September 12^th is ‘Halfway to St.Patrick’s Day’ at the Chicago White Sox, one of the big nights in their year.  And it got me thinking: might it be better to be half-Irish than fully Irish? (Let’s assume, and it’s a fair assumption given the nature of this blog, that not being Irish at all is not an option.)

Philip Larkin wrote in “This Be the Verse” that “They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with faults they had. And add some extra just for you”.  Could your history, in particular your very recent history, just like your parents, mess you up?

Think about Irish History. What an event.  Drenched by millennia of rain, it’s a long and difficult road of fighting, poverty, famines, war, hardship, politics, alcohol abstinence or abuse, madness and mayhem, potatoes, Gaelic and GAA. It’s a history, for the most part, you’d not wish on anyone.  And it’s no wonder there are more Irish abroad than there are at home.

You might argue that your full-fat Irish suffer their proximity to this history, a closeness that compromises perhaps or blocks their ability to turn their lives into fully-fledged things. They are the bearers of this truth and must accept it like the first-born, inheriting the responsibility of the family seat while their younger siblings flit off and explore the world.  They have access to this great library but only in the way a librarian has, their first responsibility to keep the shelves and the past in order.

It’s a history that must be shouldered, a burden yet to be lifted.  These Irish must turn inwards, brood, existentialise (can you?) and drink (tea or beer or both).  These Irish must suffer the terrible ups and downs of a dire past in a world that’s bright, shiny and new.  

Meanwhile, your half-Irish are the ones that get away.  They get all the history but with half the fat. They get access to the greatest library of experiences and emotions without getting “’fucked up’ in the tradition of Philip Larkin’s “This Be the Verse”. They get the stories and the learning without the burden.  My theory:  The Diaspora Irish get the Irishness but in a way that’s useful, in a way that allows Irishness to come to life.