The Irish Diaspora

Here are the faces of the Irish Diaspora. In a West of Ireland village, not far from the marker that delineates the country's exact center a reunion is being held. These are friends and kin returning from sunny South America to rejoin their families still driving cattle along ancestral Irish paths and pasturing them in ancient fields.

Here is another face of the Diaspora-the stones on the graves. In the graveyard of that same village lies a stone with a simple inscription, "James Finn, resides in New York." This stone was placed so that my father's bones, interred in the earth of the New World could be honored in the land of his blood.

I remember walking the lands of my father's youth. On my second trip to Ireland at age 11, my father pointed to a non-descript rock set on the side of the hill and informed me that this, "priest rock" was the place where a priest was murdered for saying the Mass. There is no formal marking there, it is all in the memories of the old, as is much in Irish history.

Another face of Diaspora. Astoria, Queens where his children were born. In Old Mount Carmel Cemetery on All Saint's day the gates of the Famine Cemetery open, and I step inside to wonder in shock at the inscriptions of Westmeath inhabitants who fled ruinous famine over a century and a half ago. They come from within a mile or two of where my people hail from. Are they the unknown of my blood?

These were the men and women who sought their fortunes in the New World when a devastating blight destroyed the only sustenance of the Irish peasantry, the lowly potato. Contrary to popular opinion, the Irish did indeed have enough sense to grow something other than the potato. Alas, the more valuable crops were taken as rent by the English landlords who graciously allowed the Irish the right to pay rent to live on their own lands and labor to enrich them.

Worse yet, due to Corn Laws that protected crop prices and the wealth of the British masters, generous offers of food from the United States were rebuffed and people allowed to starve en-mass rather than lower the cost of the unobtainable food. In a period of about 5 years more than an quarter of the population had either died or fled.

The streets of New York were one welcoming home, and the famous hymn, "Sidewalks of New York," also known as "East Side, West Side," commemorates this, as does the flat, "New York" accents of New Orleans, a great port city that also welcomed its share of the Irish.

Diaspora means "dispersal" or exile and it famously refers to the spread of the Jewish people throughout the 4 corners of the earth after the destruction of the temple by Roman soldiers. The Jews have their wailing wall in Jerusalem where their descendants gather to honor survival, but where is our wailing wall?

Perhaps it is in Australia, where convicts transported by cruel British justice were left on the unforgiving sands of a foreign shore to claw a living out or die.

Perhaps it is in Britain, where so many fled to find sustaining work as maids and nannies, an ironic result of often cruel British policies that simultaneously ruined Ireland as an agricultural nation but often opened jobs in England herself. I know that my cousin, who was forced to leave her mother's cottage at 16 or starve found her livelihood and life in the great city of London.

For centuries the Irish have been the victims of despotic British practices. British rule fostered farm policies that would guarantee small plots be subdivided among sons until the land was riven by postage-sized pieces unable to support anyone.

Catholicism was persecuted and children of Catholics prevented from learning to read and write. Hedgerow schools in fields were illicitly held to give children the basics of an education. Both schoolmasters and Catholic priests were likely to be killed if discovered.

Starvation, discrimination, religious persecution. An old joke has it that Irish Alzheimers is when you forget everything except your grudges. Sad to say few are forgetting the ancient hurts. The echoes of a painful past are seen regularly in the eruptions of Northern Ireland, and this too is a reminder.

Here is a link to my profile with all of my articles:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/user/583548/mary_finn.html

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Sources:
www.ireland-information.com/articles/irishfamine.htm
www.irelandforvisitors.com/articles/black_47.htm
www.visitireland.com/aboutireland/olivercromwell.asp
sorabji.com/pictures/cemeteries/Famine_Cemetery/ http://www.irlandeses.org/about.htm
http://www.thewildgeese.com/pages/aus_kel.html
http://thenorthernirelandguide.co.uk/giants-causeway-and-legend-finn-mccool
http://www.neworleansonline.com/neworleans/multicultural/multiculturalhistory/irish.html