WEXFORD PARTIES AND PRESIDENTS

 

It was a town of poets and photographers, patriots and piss-heads, sailors and emigrants, croppy boys and teddy boys, they all got along exceedingly well when the pints were flowing, somewhat less so during hangovers.

 

They shared the same accent, jaunty and distinct - hard to describe for it had so many roots: Viking, Norman, Celt, Cromwellian, with stray influences from the vast British Empire, for Wexford was a garrison town whose mariners had sailed everywhere.

 

Each street and lane had its own speech patterns, and every syllable suggested that you were from Maudlintown or Croke Avenue, Corish Park or Dukes Lane.

 

You can get a strong whiff of the accent by listening to Wexford native, Michael Londra on his national PBS show, Ireland with Michael, as he travels the country, introducing musicians and crafts people to American viewers, always with Ireland’s soft beauty glowing in the background.

 

But the myriad shades of Wexford accents all melded together on Wexford’s Quays that  stretch from the North End Railway Station to the Deep South Talbot Hotel and beyond.

 

Pierce Turner grew up in a quayside house opposite Wexford Bridge. The house seems lonely, now that the Turners no longer live or conduct business therein. It used to throb with activity, and the parties in the second floor sitting room were legendary.

 

Everyone had to either sing, dance, recite, or do some kind of turn; it didn’t matter if you were shy or tongue-tied, you had to contribute, and everyone from professional to amateur received the same resounding applause.

 

Pierce and I became friendly through our mania for songwriting, and manys the hoped-for classic we knocked together in that sitting room with the upright piano, overlooking the Slaney’s surging flow.

 

Wexford’s emigrants did well overseas – down the Quay on the Crescent stands an inspiring bronze statue of Commodore John Barry, founder of the American navy. And one glorious day in 1962 former President Eisenhower laid a wreath at that statue, while Wexford men and women who had served in WW2 saluted “General Ike”, their Allied Commander.

 

But it was an even bigger day 10 months later, when President Kennedy, whose grandfather emigrated from Dunganstown, County Wexford, drove along the Quay  to Redmond Place where he delivered his homecoming speech.

 

That’s when Pierce’s older sister, Bernie Lloyd, caught him. Bernie was always very bright, curious and involved. Instead of running around the town trying to catch a glimpse of the young bronzed-faced president, she opened the sitting room window and trained her Brownie camera on him as he drove by.

 

I don’t know how many pictures she took, but one survived from that unforgettable day on the Quay. It was of a different time, when presidents could motor by unencumbered by security.

 

That all changed five months later in Dallas when Jack Kennedy was assassinated while motoring along in a similar big American car.

 

 I often think that President Kennedy’s visit, commemorated by Bernie’s quayside picture, was what sent Pierce and me to the US as Turner & Kirwan of Wexford. We never thought of going to England in 1972. There was a war going on and Paddies were suspect over there. So, instead we hopped a plane to New York.

 

Over 50 years later, Wexford is a different town. Many of the old pubs have closed, and on Saturday nights when the Main Street used to be chock-a-block, people are scarce, or in a hurry, little time for exchanging greetings, let alone gossip.

 

They’re rushing home to surf the internet, stream movies, or bemoan the fact that the price of a pint is so expensive nowadays. That’s the price of progress and modernity, I suppose, but Wexford is still a great place to live, still has that distinctive lilting accent, where everyone knows you and you know them.

 

Pierce’s house on the Quay may be silent but he’ll transfer the party to Joe’s Pub on his annual gig there on Saturday March 14^th. You’ll hear the townie accent ring loud and clear as he belts out his Wexford anthems, “Musha God Help Her”, “Groovy Hearts” and “The Sky and The Ground.”  The latter, one of Wexford’s remaining great pubs, is named after Pierce’s song – now there’s an honor Bono or Bob Dylan never received.

 

Meanwhile Bernie’s snap of a beloved emigrant president takes us back to a different time, when guns were less prevalent and community more common.

 

Pierce Turner at Joe’s Pub, 425 Lafayette St. NYC, March 14, 6:30pm Tickets https://publictheater.org

TRUMP, GREENLAND & MINNESOTA MADNESS

“You’ve made a holy show of yourself, boy!”

 

That was a saying back in the Wexford of my youth. It meant you’d done something to be thoroughly ashamed of and, if you knew what was good for you, you’d better change your ways.

 

The phrase came to mind during the Donald Trump Greenland debacle. Seems like a long time ago, but that’s the “flood the zone” world our president has mired us in.

 

It’s hard to credit that a grown man would admit he was miffed because he wasn’t awarded last year’s Nobel Peace Prize, and that someone would have to pay. 

 

Oh yes, there were the lies about myriad Russian and Chinese ships threatening, and in the interests of US security Denmark had better hand over Greenland post-haste.

 

The crazy thing is that Denmark and our other NATO allies are in agreement that the US should have all the access it needs to Greenland; in fact, Greenlanders themselves would be thrilled if the US was to fix up its many abandoned rusted bases and help locate the frigid island’s abundant rare earths.

 

But no, that wasn’t good enough for the poor little rich boy from Queens. Rich or poor, he would have been shunned and ridiculed in the pubs of Wexford. How does he get away with such conduct in America?

 

Fibber’s fatigue, perhaps? Remember when Mr. Trump first ran for president, reporters used to note the number of lies per speech. Ancient history! Nowadays “it’s just Donald being Donald.”

As one follower winked, “You don’t expect him to be George Washington, do you?”

 

Well, one could dream. But a Greenland expert, Martin Breum, put it very well recently. “There is extreme consternation that your president appears completely immune to data, facts, arguments and common knowledge. He continues to state what is obviously factually wrong. This seems unbelievable to many people in this country (Denmark). We cannot understand what is happening. We wonder what is next.”

 

I’m with you there, Marty. There was a time we used to hold our presidents accountable. I guess fibber’s fatigue has done a number on us all.

 

Things got even worse at the Davos Billionaire Boys Convention when our noble warrior insulted the NATO troops who sacrificed their lives while aiding the US in the post-9/11invasion of Afghanistan. This coming from a man who got five deferments that saved him from serving in Vietnam.

 

This also from a man who never lifted a finger to prevent his followers from attacking outnumbered police officers while they stormed the Capitol Building on shameful January 6^th – a man who later pardoned the vast majority of said “patriots.”

 

The people of Minneapolis/St. Paul, however, have shaken off their fibber’s fatigue. 

 

It’s always been a pleasure to play the Twin Cities and look out across a well-integrated audience of Americans and recent immigrants. 

 

And yes, I have heard the accusations against the Somalis who ran a scheme to defraud the welfare system. Those crooks should be prosecuted to the fullest – but their crime should not be used as a blanket denunciation of the gracious Somali people who have added so much to the culture and commerce of Minneapolis/St. Paul.

 

I’m sure there are many good people among ICE and Border Patrol agents too, but this armed militia do themselves no favors by wearing masks and assaulting American citizens and others who are exercising their First Amendment rights.

 

This is not Italy in the 1930’s, but sometimes it seems like Donald Trump is trying hard to be another Mussolini looking for his balcony. 

 

After initially holding Democrats rather than federal agents responsible for pumping 10 bullets into Alex Pretti, he’s been busy determining how much damage the execution of two American citizens will affect the House and Senate elections in November. 

 

There’s already been a change in his attitude: 700 agents will be withdrawn from Minnesota, and a couple of brassy sycophants will likely take the fall, for without Republican congressional majorities Mr. Trump will become just another lame-duck president. But hey, George Washington was once one too.

 

Despite the inevitable lies that came spouting out of the White House, we have seen the videos, we believe our own eyes, and we stand with the people of Minneapolis/St. Paul’s in their grief, loss, and defiance.

 

Your fibber’s fatigue is wearing thin, Mr. President. You’ve made a holy show of yourself, boy!

 

LISA O'NEILL - A LEGEND IN HER TIME

 

Every now and again, an artist comes along who changes the game. Bob Dylan springs immediately to mind. Yet, Dylan without the sense of mystery would have been just another Woody Guthrie imitator.

Dylan, though ahead of his time, seemed rooted in the past. Small wonder, because soon after his arrival in New York he immersed himself in the newspapers and lore of the Civil War period and emerged as a truly original artist.

When I first heard Lisa O’Neill, I felt a shock of recognition. I was once again a young boy, sitting atop my grandfather’s shoulders outside Enniscorthy GAA grounds. We were part of a hushed crowd listening to Margaret Barry as she sang in a nasally voice while strumming her banjo.

To her credit, Lisa had ignored the tidal wave of modern influences, dug deep into Ireland’s past and uncovered the itinerant street singer.

Lisa hadn’t copied Maggie Barry, it’s more that she instinctively inhabited certain aspects of the street singer’s psyche and times.

I immediately began playing O’Neill on Celtic Crush/SiriusXM, but to my surprise there was very little response from the normally curious Crushers. I put it down to the originality of her songs, and to what at first seemed  an awkwardness of delivery.

But make no mistake, Lisa O’Neill is the most original artist to come out of Ireland in a long time.

Born in 1982 in Ballyhaise, County Cavan, nurtured by the quiet beauty of her rural surroundings, she was always aware of music and began writing her own songs at an early age.

Many of the significant new bands and singers emerging from Ireland nowadays are “from the country.” Previously, most tended to be from the greater Dublin sprawl or the bigger towns.

This new rural sensibility tends to draw from the land and long neglected local tradition; yet, their style is spiced with city experience – perhaps, because so many rural teenagers now attend university.

At the age of 18, Lisa left Cavan for Ballyfermot College to study music, and has lived in Dublin for the last 24 years. Because of her grounding in folk music she became a part of the new Trad scene that centers around The Cobblestone and other inner-city pubs.

For a taste of this new Tradition, listen to Lisa’s striking duet on Factory Girl with Radie Peat of the mighty Lankum.

But there’s always an experimental twist to Ms. O’Neill. As rural Irish and traditional as she may be, she was introduced to the banjo (her main performing instrument) by Billy Bragg while at a workshop in Tasmania. These “young Irish” do get around.

One of the things that attracts me is her fearlessness as a songwriter. Is she confessional? Surely, but it’s more like she scans her own heart and boldly follows  its inclinations.

I persevered and played a number of O’Neill’s songs on Celtic Crush, including her amazing cover of Bob Dylan’s All the Tired Horses which had brought her much attention as the finale of the Peaky Blinders series.

But it wasn’t until I played the almost lullaby-like Goodnight World that listeners began writing me about her. One described her as “a voice of the true Ireland that touches you without you knowing why.”

I echo that assessment and have no fear of Lisa getting stuck in any kind of Celtic Twilight, though her 2023 album All of This Is Chance is poetic in the best sense.

She’s already moved on with a 6 song EP, The Wind Doesn’t Blow This Far Right. It has more of a political edge, and features Mother Jones, a song celebrating the life of “the most dangerous woman in America,” labor activist Mary Harris Jones.

Not to mention the searing Homeless in The Thousands (Dublin In The Digital Age); these two tracks become even more vibrant when set against O’Neill’s chilling treatment of the Yuletide classic, The Bleak Midwinter.

There’s an original oddness to her voice that takes a little getting used to, but Bob Dylan sounded equally strange amidst the pop confectionery of the early 1960’s.

Still, I’d bet a pound to a penny that Lisa O’Neill will become one of the most cherished, and challenging, voices of Ireland down many’s the day to come. Up Cavan!

MEN DON'T READ NOVELS

 

Men No Longer Read Novels – the small headline in the bottom right-hand corner of either the Times or the Journal screamed at me.

Yes, I’m one of those luddites who still delights in receiving two newspapers at my door each morning.

Their views are different, but in my jaundiced mind they serve to keep me somewhat balanced.

The headline wasn’t news to me. I had first noticed a gender imbalance years ago while president of Irish American Writers & Artists, and doing a silent head count at one of our early salons.

It was beyond 60% women to 40% men, and I resolved to gradually turn the majority male board into a body that more closely reflected those numbers.

My fear nowadays is that the last word of the headline will become superfluous.

Men, of course, still read novels, but the gender imbalance can become painfully obvious at book readings or signings. Many men prefer biographies, scientific tomes, and histories; but why the scarcity of novel readers?

I’ve been shaped by the novels I’ve read, and for better or worse, I find that novels say something about the times we live in.

My first pre-teen novels were from the Just William series about the hilarious doings of William Brown, an unruly British 11-year old.

I became a County Wexford Library member soon thereafter, and every Wednesday evening I would borrow three books: a history or biography for my grandfather, a detective or romance for Miss Codd, our housekeeper, and something or other in the boy department for myself.

We read like demons. Everyone seemed to, back in Wexford before television ruled the roost. Books were fuel for conversation, and for library members they were free.

I read all of Dickens, was floored by Conan-Doyle, romanced by Jane Austen; then one blessed evening I discovered Graham Greene. The genial librarian, Miss Lucking assumed that Greene’s existential novels were for the grown-ups. I’ve never looked back.

I was living in Dublin when I bought a well-thumbed paperback on Rathmines Road - For Whom The Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway. The hero of this Spanish Civil War story spoke directly to my teenage psyche – his ideals, quiet intensity and longing for justice rang true.

Hemingway’s pared, but luminous, prose swept me away, and the dramatic unspoken ending still haunts me.

Great Gatsby is by far a better known novel, but to me there’s something hollow at its core. Perhaps I’m repelled by Fitzgerald’s Irish Mid-Western snobbishness or his worship of wealth? But there’s no denying it’s a hell of a story and a literary touchstone - every American high-schooler seems to have read it, and good for them!

From the newspaper article I gather that the educational powers-that-be prefer that students read more novel extracts, that nowadays teenagers no longer have the attention-span to devote to a full novel.

What does that say about our society? It roars out that there’s an elephant in the room – Social Media.

The article was able to track the rise of Facebook and Instagram with the decline of high school reading scores.

This is scary stuff, as the writer hadn’t even taken into account the volcano that is Tik Tok, nor the nascent use of AI.

There is no doubting the instant excitement that one can find in social media as compared to the measured elevation of reading a good novel.

Still, despite all the friends and followers one can find on social media, you can almost touch the digital loneliness that’s gathering force. The streets are full of people sporting AirPods as they blankly scroll their phones. Even in bars, where conversation used to reign, people silently stare at banks of flat-screen televisions.

As for the content on social media, much of it is flippant and harmless, but sometimes I’m reminded that “the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”

People are so convinced they’re right – gone are the days of reasoning or subtle argument. Lies are common, bluster is the currency, everyone’s “truth” is delivered with a sledgehammer; this hardly augurs well for democracy.

Ah, it makes you long for a nice quiet read, where you’ve time to think, come to terms with character and story, while admiring the subtle workings of a thoughtful novel.

 

Should you wish to learn more about Irish American Writers & Artists visit https://iamwa.org    Men are welcome!