That's the key, from my point of view or how we interpret stories from our own life experiences as much as what we were taught in school. So, I'll begin with my first memory: the animated rendition of Gulliver's Travels (book written in 1726). Though born in Dublin, Swift's heritage was Anglo-Irish; still, the leprechaun-sized Lilliputians creating mayhem, had me entranced. Of Gulliver's adventures, I identified with A Voyage to Lilliput, being little and misunderstood myself. Later, when I learned about the story's political satire, the child in me became saddened, as the adult recognized Swift's metaphors and irony.
Another vague recollection involved watching Walt Disney's Darby O'Gill and the Little People (1959) with Sean Connery, a Scot on television. Though enjoyable and sometimes frightening--I never forgot his encounter with the Banshee--now, I see the inherent stereotypes.
Of the other Irish-themed movies I watched as a young person, Finian's Rainbow (1968) grabbed my heart. The sometimes painful storyline involving racial prejudice in the South and class mores came to a bittersweet end (SPOILER ALERT). With Finnian's daughter happily wed, Finian decides to leave town to ". . .follow the rainbow," which made me, as I'm sure as it did others, cry. And, then there was the annual St. Patrick's Day ritual in our household, The Quiet Man (1952), with John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, Victor McLaglen, and Barry Fitzgerald. A movie it took years for me to understand as I couldn't believe why a dowry would be so important. There were many layers to be discovered over time.
With every passing year, my mother, who also admired Irish culture, would point out authors and playwrights that would show up in the most amazing places, i.e. Oscar Wilde in the movie, Around the World in Eighty Days (1956) or the filmed version of his The Importance of Being Earnest (1952). You see, when old enough, my mother made sure I appreciated our diverse world through artistic expression particularly. That said, these were only peripheral introductions to Irish heritage because Wilde and George Bernard Shaw were born in Ireland yet preferred to focus their attention on satirizing or skewering the English, with piercing wit and drama.
Once I began high school, my English teacher introduced me to W. B. Yeats's poetry and James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artists as a Young Man (1916). Since then I've discovered modern Irish authors and filmmakers who have also tugged my emotions, notably Maeve Binchy's novel, Circle of Friends (1991); the movies, My Left Foot (1989), In the Name of the Father (1993), Once (2007), and American-born John Patrick Shanley's plays/screenplays, e.g. Doubt (2008). These works embody a poignancy, or beautiful sadness which has connected me to the roots of Irish literature.
However, one collection of short stories by Joyce, The Dubliners (1914), still swirls in my imagination, a stand-out being The Dead. As fiction and film this reverent ode to lost love, disappearing traditions, and premature death reads like a poem and translates to celluloid (it was 1987), in Irish-born John Huston's loving hands. The movie is like a nightingale's song. Waxing rhapsodic, I loved every minute.Beginning with the quiet, deliberate motions of shaking off winter snow from coats and boots as the visitors arrive for Christmas dinner, the spinster sisters' story-telling, Irish nationalism, to the tenor's elegiac The Lass of Roch Royal, prompting the heroine's stunning revelation, the story epitomizes the ethereal melancholy that was, and is in the hearts of many, Irish history. We, the readers, are never lulled into Romantic complacency. Little details, whether it be the servant taking the gentleman's shoes to dry them off at the beginning, the vigorous discussion about the Irish separation from English control, or an unintentional slight made during a speech, all set the underlying tone. And once the ending's climax occurs, I cried. One of the few stories on paper that would elicit such a strong reaction.
Being a visual person, movies more regularly turn on the waterworks. After having read The Dead for the third time, seeing the film (1987, starring Angelica Huston and Donal McCann) and watching Gretta's share her memories with her husband Gabriel , once again washed me with welcoming, cleansing tears. Ireland exemplifies another culture which extols their duality: joy/despair. The Irish got and continue to get the light and shadow of life. Once you read a passage from The Dead, you will find exquisite depth of Joyce's voice now hidden and unheralded for too long. Here Gabriel is watching Gretta mesmerized by the tenor's voice and song, mentioned above, coming from upstairs as she stands on a step, a scene which serves as a prelude to her remembrance:
He {Gabriel} stood still in the gloom of the hall, trying to catch the
air that the voice was singing and gazing up at his wife.
There was grace and mystery in her attitude as if she were a
symbol of something. He asked himself what is a woman
standing on the stairs in the shadows, listening to distant
music, a symbol of. Her blue felt hat would show off the bronze
of her hair against the darkness and the dark panels of her
skirt would show off the light ones. "Distant Music" he would
call the picture if he were a painter.
No culture can exemplify life's dramas without bias and entrenched beliefs. However, for the upcoming holiday, March 17th, I'm setting aside the "global community" for a moment and enjoying the gifts that are Irish.
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