Remember golden deeds in golden years

My wife and I have been perusing brochures of assisted living facilities now that my mother-in-law has fallen harder and more often than the euro has this year.  It reminds me of this recurring daydream that flash-forwards everyone into the future.

My 15-year-old daughter Annie is 45 now and she is pushing a large cart through the Costco warehouse. She is standing between a pallet of Depends male undergarments and the Kirkland store-brand adult diapers that Consumer Reports has just announced might run the risk of leaking on the sides. She labors over the decision on what to swaddle my incontinent fat white rear in for a moment.

Right before she chooses, the dream curtains part to reveal my 13-year-old daughter Maura in her 43-year-old form as she tours the wings of a nursing home.

She stands between the brightly lit ambient hotel vibe of the premium wing and the darker hallway that leads to rooms of boxy concrete blandness that emit a slight yet unmistakable smell of Frosted Flakes soaking in a bowl of stale urine. Maura nods politely as the manager weighs the pros and cons of their packages.

When I am no longer competent to make choices for myself in the (hopefully) distant future and my children are at a fork in the road like the ones outlined in these dreams, I hope memories my daughters have of the stuff I have been doing for them all along inspires them to choose the name brand adult diapers and the premium suite in the assisted living facility instead of opting for the cheap route.

In case they forgot, here are just a few gentle reminders to the girls on things I did that provide irrefutable proof that their dad deserves precious metal treatment in his golden years.

Christmas morning: Yes, the present bounty that was laid at your feet was only possible from your dad’s work and sharing his paycheck. That’s a given. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

The real work began after the presents were unwrapped. Those toys didn’t just spring from their packages and run across the floor on their own!

Tickle Me Elmo needed a battery enema up his furry red butt before he started to giggle, and that required yours truly to drive to every 7 Eleven in a 30 mile radius for a few packs of Duracell on Christmas morning.

With Elmo all sorted out, I turned to the Barbie that was crucified to her pink confines with wire twist ties to ensure she kept her position while in the shipping container from her Asian manufacturing origins. It was up to Dad to untwist her dozens of plastic-coated confines, and at times I must admit I wasn’t successful at ejecting her within an impatient toddler’s timeframe.

There could be more than one decapitated doll in the Central Jersey landfills that lost their heads when I lost my cool and forcibly yanked the doll from the package before her time. Rushing to K-Mart on Christmas morning to replace Headless Barbie before you noticed the incident is yet another reason why only the best will do for Dad as you put him out to pasture!

Teenybopper concerts: Sure, it might look like I was enjoying myself immensely when I hollered the lyrics to Miley Cyrus’s “The Climb” at the top of my lungs, but I was just masking the pain of being subjected to a whole evening of bubblegum pop. Passing a kidney stone would have been a more joyous way to spend an evening.

Yet I still would rather take in a Greyson Chance/Selena Gomez double bill than sit through Disney’s Single Mom Princesses on Ice, Elmo Goes to the Proctologist on Ice, Bert and Ernie Come Out of the Closet on Ice, or Sesame Street’s Intervention of Oscar the Grouch on Ice.

Our downstairs basement is crammed with plastic wands, glow sticks and hats that are fond reminders of those shows and evidence that I deserve the deluxe meal package at the nursing home.

Chuck-e-Cheese: This most god-awful amusement and eating establishment on the planet was your
favorite place on Earth for the first few years of your life. This was, of course, a germaphobe’s nightmare -- kissing a homeless man’s tush would be cleaner than the yellow and red ones you joyously slobbered on while inside that giant meshed playroom.

The silver Chuck-e-Cheese game tokens have the words “no cash value” on them, something I confirmed the following day when I tried to use them as part of my co-pay when I had you in the pediatrician’s office for a mysterious case of pink eye.

Coincidence? I think not.

Dance recitals: Wading through three hours of interpretive dance, modern dance, ballet and company performances just to see you do that one tap number in the back line is torture at an incomprehensible level. Your mother sat next to me and she seemed to enjoy every minute of it while I plotted the murder of the effete dance school owner whose idea it was to string this many show tunes in rapid succession.

IKEA furniture: When you have kids of your own, I’m sure you’ll tell these mocking stories of how your father would think he was following the Swedish instructions down to a “t” on your little art desk, only to realize there were four screws left over and the drawer mechanism was facing the wrong way once everything was tightened up.

You’ll stand up in a fit of laughter, mocking the way when you were a kid your dad would throw the widget tool across the room and scream “f***ing live with it that way” before exiting the room with great dramatic flair.

Perhaps this might be a compelling reason to buy the store-branded adult diapers, come to think of it. Never mind.

Hopefully, I made my case and my point!

(Mike Farragher’s essays can be found on www.thisisyourbrainonshamrocks.com)

When I was your age - the more things change the more they stay the same

Mike Farragher

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Mike Farragher is well aware of this, passing along tales of woe to his kids that used to drive him crazy when he heard them from his parents while growing up.

There's a great date night venue that my wife and I frequent called the Silver Ball Museum in Asbury Park, New Jersey, where only $10 buys you a half-hour of unlimited games on vintage pinball and video game machines.

I found myself standing in front of the Corgar pinball game and on a trip down Memory Lane on our last date night. Corgar was a red muscular demon with scantily clad women worshiping at his feet in the artwork on the machine. It was built in 1979, the year I was 13.

I remember it being a big deal when the first one was shipped to my mall because this was the first talking pinball machine. Because microchips were so primitive at the time, Corgar only said a few unintelligible words.

Before the half-hour ended, I challenged my wife to a game of Asteroids. Some of you may recall this early video game -- a rudimentary triangle of a spaceship that flies around a black and white screen, and you must break up the rocks in space with round bullets that shoot out of the top of the triangle before
the rocks break you!

We got home and found our kids down in the basement, as usual, playing Dance Dance Revolution on their Wii console. The dancers are in vivid color and their moves are perfectly synched to those of my daughters, thanks to this nifty wireless wand technology in their hands.

You know what comes next.
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“Wow,” says I. “You know, when I was your age, we played video games on a black and white television -- heck, we had to practically have our noses to the screen because the joystick was connected to the consult with this short little wire. We didn’t have wireless wands in our day!”

Yup. You guessed it. I became my father at that moment. Except I sounded like a whiny little d-bag delivering my video game tale of woe compared to the stories of his rough childhood in rural Galway during the forties.

I would remember my father shaking his head at the doorway in disgust while my brother and I played Atari video games after school back in the seventies.

“When I came home from school there were no video games,” he said. “We would go straight to the bog and cut turf.”

I would lose that game at that moment because I would roll my eyes and take focus off the screen as he went on and on about it.

Dad would tell us how he would have to dig by hand the first 12 inches to clean the bog before throwing the turf into the bog hole. They would then cut the turf, throwing it up on the bank sod by sod and then pitchfork it and wheel it out to the plains for drying.

Cutting and footing the turf and then loading it onto the cart where the horse or ass would pull it was even more backbreaking then the pitch-forking process.

“We weren’t up half the night talking to our friends on the phone,” he’d say. “By jaysis, your head hit the pillow nice and early after that kind of afternoon. Even before I was old enough to cut turf, I would have had to go to the well to get the water to make the tea and then walk a mile to take the tea and the mugs and the bread and the jam over to my father and the workers.”

Yeah, yeah. Whatever, dad. You just screwed up my high score on Pong! Thanks a lot!

On the rare occasions when the turf story got old or my father got tired, my mother might enter the boxing ring with stories about digging potatoes each October after school in Ballylanders, a hayseed outpost on the Limerick outskirts.

The good news about picking potatoes is that you may have gotten some time off from school. The bad news was that you would spend hours at a time digging in the dirt and kneeling on canvas sacks to keep the moisture from your knees after the threshing mill (a luxury) had its way with the rich soil.

Most parents of a certain age love to spin that yarn of walking to school “uphill, both ways,” as the comedian Bill Cosby once said. My parents are no exception.

When I moan to them about taking out a home equity line of credit to fund the insatiable American Eagle appetite of two teenaged girls, I am rewarded with a story of how lucky my parents were to have a pair of cheap green plastic Wellington boots that kept the dampness at bay during those mile-long walks to school in the rain.

Many of the same stories were corroborated by a book written by the Abbeyknockmoy Social Club for Retired People called Shared Memories: Memories of Life in Rural Ireland.

To prove their point, even the book itself is primitive, printed in black and white and held together at the binding with staples.

I’m just after taking a Jimmy Dean lowfat ham and egg breakfast sandwich out of the microwave as I flip through the section in the book about killing the pig. It says that the best female “crayture” weighing 18 stone would be fed oatmeal for a month, singled out, tied with a rope at the mouth, pierced in the main artery of the neck as blood drained into buckets, all before boiling water was poured over the pig to make the shaving process easier.
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After reading about how the pig’s stomach would be cut to get the intestines for the black pudding, I’ll be thinking twice before buying a frozen brick of that stuff for my St. Patrick’s Day breakfast!

The stories about farm work, traveling carts and calving, were all pointless yarns that annoyed me to no end and got in the way of my video game addiction.

I wouldn’t give a Canadian quarter (the pinball machine only took American quarters, you see) for this nonsense as a teenager.

Now, as my parents and I face the reality of having many more yesterdays than tomorrows, those slices of oral history about the past become as precious as gold bricks.

Though my stories of hardship pale in comparison to those of Mom and Dad, I suppose I try to impart a sense of historical perspective to my kids to confirm just how good they’ve got it in the same way that my parents did for me.

As they said in the olden days, “Black cats have black kittens!”

For more information on Mike Farragher’s collection of humorous essays, like this one, check out www.thisisyourbrainonshamrocks.com. Farragher will be reading from his book Thursday, March 22 at Glucksman Ireland House at NYU. Reading starts at 7 p.m. RSVP to 212-998-3950 (option 3) or email ireland.house@nyu.edu.

A cell for Irish theater - “Blood” and “Dancing at Lunacy”

Some interesting theater rolls into Manhattan this week, courtesy of one of our favorite rockers!

The Cell Theatre (338 West 23rd Street; 646-861-2253) combines the one-act plays of Black 47’s Larry Kirwan and Seamus Scanlon, writer of Irish short stories, into an evening of provocative, inimitably Irish theater.

Kirwan’s Blood is based on the actual disappearance of James Connolly, trade union organizer and leader of the Irish Citizen Army on January 19, 1916. He returned four days later, his only comment, “I have been through hell.”

Connolly had been captured by the rival Irish Republican Brotherhood, led by Padraig Pearse and Sean McDermott. What happened in that small room changed the course of Irish history.

Sixty-eight years later in another room – a drinking club in Belfast – in the aftermath of the hunger strikes and the bombing of Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet, a no-less tense situation plays out. Scanlon’s Dancing at Lunacy, set in 1984, centers on an IRA internal security investigation. The alleged informer and an aging commanding officer are confronted by a young sociopath with a penchant for pistols, the Sex Pistols, pogoing, Barry’s Tea and ruthless efficiency.

Dancing at Lunacy and Blood explore the highly charged issue of Irish Republicanism and how it still affects the Irish psyche.

The engagement begins on March 1. Visit www.thecelltheatre.org for information.

In other Black 47 news, the band takes to the road for their 22nd St. Patrick’s Day season on March 1. 
The tour will be anchored around their annual St. Patrick’s Day gig at BB Kings in New York City.

The band recently released A Funky Ceili, a must-have collection of 18 of their best-known up-tempo and humorous tracks, along with Bankers and Gangsters, 12 new topical and political songs.

On this tour they will play songs from across their career and, at some gigs, perform their best selling CD Fire of Freedom in its entirety. For more information, visit www.black47.com

The worry of the wake - Irish mothers and funerals

A comical Irish wake

I heard some amazing stories at a recent family gathering about Irish mothers and their wakes. Allow me to paint the picture as it was painted to me by an able storyteller whose name is being protected out of fear that his dead mother will come back to haunt him.

The air was heavy with sugary pollen that clung to the heavy red velvet drapes. The body would be couched inside the pillowy lining of the lacquered coffin, open of course. Rows of cheap wooden chairs were set up in front of the coffin.

The Irish widow patted the hand of the funeral director, barely mustering the strength to mouth the words “thank you” in her deep grief.

Someone had dropped a pill in her sweaty palm a while back “to calm the auld nerves,” and things were moving in slow motion for the old gal.

She nodded approvingly at her son as he walked toward her in a pressed black suit with matching tie.
They were alone, and she said a private prayer of thanks that the shrew of a daughter-in-law would be too busy with little kids at home to show her ungrateful face.

He dutifully hooked his arm at his side, and his mother slithered her gloved hand inside of it as they made their way toward the coffin. He was guiding her over to the kneeler by his father but felt a pull toward the flowers.

She removed her reading glasses from her small purse, balanced them on her nose, squinted, and fingered the cards tucked inside the bouquets.

“Ah, jaysis, would you look at this fe**in’ nonsense,” she said with a heavy sigh. “All this money for something that will be dead in two days, the Lord save us and guard us. Such a waste.”

She shook her head.

“Well, if ye were gonna spend this amount anyways, ye’d think yer wan would have gotten a better bouquet! Sure, didn’t yer father get him his first job when he came over from Connemara at the American Can Company? And this is the fe**in’ thanks he gets?”

“Ma, please,” the son pleaded in hushed whispers. “It’s the thought that counts.”

“Exactly!” came the hissed reply as she fingered the hem of the altar vestments that hung on a wire dummy in the middle of the flowers.

“Now this is how ye do it. Yeh paying attention? Yeh can never go wrong with vestments. Are yeh paying attention? Spend the extra money on vestments and avoid this flower nonsense.”

She snatched another card from the bouquet and grimaced.

“Some people have gumption, I tell yeh,” she said through clenched teeth. “His sister sends the biggest bouquet in the place to draw attention to herself. Flowers instead of making the trip over.

“And who would want to see that old crow anyway, squawking about the family business to anyone that’d listen to her like a wet magpie on a telephone wire.”

She bent her head and fumbled in her purse momentarily before pressing a wrinkled piece of paper into her son’s hand.

“Listen, I need you to do something.”

“Anything, Ma.”

“Ye’ll need to keep the seating arrangements straight. Mary’s family is in the row behind me at the wake and the cemetery. Bridie’s clan is behind that. I could care less who sits behind that, but if we
don’t get those two rows straight, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“Ma, that’s ridiculous!”

“Yerra, it is not,” she said defiantly. “Please just do this to keep the peace around here -- yer father would have wanted this way and sure I don’t want to add to his worries in that coffin.”

You CANNOT make this stuff up!

Only a few more weeks of shopping left until St. Patrick’s Day! Give the gift of reading and log onto www.thisisyourbrainonshamrocks.com to get info on Mike’s book of essays like this one!

'Race to Nowhere' highlights hyped-up culture of achievement in our schools - VIDEO

I just watched a riveting documentary called "Race to Nowhere," which features the heartbreaking stories of young people across the country who have been pushed to the brink in this hyped-up culture of achievement in our schools.

Our public school sponsored a free viewing to ring the alarm bells in parents and educators who pack their kids’ schedules with mountains of homework, activities and, worst of all, the expectation of perfection.

I never had to deal with that kind of pressure growing up.

Sure, I entered kindergarten in the long shadow of my older cousins Debbie, Linda, Robert and Diane.

They were all conscientious, hard-working students that would rather rip up and re-write a full page of perfectly handwritten work then turn in a paper with a smudge or a folded corner. I was encouraged to be like them by Mom.

No, scratch that. My mom would sweat blood over her rosary beads praying for me to be a thoroughbred student but, alas, her horse in the race was limping toward the glue factory academically.

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I was a B and C student growing up, sloppy as the day as long, and unable to concentrate on my lessons for very long and hopeless in organizing my uncomplicated life. “Needing poster board at 11 o’clock at night is now my problem?” screeched Mom as I panicked over the science project I forgot was due in the morning.

My little brother came up from behind, passing me by as he devoured the books and demonstrated the same perfectionist tendencies as our cousins.

Add to the fact that he was a drumming child prodigy and an outstanding soccer player and you had plenty of bragging fodder for a mother in need.

It took the emphasis off of me and I suspect it left my parents praying for more, doubting I’d amount to much, but hoping for the best for me nonetheless.

Yet they never gave up on me. By some miracle that only a wad of dead president flash cards could produce, I found my way into an exclusive private school known for its academic discipline.

St. Joseph’s is a scholastic powerhouse nestled in the leafy suburbs of Metuchen, New Jersey, and I was sent there by the grace of hard work and sacrifice by my middle class parents.

If I had given birth to a bulb as dim as I was, I never would have plugged him into a high-watt school like that. I would have saved the money and bought a lifetime supply of fry-cook pants for my kid, but my folks were committed to fulfill the immigrant dream to have your kids turn out better than you did at all costs.

I suppose that was the one constant undercurrent of pressure that might be a distant cousin to the stress and urgency that kids in the Race to Nowhere film were suffering.

There was also the expectation that you rose above the kinds of jobs your parents were doing to put you through school and, by God, you best not do anything that would embarrass your last name in the church parish.

The thought of the wrath of God that came down on my head when I did something that got the church ladies talking ill of my family terrified me at the time. Now, I almost expect it to happen each week the Irish Voice publishes an edition or another novel is written!

There were other subtle pressures as well. “You’re not living off me past 25, and if you find yourself in jail or spitting out a child before marriage you can lose our number,” my father would say.

I wonder today if my school track record would be different if I popped the potpourri of pharmacological candy that is available nowadays for every sliver of species on the attention deficit spectrum.

I know I had it back then and I have a touch of it as I write this -- jumping from column to Facebook to playing with the Joker Pez dispenser on my desk, to fumbling with my text messages and then back to this column again!

My toes tapped incessantly when boredom set in during Sister Jane’s first grade class -- was a shot of Restulex in order for that Restless Leg Syndrome?

My mind wandered like a helium balloon in a cyclone --would it have been different if Mom packed two Adderall in my Hot Wheels lunch box?

I don’t think it would have made a bit of difference. I was never a strong student.

God gave me the gift of quick wit and creativity, skills they never taught in school but nonetheless gave me this nifty title of vice president of sales and a view of the corner office at the top of this here corporate ladder.

In fact, the nuns tried to stamp humor and spontaneity out of their classroom with sensible heels, and hands that moved their crayons outside the lines were quickly rewarded with a ruler across the knuckles.

We have evidence that these traits make great leaders like Steve Jobs and Richard Branson.

My girls make their way over to the dining room table and crack open the books as soon as they get home from school, exerting more pressure on themselves than I ever would.

My parents shake their heads in disbelief and frustration that I will not have the kind of kids that put me through the kind of suffering my academic shenanigans put them through.

I pray this hard work will lead to streets paved with gold, but if the car turns onto a road to nowhere every now and then I won’t sweat it. Their dad turned out okay!

Books make great gifts, and you only have about six more weeks of shopping until St. Patrick’s Day! To get a jump on the holiday rush, get Mike Farragher’s new book at www.thisisyourbrainonshamrocks.com.

Here, catch the trailer for 'Race to Nowhere':

Let’s toast the Irish Pioneers

Mike's first book cover

'Tis the season to be jolly, and when you’re Irish that means plenty of temptation at holiday open houses! On one such evening, a friend wrapped his arm around my shoulder and raised his glass in a toast.

“Two Irish guys that come from a long line of drunks -- the tradition lives on!”

He had a look of surprise and disappointment when I didn’t lift my pint in response.

Both of my parents were Irish Pioneers, and they gave an oath to God around the time of their Confirmation to never touch a drop of alcohol. Many of their siblings and their children took the same oath.

According to the official Pioneer website, the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association (PTAA) of the Sacred Heart was founded by the Wexford priest Father James Cullen in Dublin in 1898. As the story goes, his motivation in setting up the Pioneers was to address the enormous damage that he saw excess alcohol was doing in the Ireland of his times.

Many workers were heavy drinkers, and alcohol was the greatest drain on the weekly earnings of the family. Members pledged three things -- to abstain from alcohol for life (which Cullen referred to as “the heroic sacrifice”); to say the Pioneer prayer twice a day; and to bear witness by wearing the pioneer pin at all times.

The PTAA has always been underpinned by devotion to the Sacred Heart, and its emblem reflects this.

The existence of this organization comes as a complete surprise to the average Irish American, as well as some Irish-born people I know. Yet a dry household is a critical element to my Irish upbringing and has produced some interesting Irish customs.

Until recently, my mother would write to the Hallmark card company in protest over their portrayal of the Irish as drunks in their St. Patrick’s Day greetings. Public displays of liver-abusing reindeer games never played well with my parents, and we were always discouraged from partaking.

“Can yeh believe she’s walkin’ around like that?” Mom would huff, motioning her head in the direction of a bride walking from table to table at a wedding reception with a beer in her hand.

“Shows no class a’tall. Some people think the only way to have a good time is to have a drink in their hand.”

I don’t remember ever being asked by either parent to join the Pioneer movement when I was being confirmed; I don’t think I could have signed up for that, but there are times when I wished I did.

Coming to in a New Orleans gutter as a drug addicted drag queen rifles through your pants pocket for a wallet and God knows what else is one time when being a Pioneer would have been a good thing.

Waking up next to what looked like a warthog with lace undergarments caught in her tusks is another time that being a Pioneer would have been a good thing.

Steadying yourself with one hand on the steering wheel and one hand on a bottle of Windex as you gamely attempt to wipe the dried vomit from the passenger side carpet of your wife’s brand new car while your head pounds mercilessly is yet another instance where being a Pioneer would have been a good thing.

You get the idea. 

If I know my mother, she just read the last few paragraphs and said aloud to no one, “The eejit didn’t get that example from his parents!” As usual, my mother is right on the money.

“Lead me not into temptation, I can find it myself,” is a twist on the Lord’s Prayer that I usually utter before a shot of Jameson’s goes down the gullet, and truer words have never been spoken.

Despite the pristine example of clean living set by my parents, the bottle has tempted me into dark neighborhoods and it hasn’t always been easy to throw the car into reverse gear.  I never had to go down the road of attending church basements except for fundraising suppers, and for that I thank the Lord.

Speaking of the man upstairs, I’ve asked the Lord to take the wheel in those dark neighborhoods and you reading this proves that Jesus has mad stunt driving skills!

I was a bartender once, which is never a good profession when the bottle calls to me as loudly as it sometimes does. Back then, club soda was my best friend because it looked like a real drink when you dropped a wedge of lime into it.

“Let’s re-work that toast,” I say before pouring a club soda in a pint glass. “To the Pioneers and their sacrifices – let’s pray they gain entry into heaven a full half-hour before the devil knows they’re dead!”

Now THAT is something I’ll drink to!

(Mike Farragher's collection of essays makes a great gift! Check it out on www.thisisyourbrainonshamrocks.com.)

A name by any other name...giving thanks for family

'Brain on Shamrocks'

This was one of the most memorable Thanksgiving weekends for me because I spent it with cousins I never knew I had!

I met this lovely man from my old Hudson County stomping grounds at one of my book signings over the summer, who proceeded to blog about the book and our meeting on the Jersey City Facebook page that he runs.

A woman I did not know replied to his post. “OMG! I think this is my cousin!”

A cousin I didn’t know about in Jersey City? Impossible!

“Yeah, we have some McNaught cousins,” my dad confirmed flatly when I mentioned Donna McNaught’s name, not offering much detail as to why we never connected. “Your aunt had more to do with them than I did.”

We discovered that we both lived in Monmouth County, and lunch at a nearby Perkins was arranged a week later.
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Donna walked in and I could see no family resemblance whatsoever. She had an olive complexion kissed by the sun that was in stark contrast to my pink and freckled skin.

As we began our rapid fire exchange with one another, however, it was clear there was a lot of common ground. We went to the same grammar school, had the same teachers, were pathologically cheery and outgoing, and were raised by a good hard working stock of parents that ensured Irish roots were planted deep inside their children.

“I have a question I’ve been dying to ask,” Donna said before the waitress could even take our order.

“Why is your last name Farragher and my mother’s maiden name Farrington?”

My father’s uncle/Donna’s grandfather Darby had come over in the thirties and had changed his name to Farrington in an attempt to blend in.

With parades on Fifth Avenue on St. Patrick’s Day and Irish pride stronger than ever, it seems inconceivable in this day and age to conceal your heritage in the American melting pot, but prejudice against the Irish was strong back then and that’s exactly what had to be done to survive in this new land.

My dad’s older sister Mary came to America in the early fifties at a time when the effects of the “no Irish need apply” ethos were a not-too-distant memory, and she listed Farrington as her last name as well.

By the time my dad came over later that decade, jobs were plentiful for the Irish and he had more of a say in the matter of keeping the family birth name.

We decided to reunite our parents at our next meeting, and Donna’s mother Audrey came to my house for a barbecue. There was a tough Irish American matriarch under that thatch of dyed red hair, and she was not buying into this explanation of why our names were different.

“Your family changed your name before you came over,” she said, wagging a finger toward us and becoming visibly upset at my father’s explanation.

“You remember Peggy Ford?” my dad asked.

“Of course,” Audrey replied with a huff.

“Her family’s name was Rabbitte and they changed it when they came over,” my dad explained. “The only Ford ye’ll find in Ireland is parked in a garage!”

Audrey took this as more blasphemy and my father, allergic as he is to conflict, smiled politely and agreed to disagree. He kept his tongue until they left -- but just barely.

Of course, the practice of changing names predates my grand uncle Darby. The author Darren McGettigan blogs on familyhistoryireland.com that the first signs of change in Irish surnames actually began with the mass dropping of the O and Mc prefixes to many names during Elizabethan times.

The Tyrone surnames McCawell and O’Gormley became Campbell and Grimes, as an example, and the family of O Duibhdhiorma became O’Dermot and even Darby.

It was interesting to hear the plausible family legends that sprung from this name change when the larger group of cousins met over the weekend.

“He changed his name even before he hit Ellis Island is what I heard,” said one cousin.

“No, Darby was running from the Black and Tans and made his way over to Scotland, probably because he was running away from something or someone,” reasoned another in a more dashing interpretation of family history. 

Though the reasons why names were changed and the opinions on who has the “correct” last name may never be resolved between my dad and his cousin, it allows their offspring a space to share in a wicked humor that is a universal family trait.

“We’ll have to do this again soon, only bigger,” my cousin Donna said as she kissed me goodbye.

“And next time, we’ll make the reservation under Farrington!”

A name is but a name. I’m counting the days!

(Instead of fighting mall crowds, log onto www.thisisyourbrainonshamrocks.com and get a signed copy of Mike’s collection of essays!)
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Read more: 
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Certificate of Irish Heritage is now available for Americans of Irish ancestry


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Comic books rebooted - my proud family origins

The Justice League

DC Comics rebooted your favorite superheroes last month with “the new 52” series, giving fresh coats of paint and new story lines to the likes of Superman and Wonder Woman.

It reminded me how much I loved reading about the origins of those characters as a kid, and how fascinated I was with the pain that drove the likes of billionaire Bruce Wayne to strike fear in criminals’ hearts by dressing like a giant bat.

There were some events over the last few weeks that made me reflect on my own origins. The first was a series of interviews that New York University’s Glucksman Ireland House conducted with my parents and myself as part of its Oral History Collection.

Ireland House is doing the Lord’s work preserving the histories of authors, clergy, bricklayers and everyone in between with this series. Hearing my parents’ stories told in their own words was an indescribable thrill and provides my family with an oral history of our own that will be passed down to subsequent generations.

I heard the origin of my family in their recount. The sadness of watching the farm in the review mirror as my grandparents drove them to Shannon Airport soon faded in the face of a new world’s bright promise and modern accouterments.

In this sharing, I can see the origins of my own sense of adventure that has me take on things that scare me in the face of growth -- like writing the personal column you’re reading now.

I heard the origins of my sly sense of humor in my father’s response to the question as to the degree of credit he gives his friend for introducing him to my mother at a wedding.

“Yerra, there are days I blame him as well,” he says.

The good-natured laughter between dad and his missus that immediately followed that joke provides an origin to the easy nature between my wife and I.

I hear the origins of the keen writer’s eye for observation and detail in listening to Mom’s gentle whispers in my father’s ear throughout the interview as she corrects his occasional lapses in facts.

The interviewer peppers me with questions during our session, and it brings back memories and introduces new observations long buried or never realized.

I’m reminded of the envelopes of waitressing tips my mother put under the blotter of the dining room table. One was labeled “trip to Ireland” and another one might say “poles” as she funded a telephone line off the main road and through the narrow boreen to her mother’s house.

In that memory I see the origins of my own obsession with saving for retirement and keeping debt levels low in a house full of ravenous teenage consumerism.

With a trip to Ireland last week, I can see the origins of what made me the person I am today with my own two eyes.

It hit me during a bittersweet visit that had me stare into the faraway gaze of my maternal grandmother’s sister, Peggy.  We both giggle spontaneously as she walks through the door of the pub, and I smile broadly at our mutual tendency of approaching each social situation with the enthusiasm of a tickled toddler.

Her mind has faded after almost nine decades, yet I can still see the origins of my own mischievous spark in the eye as she is about to assemble a good yarn while stirring her tea.

The origins of my sharp tongue and quick wit abound when my dad’s family gathers at my book signing in Tuam. When David Burke, the editor of The Tuam Herald turns and asks my 81-year-old bachelor uncle where his wife was, he shakes his head.
“Well, the girleen hasn’t been born yet and her mother’s dead,” came the instant reply.

I lean over the head stone of my paternal grandmother’s grave, and I can’t tell if the wind rustles the dry leaves or if that was her voice whispering, “Nice piece in the Herald about the book – aren’t ye the humble one? And peddling the book in the church parking lot after Mass was a grand gesture altogether.”

I make the sign of the cross and laugh to myself. No mystery where my tendency to get the last word comes from! Having your say when you’re six feet under is indeed a miracle, yet I expect nothing less from Brigid Farragher.

I am grateful that my family origins have so many amazing people that never wore a mask or cape but are superheroes nonetheless.

(Mike Farragher has a collection of essays just like this in his new book that is named after this column. Check out www.thisisyourbrainonshamrocks.com)