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