This essay is a love story in the Irish tradition. It has nothing to do with horny politicians trying to seduce an intern nor does it have to do with an amorous preacher trying to embed a soprano from the church choir. It has to do with the Irish use of the English language, the language of Ireland’s despised and hated oppressor. The only plus to come out of 800 years of occupation by the British is that the Irish learned to use the English language.
And this essay also has to do with Irish earworms. Earworms are not a disease of any kind. They are simply pieces of song or literature that stick in your head and can not be shaken. My wife has earworms all the time. My mother had an earworm for 75 years over the hymn, “Amazing Grace.” She sang it or hummed it every day of her adult life. My earworms have to do with Irish literature, songs and poems. Before I grow much older, it seemed appropriate to write a modest essay about Irish earworms that celebrate and commemorate pieces of Irish works written in the English language.
According to my great and good friends Ella and Sven Lernervall, whose native language is Swedish and who speak flawless English, the English language is a rich one. I suspect I agree with their conclusion and would like to point out that the Irish have made a major contribution toward making the English language much richer. With that thought in mind, there are four pieces of Irish prose and poetry that I would like to offer to make my point.
Before that point is made, it should be noted that my formal schooling in the Clayton, Missouri public school system did not encourage much use of abstract languages like the Irish use of the English language. For example, at the time in the mid 1930s, English customs were considered the ultimate achievement by civilized people, particularly here in the United States. England had ocean liners such as the Queen Mary which dominated Atlantic travel. English manners were often copied in the mannerisms of my fellow citizens. In my eighth grade class there was a teacher known as Miss Maxwell, who was an Anglophile of immense proportions. Miss Maxwell had some immense proportions of her own. She was what the Sears Roebuck catalog would have called a very stout woman. And on top of that she wore button-up shoes, which I thought went out of style during the First World War. But nonetheless, Miss Maxwell had control of the eighth grade in the Maryland School of the Clayton public school system. Periodically, that is to say twice a week, Miss Maxwell would read English poetry to us that was full of nymphs and fairies, castles, knights, and the like. It was clear that the boys in her class hated for Miss Maxwell to take out her book on English poetry. I was probably the foremost among those who hated to see Miss Maxwell reach for that book. After leaving Miss Maxwell in the eighth grade, I crossed the street to the high school where I ran into the English teacher, Blandford Jennings. Blandford Jennings did not read poetry to us but rather he constructed plays to be put on by students that featured fairies and nymphs and castles and knights and all that sort of thing. So you see, when I left Clayton High School in 1940, I had a pretty jaundiced view of English literature.
So, I set out to educate myself. I read almost every thing I could lay my hands on, including a German language newspaper that appeared in the prison camp during World War II where I was held for a short time. It did not help that when I asked a guard for assistance in trying to read the newspaper, he turned out to be a Rumanian who spoke no German and could not read the German language at all. My reading took me to the poems of William Service and later to many books and articles by Henry Mencken. Among the Irish authors, I read the works of William Butler Yeats and Connor Cruise O’Brien. In the final analysis, I concluded that the Irish could handle the English language at least as well as the English or, in many cases, much better.
You will recall that for 800 years, England had its heel, its instep, and its steel-plated shoe sole planted firmly on the neck of the Irish nation. Irishmen could not own property, were denied the use of Gaelic, their native tongue, and were often deprived of their Catholic heritage. The English enforced their rules with cruel abandon, including hangings and shootings. Out of all of this unpleasantness, most Irishmen today will tell you that the only benefit they gained from the occupation was that the Irish learned to use the English language, which is the lingua franca of the whole world these days.
And so, here are the four pieces of Irish literature and poetry which tend to demonstrate the Irish use of the English language. The first is an excerpt from a Time Magazine book review of Brendan Behan’s “The Borstal Boy.” The borstals were an English invention, which were intended to house youngsters in their early teens as opposed to sending them to ordinary prisons. While Brendan Behan was in the borstal system, he tried to read books and, on many occasions, he would permit himself to read only a certain number of pages each night so that he would have more to read the following nights. This review appeared every year for many years in the March 17th issue of Time in celebration of Saint Patrick’s Day. Time has now stopped publishing this piece of literature but it was lovely for the many years that they used it.
The review goes like this:

“The English language brings out the best in the Irish. They court it like a beautiful woman. They make it bray with donkey laughter. They hurl it at the sky like a paintpot full of rainbows, and then make it chant a dirge for man’s fate and man’s follies that is as mournful as misty spring rain crying over the fallow earth. Rarely has a people paid the lavish compliment and taken the subtle revenge of turning its oppressor’s speech into sorcery.”
“Among recent Irish sorcerers with the gift of golden gab, Brendan Behan ranks high.” ….

From TIME, The Weekly Newsmagazine
T. E. Kalem, Senior Writer
in a review of Borstal Boy

“Turning its oppressor’s speech into sorcery” is an elegant piece of Irish earworm. That sorcery has stayed with me for a number of years.
When Irish friends take their leave of each other, they often share a drink, a handshake, and perhaps a hug. This ceremony is called
“The Parting Glass.” Here are a few lines from a traditional Irish song having to do with parting. A traditional song means that no one now knows who wrote the music or composed the words.

The Parting Glass

Of all the money that ere I had, I spent it in good company.
And of all the harm that ere I’ve done, alas was done to none but me.
And all I’ve done for want of wit, to memory now I can’t recall.
So fill to me the parting glass. Goodnight and joy be with you all.
words and music Traditional

“And all I’ve done for want of wit, to memory now I can’t recall.” This is another piece of elegant Irish thought. There is no better way to say that some ideas are beyond ones intelligence.
Here now is another song about parting. It is known as “The Journey’s End” or “The Parting Song.” The music and words were written by an Irish author J. B. Goodenough.

JOURNEY’S END

The fire is out, the moon is down
The parting glass is dry and done
And I must go and leave this town
Before the rising of the sun
And long’s the road and far’s the mile
Before I rest my soul again
With girls that weep and girls that smile
at all the words and ways of men
For some there are, who may not bide
But wander to the journey’s end
Nor take a girl to be a bride
Nor keep a man to be a friend
And when I’m done with wandering
I’ll sit beside the road and weep
For all the songs I did not sing
And promises I did not keep

“And when I’m done with wandering, I’ll sit beside the road and weep,
For all the songs I did not sing, And promises I did not keep.” The thought about songs that were not sung and promises not kept has haunted me for many years. It is a beautiful piece of phraseology. No wonder that Earworms afflict me.
Now let us turn finally to an Irish blessing that has served our people for more than a century. The text reads this way:

Irish Blessing:
May the Road Rise to Meet You

May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields and,
Until we meet again,
May your God hold you in the palm of His hand.
TRADITIONAL

“May the road rise to meet you” is to Irish ears a wonderful thought. Does any other language offer a similar thought? I doubt it, which makes it one of my consistent earworms.
Here then are four Irish pieces, prose and poems, that contribute heavily to a love story with the language and to earworms. The fact that they are elegant expressions makes it clear that the Irish know how to use the English language, perhaps better than the English people do. Winston Churchill might take some exception to that thought but, all things being equal, it is my belief that the Irish learned their lesson well from eight hundred years of occupation and, indeed, their use of the language is magnificent. How can anyone forget “turning the oppressors speech into sorcery,” “For want of wit I can’t recall,” “Songs that have not been sung and promises that have not been kept,” and “May the road rise to meet you.” There is no wonder that Irish earworms stick in Irish ears forever.
E. E. CARR
February 14, 2006
Postscript: It seems to me that the difference between the Anglo-Saxon’s in England and the Celts in Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, is that the Celts are singers and the English are not. Perhaps this makes a difference in their use of the English language.
~~~
This is one of precious few essays that uses text coloration, and it happened after Pop went blind. I wonder why that is.
I also suspect that the double-dose of knights and fairies and castles is probably what turned Pop off fiction for life. It’s a shame that poor teaching can leave a mark just as indelible as good teaching, but in the wrong direction.