“We people of the diaspora, whether from Australia or Michigan or the plains of Canada, get here, returning ghosts, utterly confused and in need of guidance; and we see a place like Ballycotton, and recognize it straight away as a never but always known place.”
The Australian-Irish writer Thomas Keneally summed up in that sentence how someone from so far away, both in terms of geography and generations, can feel that connection to Ireland.
“Is it things forgotten but absorbed into the fibre?” Keneally, the author of Schindler’s List, asks, writing in Now and in Time to Be, about returning to the land of his grandparents. And perhaps there is such a thing as historic memory, for time and again I’ve heard those of Irish descent who have gone “home” to Ireland describe this sense of having been there before.
It says something about the endurance of the Irish that centuries of tragedy, persecution and emigration have failed to extinguish the essential elements of their being. And that certain traits and characteristics can survive down through the generations and emerge even in someone who has never set foot in Ireland, and who does not think of himself as especially Irish.
Pat Conroy writes with an Irish lyrical lilt, but knows nothing firsthand about the race of people from whom he sprang. In his interview with Irish America Conroy tells us of his desire to uncover this past. Perhaps he too will find Ireland to be “a never but always known place.”
He may be surprised to find he’s not the first Conroy to be a writer, that indeed, he is carrying on a family tradition passed down from the time of the High Kings when the Conroys were writers, poets, musicians and chroniclers to the Kings of Connaught. (See Roots pg. 39).
It is interesting to note that the Catholicism, which Conroy talks about as having caused him much pain is sustenance to actress Moira Kelly (also interviewed in this issue), who believes her Catholicism, inherited from her Irish parents, has given her a set of principles to live by.
As we ponder their differing opinions, we must consider that 300 years ago this year the Penal Laws, which forbade Catholics to own land, vote, hold office, seek an education, keep weapons or even own a horse, were passed in Ireland, and it is truly amazing that Irish Catholicism survived in any form, to be argued about today.
One hundred and fifty years after the Penal Laws, the Famine should surely have finished us as a race. The London Times commented at the time: “In a few years a Celtic Irishman will be as rare in Connemara as a Red Indian on the shores of Manhattan.”
The indomitable spirit of the Irish again proved the Times man wrong. Our population halved in Ireland never to recover, but in America out of the misery of those Famine immigrants the Irish can now boast a population of 44 million.
The comparison of the Irish and the Red Indian, although used by the Times writer to herald the end of both civilizations, leads us to think of a certain parallel between the two races. Long before St. Patrick, our ancient Irish ancestors lived and worshiped in ways not unlike the Native Americans, as a visit to Newgrange or one of the many surviving festivals celebrating the gods of nature will attest to. Two features in this issue mark this connection. One explores Celtic and Native American art, another tells of the Choctaw Indians who raised money for Irish Famine relief.
Too many of us know too little about our past history, a deeper understanding of which can only lead to a deeper understanding of ourselves, and our shared histories with others.
Perhaps the awfulness of the Famine caused a sort of general amnesia from which we may just now be recovering our memories.
Hopefully, more of the 44 million Irish Americans, such as Pat Conroy, who know little about their heritage will begin now to seek out that “never but always known place.”
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in the September/October 1995 issue of Irish America. ♦
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