A Grand Festival of Smiling Irish Eyes

A young woman with brown eyes stared into my dark glasses and asked, “What color are your eyes? Blue? I have never seen so many blue eyes in my life.”

There was real wonder in her voice. I don’t know what the child expected. She was in the midst of the 13th Annual Grand National Irish Fair and Music Festival. I told her my eyes were green and took off the glasses to show her.

I said, “Some of us have green eyes. Most of us have blue.”

I looked across the crowd and there was every shade of blue, from the light-washed blue of the Donegal sky after a summer squall to the deep, ink blue of my father’s eyes--the color of Crater Lake in Oregon, the part of the lake they have never been able to sound, so deep it is.

Today is Father’s Day and I wish mine could have been with me last weekend at the Irish Fair. It was a day of music, grand story-telling, pipe bands, folk singers, Irish dogs, working border collies, and Welsh and Connemara ponies.

The Connemara is a sturdy, small horse that probably developed its cobby stature from generations of bracing itself against the wild winds roistering in from the Atlantic. Audrey Ann Marie Boyle and I first saw these dauntless and spirited ponies in Renvyle in the Northwest of Ireland, in County Galway almost into Mayo.

At the fair were booths with people selling Claddagh rings, Aran sweaters, paintings and photographs of Ireland and cassettes and tapes of Irish music.

There were the ubiquitous T-shirts; most of the people at the fair were wearing them, showing that they had attended before. My favorite T-shirt was a green one that said, “ ‘Tis Himself.” There were the same shirts bearing the legend, “ ‘Tis Herself,” but they didn’t have quite the impact. Not that the Irish woman does not have the courage and strength of her mate, starting with the beautiful Gormflath, the widow of the Viking king of Dublin. She married another king and then the legendary Brian Boru, and caused the death of that civilized man in the battle of Clontarf near Dublin in 1014. But I doubt if even Gormflath would have had the effrontery to wear that T-shirt.

She was a wild one, indeed, but she was wise enough to know that if a woman diminishes a man, she is left with a butterfly with the wings gone and no man at all.

There were bagpipers everywhere, making their stirring music, something between the cry of a treed bobcat and the howl of the shaggy wolf. It has a tribal urgency to it that makes listeners long for an ancient day. A tall, young man with sun-streaked hair and a Santa Monica tan nodded his head and swung his surfer’s shoulders to their music, transported by the ancient melodies. And when they struck up “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling,” everyone sang softly to themselves under the breathy wail. They finished with the Marine Corps hymn, which had its unfailing impact.

There was harp music, dulcimer, flute, and a goat-skin drum that makes a fine underpinning for the other gentle instruments.

One of the things I enjoyed most was a Gaelic story-telling stage, in which several performers told outlandish stories with roots in the tales told by the wanderers who used to go from castle to castle with stories of mysticism and beauty.

I met an Irish wolfhound named Caitlin, big as a pony, and gentle as a lamb. And the Irish setters were there, all burnished in the afternoon sun.

The festival had the largest Irish step-dancing display west of the Mississippi. There were so many children and young people to compete, they had to start at 8 a.m., two hours before the fair opened. I met Irish Consul General Brian Nason, who was stationed in San Francisco and headquartered in Dublin. As much as anything, Audrey Ann Marie enjoyed two young women working with their sheep dogs and a bunch of sheep. These medium-sized dogs, either long- or short-haired and black and white, crouch low to the ground to herd the sheep, responding to commands given by their shepherds.

The wonder-dog working the sheep first was the female, one of the puppies from the first litter ever bred by the handler. The dog crept and crawled and cajoled her charges through two gates and then into a small wire enclosure where they didn’t want to go. But her skillful steady pressure got them in. The next handler and trainer worked with a brace of dogs, mother and son--which is demanding on trainer and animals. They were Belle, a 10-year-old sheep dog, and the grand old lady of sheep herding in Southern California. Her son, Gary, is only 4 and what his work lacks in smoothness, he makes up in eagerness. You can see Belle sigh with resignation when poor Gary honks up the exercise. They are the only working brace of sheep dogs in Southern California.

It was a delightful day and evening. People came from all over the United States for this Irish Fair including, I think, most of the 1.7 million Irish Americans in Southern California.

Have a lovely Father’s Day and give the gentleman the honor he deserves. It is not always easy, being a father, hitting the balance between strength and gentleness. Some days the dragon wins. And when you tell him what a fine man he is it will not be necessary to mention even the slightest suggestion of a fault or a weakness. It’s often hard lines being a father and remember always, “‘Tis Himself.”