Sheryl's Pics from Saturday's Session March 29. Thanks!

Songs from A Nation of One

St Patrick's Day 2008 at Brennan's. Easton, MA

Leprechaun

Leprechaun Index


· Name: Seán.

· Mother: Irish.

· Mother’s accent: Irish

. Origin: Westmeath, greatly tempered with the indeterminate “educated Dubliner” (This is pre the D4 .); tempered not at all by 37 years in Amerikay.

· Lifelong residence: Massachusetts.

· Yearly vacation destination: Ireland.

· Obvious Irishness quotient in American suburb of my youth: 100%.

· References made to said Irishness, expressed in terms of Seldom, Infrequently, Frequently, Constantly: Constantly.

· Consideration of the last two facts above, in their importance to this author in the formation of Self, expressed in terms of Little Consideration, Some, Extensive Consideration: Little Consideration.

· Literary term that describes the last fact, in consideration of the vast importance of identity issues to this adult author: Irony.

· Upon consideration, the effect of this American portion of this author’s youthful experiences: Unknown.

· Number of times green was worn by this author to school or anywhere else on the 17th of March: Zero.

· Purported reason for youthful neglect of St. Patrick: Mother never remembered that it was St. Patrick’s Day.

· Proposed real reason for mother's lapses of memory: Utter rejection of ludicrous American displays of Irishness, expressed through passive/aggressive “forgetfulness”.

· Degree to which mother’s attitudes have influenced her son, this author, expressed in terms of: Not at All, Somewhat, Greatly, Hard to say how much they haven’t, subtly and subconsciously, been of great influence: Which do you think?

Peggy Gordon MP3

There is a session album in the works. Actually, two. We hope to have a studio album as well as a live recording, both released by Christmas of 2007.

Get a taste their progress here.

An edit of Peggy Gordon. Download available at the link in the title.

Winter 07 Session Fun

Thanks again, Melissa!

Thank You!

For all who have supported the Saturday ICC session over the past six months. Thank you.

Every Saturday is truly exciting and different.

Hope you will continue to come and help us grow the session into the premiere traditional venue in our area and beyond.

You may know that the kitchen is now open with a full menu. In the fall, the kitchen will be expanded and the menu revamped. Find the menu here soon.

Moreover, we are trying to cook up an outdoor session and bar b q before the end of the summer!

If you haven't been in the last few weeks, we have been happily joined by the presence of a Saturday set dancing crew. Last week we enough dancers for two sets. Dancing throughout the pub!

Look here in the near future for photo albums, a weekly podcast, and maybe even video feed.

More! A list of common set tunes and songs popular at the session.

Congratulate Amy and Tim FitzPatrick when you see them on their recent Cantab Lounge Gig!

Here's a thought for Amy's next album cover! Thanks Melissa.

Interview in the Boston Irish Emigrant

I'd like to thank editor Jim McGrath for the opportunity of an interview in the current hard copy issue of the Boston Irish Emigrant magazine. (There is no online version of the interview right now.)

The interview is in support of the Saturday Session at the Irish Cultural Centre of New England.

Jim and the Emigrant have done a fabulous job: front page picture and headline, and an excellent and in depth page two story. I feel humbled! Thank you, Jim!

This will be our one-month anniversary of the new session and it is already starting to blow up.

Tonight, Amy Basse on fiddle, Eric Olsen (guitar, whistles), and Stu Peak (whistles, banjo) will accompany me, and if you read this and are in the Boston or South Shore area, I hope you can come check it out.

Last week was standing room only, as a result of our early success, and also the feature article in last week's Patriot Ledger.

Picture on the Expatriate's Wall

THE picture on the expatriate’s wall. Two little girls, seated, in bright dresses and bright smiles. A green cardboard frame, containing the picture on the left, and on the right, a calendar of the year: 1996. An era recorded and unchanging, a multitude of associations as frozen as the captured young subjects in the photo.

In 1997 I moved home to Ireland for a stay that lasted just under a year. I became a voluntary exile from my other, real home. I left behind America, my parents, many friends, and the majority of my life experiences.

I fell into the habit of studying that picture of two young cousins. I wondered if it would become a relic of my personal Diaspora.

As a “first generation” Irish American I have been both an observer and a participant in the rites of separation. I know how long separation and displacement unfolds.
The phone calls, the letters, the frequent trips home to Ireland, and the less frequent visits from family across the world. The powerful emotions theses brief occasions impress upon memory, and the photos that capture the momentary and transient.

I looked at the picture and wondered. More than an image, more than a single moment had been preserved. Rather a whole reality, stilled. Ossified, say. That snapshot becomes the representative of the absent person it contains. The real person, absent, lives on and differently, as do I. We are no longer animate in the past; obviously, we have left it behind, in increments perhaps, or in giant leaps. Yet we don’t often experience change, that subtle continuum. Intellectually, we acknowledge it, but we don’t live it. The course is continual and gradual. Occasionally, we suffer the shock of it: Say upon reunion with a person or place after long separation.

The funny thing is no amount of letters or email or photos or updates of any kind between displaced family or friends ever displaces the memories, associations, and biases of our actual encounters over the years, and the photos and other relics that have documented them.

Physical memory remains primary, and it enshrines the past.

I encounter pictures of my past selves in the houses of relatives in Ireland I have visited over the years. There is always the strange sensation within me that my relatives are disappointed in my growth, in my maturity, in my difference. Old pictures make me uncomfortable. Who is this other person, this past me? Pathos, pathos at the heart of separation lies within this sensation. How sad and skewed is this connection between us: a few hour’s togetherness and a few photos?

My very return underscores the distortion between present-me and this old me, not-me. Then, my relatives and I spend the time reminiscing about that very past, the fulfillment of their expectation and understanding of me. Short visits and distant updates by letter and phone cannot prevent the ossification of memory. And yet, during these visits, the contrast, the distortion remained in the air, a discordant note. How much more pathetic for this situation to occur not with friends or cousins, but with a sister, or a mother?

First Gen Irish Americans (Hellooo Out There!)

I finally had a speck of time and some luck in finding some Immigration stats regarding Irish immigration in the recent past, and over the last twenty years or so. Yes, new Irish immigrants do exist, and so must their children. Whenever I Google anything Irish-related I always arrive in the 19th century: Coffin Ships, Famine, Awful, Evil Brits, and of course the Too Ra Loo Ra Loo Ra I-Am sites. Arrrgh!!!

The whole point of this blog, or a large point anyway, is to find out more about the current experience of being expat or (especially) first generation with strong ties to home. I selfishly want to know if I share attitude and experience with others that must be out there.


I'd love help with stats, reminiscences, comments related most specifically to the power of insight that comes with a bicultural experience of the Irish American kind. I would say we must be among the few sophisticated "Irish Americans" out there, in relation the dreadful weight of blarney and "history" that is inescapably a part of Irish America. Are you out there? Help!