Sure an’ It’s a Great Day for the Irish--and Practically Everybody Else

May the road rise to meet you . . .

On St. Patrick’s Day, the Irish, the wee-bit-Irish, and the wishing-they-were-Irish in San Diego will all rise like mist from the sod on a soft morning. They are everywhere today, every body today, wearing green, grinning, maybe going to a St. Patrick’s party, an Irish bar, or to D.G. Wills’ Books in La Jolla to read or hear Irish poetry, a story, or a song.

For such a small country, one might wonder how there could be so many Irish on this day.

Some people are, indeed, only Irish for a day, but others are Irish every day--and their roots are transplanted from Dublin, from County Cavan, from Kerry . . .

Brian Connelly-McDonnell sat in the restaurant above National University’s Aerospace Department at Montgomery Field. Slight, dark-bearded and quick, his eyes dance when he talks, and he has a lot of tales to tell--opinions and feelings about St. Patrick’s and about being Irish.

Connelly-McDonnell came to San Diego (from Dublin, by way of Canada) in 1978. “I came for two reasons,” he said. “One was opportunity. I wanted to break out of the class distinctions in Ireland. The other reason was economic. The country wasn’t going anywhere. After high school I worked for an insurance company in Dublin. We went on a 16-week strike and the result was a $1 increase per week. It seemed to me your life is planned over there. If you’re going to do anything to break the mold, you have to leave. You can do anything you want to do here, as long as you have the ability and intelligence.”

When he first got to North America, Connelly-McDonnell worked in various office jobs, in theater and radio and developed his skill as a musician. A singer who plays the flute and guitar, he has performed regularly since his arrival in San Diego. But also, for the last 1 1/2 years he has been assistant chief flight instructor at National University.

When he arrived, said Connelly-McDonnell, there was a poorly-defined Irish community but it wasn’t organized. Now several of these groups--the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick’s, the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Irish Congress, among others--have become better organized. There is a family feeling among the Irish, he said, but “the Irish have always assimilated because there is no language barrier.”

Most first-generation Irish in San Diego, he said, drifted here from New York, Boston or Toronto.

Still Returns to the Old Sod

He still goes back to Ireland every few years. “St. Patrick’s in Ireland is celebrated with pride and awareness of being Irish. It’s that way here too, but in Ireland it’s a quieter celebration.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “I like to have a good time too, but it’s more than that. Balance is important.

“With St. Patrick’s Day I have a fear of stereotyping. I have trouble with the smiling Irishman concept. People think you have to be loud and raucous. St. Patrick’s Day is a celebration of his (St. Patrick’s) birth, and the fact that he brought Christianity to a pagan community. A lot of Irish people still take introspective pride in being Irish.

“The problem with stereotyping is that while there is always some truth in it, it doesn’t tell the whole story; for example, the fact is that Ireland is in the top 10 in drinking problems--but also it has the highest percentage of non-drinkers per capita. So, it all evens out.”

Connelly-McDonnell, whose background is in theater (he has written two plays and is working on a third) feels pride in the heritage of Irish writers.

“The basic stereotype of Irish people really came from New York in the early part of the century,” he said. “Some Irish would get their paycheck, get a little tipsy and sing ‘Mother McCree.’ But it was also the time of George Bernard Shaw, John Millington Synge and Sean O’Casey.

“The heritage of great writers is something everyone is brought up with in Ireland. There is a snobbery connected with the theater here in the U.S., but that’s not found in Ireland. In Dublin, a city of 650,000, there are 12 theaters--and the audience is full of ordinary people--shop girls, bus drivers, carpenters, among others.”

Feelings of the transplanted Irish regarding Northern Ireland vary, according to McDonnell. “Some people are still caught up in the trouble, as if they are still there. Others care as human beings for other human beings. Still others want to pretend it doesn’t exist.

“Overall, I have a feeling of sadness and frustration. In some ways, people can’t see how simple the solution is--and yet it is a very complex situation.

“I want to say, ‘Let’s stop killing each other and live.’ That is what the future of the human race has to be.”

Connelly-McDonnell loves his recent flight career, which grew from a hobby. “It all began at a Dublin horse show. Suddenly a plane landed on the field and out came a man with a top coat and hat and an elegantly dressed woman with a large hat and veil. It was a duke and duchess.

“You see, it is so alien to fly in Ireland if you are an ordinary person. But, I thought, I could do that. And yet it is considered above my class back home. Ordinary people don’t fly. The class distinctions still exist in Ireland, left over from the British, even though Ireland is a republic. The mind-set is ‘once a tailor, always a tailor.’

“Back home, it’s a big deal to be a flyer. If I say that I’m a pilot, they’ll say, ‘I just got a bike last week--and you’re flying airplanes!’ ”

. . . May the wind be always at your back . . .

Everybody says Tom Nolan is a good talker--and he proved it on a recent rainy Saturday. Tom and Elish Nolan have owned The Irish Shop on 5th Avenue for seven years (after one year in Coronado).

The Nolans came to America in 1953, (he is from Athlone in County Westmeath in central Ireland, she is from near Dublin) and lived in Washington, New York, Connecticut and Virginia before settling in the San Diego area.

Elish Nolan commented, “Tom always wanted to travel and we wanted more opportunity, but it was hard to leave. I feel Ireland does have more to offer now.”

“The Irish are a growing community in San Diego,” said Tom Nolan. He attributes this feeling of community to the St. Patrick’s parade, which started five years ago. “The parade has drawn out people who have lived here for 30 years,” he said. “When Elish and I first came here, there was only the Blarney Stone, and our shop, and one Irish restaurant which has since closed. The Irish cottage in Balboa Park (House of Ireland) does a good job creating community, as well as the Gaelic Athletic Assn. and the Daughters O’Dublin, who put on the Smiling Irishman contest.”

“St. Patrick’s Day in Dublin,” said Elish Nolan, “is a religious holiday, a Catholic holiday--and the parade is also an industrial parade, with businesses represented.”

Her husband added, “It is a sports day--a football day. But there is no hoopla as there is here.”

“But there is a large dance at the Lord Mayor’s mansion,” she said.

Standing in the tiny shop, surrounded by white Aran sweaters, Belleeck china, a display of Irish jewelry, books, records--along with a row of St. Patrick’s party paraphernalia--Tom Nolan points to the paper hats.

“‘I have these in just for St. Patrick’s, but we feel that with our Irish goods, if a person can’t afford to go back (to Ireland), they can buy whatever product they want here, at the same price as in Ireland.”

Though steeped in lore and goods, this Irish-American said he doesn’t travel back to Ireland. “But Elish goes for the business, to attend trade shows.”

He said that although he cares about Irish politics, it is American politics that interest him. And he added, “I’d like to see American companies in Ireland.

“Every (ethnic) group in America has brought something important. I admire other nationalities, too--Germans, Poles, Jews, Mexicans, Italians--all contribute.

“I’ll probably go back to Ireland some day,” he said, with a glimmer in his blue eyes, “when there’s a bridge, and I can drive over.”

. . . May the sun shine warm upon your face . . .

Red-haired Jim Foley is sitting in the dim light of the uncharacteristically quiet Blarney Stone Pub drinking his second cup of morning coffee. Foley was a champion Irish football player in County Kerry before he came to Connecticut in 1956 and to San Diego, where he opened his pub in Clairemont in 1978 (he is co-owner with Peter Smith of the Clairemont and La Mesa locations).

Foley said it was a wanderlust and a desire for adventure that brought him to the United States and first to Connecticut, where he had family. “At age 18, I didn’t look at the economy,” he said.

“I’ve traveled all over the world now, and there’s no place like the United States and no place like San Diego.

“There aren’t a lot of Irish young people in San Diego,” he added. “There are older retired people settling here. But immigration of the Irish hasn’t increased for 15 years because of the immigration laws.”

Though most Irish do come first to the East Coast, Foley commented, “Once you experience the sun here, it is hard to get away.”

But Ireland, too, has its charm, of course. “Ireland is beautiful when you fly into it,” said Foley, who goes back every year. “It is like a quilt of many shades of green--some patches even more green than others. That’s why it is called the Emerald Isle.

“In Ireland,” said Foley, “the pace of life is different. And, singing is a source of entertainment. There is no such thing as a paid singer in a pub. You take your turn. When the mike is passed, you’d better be able to dance, sing or tell a story.

“As a boy, I remember sitting around the fire--and we’d tell stories. Each person had their story, usually a folk tale--and then that person would add to it. Each time you told it, people would wonder if you told it better than the last time. It was an art. But storytelling is dying out in Ireland.”

Foley has an aunt who has been in the United States for 35 years. “I keep wanting her to go back with me but she won’t go. She has too many painful memories of living in Ireland with British rule.”

. . . The rains fall soft upon your fields . . .

Connelly-McDonnell said, “Ireland is a basic agricultural country which has grown by leaps and bounds and has contributed to world commerce at large. It is far more than a bunch of people who party and get drunk.

“As to the parade and the celebrations, it is like the music I play. I like the louder music to be balanced by soft love songs. I’d like to see a broader view of Irish people--and for us not to be viewed in simplistic ways.”

. . . And until we meet again

May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

--An Irish blessing