A tip 'o the Irish hat

Last night I watched one of those PBS fundraisers featuring a concert by Celtic Woman. It was set on the lawn of a magnificent 18th Century castle/estate and was complete with the five young Irish women who make up the group, plus full orchestra and chorus and a contingent of bagpipes. In the orchestra were several percussionists on a variety of traditional drums that created the distinctive Celtic sound.

In a program of songs celebrating their national heritage, I was surprised by two of the selections. The first was the lament of a young girl leaving her homeland forever, on her way to America. She is both sad and hopeful. She recounts the beauty of Ireland, her family, her memories. Then she looks ahead to the great unknown America and the liberty offered there. Liberty, her word; one much used by the thousands upon thousands of early Irish immigrants who came here in the 19th Century to escape poverty, famine and iron British rule. It was a beautiful, melancholy song.

How unusual, I thought as I listened, that Irish singers and musicians performing in a thoroughly Irish setting for an Irish audience would pay homage to another nation, no matter how closely tied by a common history.

The second number, “Oh, America”, was an even more unabashed tribute to this country. I can’t recall the words, but the lyrics were in the same vein as our unofficial national anthem, “God Bless America”. It was a contemporary song, and I don’t know that there are many like it being written on this side of the Atlantic these days.

Listening, I thought about my own German and Swiss grandparents, and the other side of the family from England and Scotland. Like the Irish, and everyone else from everywhere else, they came from often untenable conditions to America, where many remained in poverty or the lower classes. But their children did better than would ever have been possible in the homelands. Their grandchildren did even better, as they had hoped.

The young German fought in the Spanish-American War as an American, not a hyphenated ancestor. When Adolph Hitler issued a call for all good Germans to return to fight for the Fatherland, he sent his only son, an American, to fight against the Fatherland.

Those who came here in those days scrimped and saved, not so they could go home and live in style, but so more family members could join them in America. They cut their ties to “the old country” and remained here – at home. Yes, their descendants still eat corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick’s Day or enjoy bratwurst and sauerkraut during Oktoberfest and so on through lasagna, tacos, pad Thai and the litany of ethnic foods that now are part of the daily American diet. But they do it as Americans, not expatriates longing to return to the homeland. This is their home. It’s my home.

So I appreciate Celtic Woman’s acknowledgement of America as the place where their own people could find opportunity and liberty that could not be found at home.