ down, I put them thar two li’l ragamuffins in Katiesue’s bed.”

  “How you doing, Cindasue?”

  “A-getting ready to get shet of this li’l polecat.”

  After Mass the picnic began, hamburgers, hot dogs, sausages, steak sandwiches; iced tea, Coca-Cola, beer (nothing stronger at my wife’s insistence), forty different kinds of ice cream.

  And of course soda bread!

  Then herself sat on a chair in the middle of the yard, the little kids in front of her, and the doggies curled up on either side, and began to strum the harp as the sunset clouds bathed Southport Avenue red and gold.

  She was wearing blue jeans, a red, white, and blue sweatshirt that proclaimed, “God Bless America,” and white baseball cap with “USA” on it in red and blue.

  She began with “I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy,” then continued with a medley of songs by George M. Cohan.

  “I’m going to sing a couple of American folk songs I like a lot, then I’m going to do some gospel music in honor of my Irish friend and neighbor Cindasue, who made her house available for this celebration. Cindasue as you know is a hard-shell Baptist from down to Stinkin’ Crick, but also somehow or other one of them gosh darn Papists. Happen I git out ’nother one of them thar records of mine, it may just be gospel music.”

  I knew, though no one else did, that Cindasue had taught my wife how to sing gospel music, right proper-like.

  All the mutter in conversation stopped. The reverence in Nuala’s manner and music imposed reverence on the rest of us. It was not quite what we would have heard in a hard-shell Baptist chapel. Rather it was a one-person, solemn choir of Irish-American Catholics singing with deep respect a music which deserved all the respect we could give.

  SHE’S A FRIGGIN’ GENIUS.

  You’ve just figured that out?

  No, YOU HAVE.

  A superb actress, me wife revealed no hint of the impending doom she felt. Now only the inherently optimistic music transfixed her body and soul.

  “Last one,” she said. “I try to conclude this one with my theme song about a young woman who should have had the chance to emigrate to America like I did, a woman who died young but will live forever in the minds and hearts and voices of the Irish wherever they may be in the world. And as you all know by now this is the first song I did for a good-looking but obnoxious Irish-American boy in O’Neill’s pub just down the street from me college.”

  So we heard once again, the sad and triumphant song of Mollie Malone.

  The kids all joined in, Socra Marie before any of the others.

  Then as the sun slipped out into suburban Chicago and the sounds of the harp died away and the shades of night slipped in from over the Lake, there was a moment of respectful silence.

  Then there was a terrible explosion just behind us, like the whole neighborhood was blowing up.

  The ground rocked beneath our feet. The lights flickered and went out. Then they flickered back on. Nuala Anne and Nelliecoyne were hugging one another. All around us women were screaming, children were crying.

  “A house exploded,” Nelliecoyne cried out.

  “Down by the river,” Nuala Anne agreed.

  “The Curran house?” I gasped.

  “Of course.”

  An orange glow seeped into the sky west of us. Fire! Would it be another Chicago Fire?

  14

  I had never met Theobald Wolf Tone, never even set eyes on him till he was dragged into Newgate Prison in the autumn of ’98. Yet I felt I knew him. I had read all his writings. He was the intellectual power behind the United Irishmen. He made the arguments about Ireland’s right to be free. Although he was a Protestant—and a vague, deistic one at that—and skeptical about Catholicism, he insisted on full rights for Catholics in prose that no one can ever refute. He was also one of the primary organizers of the United Irishmen. Lord Edward was the political and military leader, Wolf Tone was the organizer and the intellectual leader. In the final years he would also become the principal foreign agent, the man who finally persuaded the Directorate to launch a major invasion of Ireland.

  You must remember that this was during the time when France still was a revolutionary government but after the Reign of Terror. The Directorate was a committee that presided over the government and the army and had waged successful war against England and its allies. Bonaparte was only a successful general still lurking in the background.

  Tone had lobbied in France for years to promote the cause of Ireland, especially with Talleyrand, an ex-bishop who skillfully served any master who came along. Finally, in 1798 the French were ready to invade Ireland, several months after the Rising, when it was too late to join forces with the United Irishmen. The French came too late, there were not enough of them, they were shadowed every inch of the way by the English fleet, managed to lose themselves in the Irish weather, and landed at the wrong place. The following year, General Humbert managed to put a small force ashore in County Mayo and win a battle at Castlebar before Lord Cornwallis overwhelmed them. However, this second effort was also doomed from the beginning by the same incompetence and mistakes. In neither case did the Irish peasantry rise to help, the peasantry already having risen once that year.

  Wolf Tone’s ship was trapped in Bantry Bay and defe
ated in battle by the English fleet. Tone, a commissioned officer in the French army—he wore his full uniform when he came ashore—was recognized and arrested. He expected or at least hoped he would be treated as a prisoner of war and exchanged for an English officer held by the French. Then he would be able to live with his wife and family again in Paris. Both Tone and his wife came from large families but were the only surviving children, all the others having died from tuberculosis. As a priest without a family of his own, I wonder how parents endure such tragedy. Losing a babe must be bad enough, but a child or a young adult whom you’ve grown to love as a person … that must be unbearable. Yet parents survive and go on. I observe that each of the three great revolutionaries of the turn of the century—Lord Edward, Tone, and Bobby—came from families where the White Death had taken a terrible toll.

  Tone was arrested, dragged off to Dublin, tried in a military court, and convicted of treason. He wore his full French uniform in the court, knowing that it would not help him. I managed by utilizing some of my usual resources to get into the trial. The English officers were courteous and respectful as Tone himself was. I couldn’t help but think that both the accused and the judges acted like English gentlemen. I jotted down his remarks at the end of the trial.

  Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Court-Martial. It is not my intention to give the Court any trouble; I admit the charge against me in the fullest extent; what I have done, I have done, and I am prepared to stand the consequences.

  The great object of my life has been the independence of my country; for that I have sacrificed everything that is most dear to man; placed in an honorable poverty, I have more than once rejected offers considerable to a man in my circumstances, where the condition expected was in opposition to my principles; for them I have braved difficulty and danger: I have submitted to exile and to bondage; I have exposed myself to the rage of the ocean and the fire of the enemy; after an honorable combat that should have interested the feelings of a generous foe, I have been marched through the country in irons to the disgrace alone of whoever gave the order; I have devoted even my wife and my children; after that last effort it is little to say that I am ready to lay down my life.