Above: Major Patrick Hyacinth Killikelly (Sr.), Army Surgeon
Above: Patrick Hyacinth Killikelly (Jr.), Irish tenor
We decided to go out for St. Paddie's. Thaddeus, due to the exorbitant cost of beer here in Australia, has been deprived and was almost sweating for a Guinness. The sweating must be because Thaddeus is part Irish, the grandson of an Irish tenor, Patrick Killikelly, who, his daughter tells me, was a mean S.O.B. with a voice like an angel. I don't know about the S.O.B. part first-hand, but I've heard a recording of him...and it was like listening to an angel, clear and powerful and adept. His father, in turn, was, I hear, a strict and foreboding man (to his youngest granddaughter) who was a surgeon in the American army, given a medal and the right to be buried in Arlington because he helped develop and personally test the malaria vaccine, at personal risk. So I hear...but this is from Irish people. And you know, the Blarney Stone and all that. But pictures of both men, the tenor and the surgeon, show a certain intensity and steely passion that might very well produce a tenor and a hero.
So the Irish came out in Thaddeus yesterday; he wasn't being a mean S.O.B. or a rigid army man; he was concerned about finding his green shirt and getting out to The Mean Fiddler in Kellyville. Can't get any closer than that to Ireland, when one is at the bottom of the world. The Mean Fiddler is a very cool place, a sprawling pub and lounge and stage and family friendly communal gathering hub. It is a pub of the old school with great food but with ten times the sitting space of the old Irish variety. They don't have to squeeze together in small stone buildings because it just doesn't get that cold here. So it was cool Irish sprawl, or what the Irish might do without the wind from the Irish Sea.
Some stats have declared that nearly a third of Australians can claim some kind of Irish ancestry. The early Irish were both convicts and free settlers; the interesting thing about the Irish coming to Australia is that perhaps the majority of them were not petty thieves or not-so-petty murderers, but rather political problems.
The Irish Problem. What's their problem? Are they a Problem, or do they simply, and deeply, love their independence? Currently I am reading Bede the Venerable's History of the English People and he mentions the Irish and Scots as fighting with the English--all the way back to the dawn of history, or recorded/remembered history in the British Isles. The interesting thing is that Bede, himself a Briton, mentions over and over the English cowardice in the face of the marauding Irish and Scots. The English finally, according to Bede, begged the Romans to help--and these intrepid soldiers built a wall across the north of England...eight feet thick and twelve high. The British seem to have gone the other extreme of courage and even seem to want to maintain a sort of Hadrian's Wall...but I'm out of my depth there. I just remember an oddity in South Africa, when we met anti-apartheid activists in Jo-burg...they had a sister-affiliation with Northern Ireland...they seemed to see a certain similarity to their own situation in that of the Irish. I have often wondered what the truth is, as we do so often when we foray into the messy and oft-spun world of history.
It seems, then, that the taking of prisoners and cultural clashes between the Irish and English begins from of old, from before Christianity. It may be, like in the Balkans, a fight for which the source is still raw, but lost to memory. Rawness without reason. Or, it could be that religion fired the old conflicts into action again. Or, a completely new conflict.
At any rate, it seems clear that the Irish have always had fire in their hearts; they have been deeply political, even in Australia--the Castle Hill Rebellion in the late 1800s was an Irish rebellion. Now, it seems, the Irish in Australia have become--Australians; more content with status quo, less religious. The Irish here are as firmly in the Suit Class as they are in the Tradie Class.
In Australia there is a very sharp distinction between "Suits" and "Tradies"--Suits are, well, people who wear suits to work, the managing class, the ruling class; they correspond to the American "White Collars." "Tradies" are "Blue Collars" or those who work in a trade rather than a profession. Liam, an Irish-Catholic aquaintance of mine says, "The Tradies don't trust the Suits...they see Suits as manipulating them or taking advantage of them because of their ability to use language to get things, or because they have control of the money game."
St. Patrick himself was both a Suit and a Tradie...he was born to upper-class Roman parents on the coast of Europe, and was educated and privileged. God suffered him to be kidnapped by Irish pirates and he worked for many years as a shepherd, a slave of the powerful pagan class in Ireland. In the sweat and dirt of the mountains and fields, he met God, who set a fire in the young man's heart that would, eventually, burn paganism out of Ireland. He escaped home and then, incredibly, returned to the place of his suffering to lay his life down for the Irish. In his suffering, through the power of God, he had come to love them with a supernatural love.
Or he was sweating for a Guinness. No, that's not it.
Last night, celebrating the great saint at The Mean Fiddler, we saw Tradies in their trademark neon workshirts, and families who sounded Irish, and Suits with Ireland Rugby shirts, all listening to an Aussie band who played--American classic rock hits. There were also some inexplicable costumes. Hopefully they were costumes. Here's a little photo/vid taste....
First, Aussie take on speaking to an Irishman:
Boy, the food was excellent--lamb stew, meat pies ( a big deal in Australia, generally), fish and chips in newspaper, and bread pudding.
Why is Arnold Schwarzenegger everywhere? Why do I know how to spell his name?
Tradies:
Ah, Guinness...once, the CEOs of Coors, Michelob and Guinness went to a bar together. Of course Mr. Coors ordered a Coors, and Mr. Michelob a Michelob; but Mr. Guinness ordered a Coke. When the others looked at him funny, he said, "Well, if you lads are ordering soda pop, I thought I should join you."
Well, as Thaddeus was enjoying his real beer, he was busy giving us a philosophical conundrum...that's when you know he's happy...beer and conundrums.
This Thaddeus is now always hungry:
Bread pudding with a whiskey-butter sauce and cream:
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Sign on top says "Fr. Michael"; sign below says "Confessional." Pretty sad when the confessional becomes Marie-Callendar type kitsch. Who can fit in there anyway? Gumby?
Looks like we need St. Patrick back.
Perhaps the confessional harkens back to a Narnian type wardrobe? Then you would not have to be like gumby to use it :)
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