The Irishman

There are Irishmen and then there are men of Irish descent. Notwithstanding his self-styling preferences, Dad better fit the latter.  Around town, certain ancestral expectations accrue to someone named Thomas Francis Jeremiah Donovan, especially when rooted in Anaconda Montana. And to be sure, hearty and convivial, Dad embraced his moniker:  “the Irishman.”

But truth be told, like many of us, Dad was more of a shamrock-wearing, green-tie, March 17th kind of Irishman. I don’t think he ever set foot in Ireland. Undoubtedly, growing up as the son of Irish immigrant parents, young Tom was most likely steeped in certain customs, attitudes, and milieu from the Old Country, but they were not passed on, at least not to me. A World War II Army veteran,Tom Donovan was first and foremost an American.

That’s not to say Dad’s Irish-ness was contrived. He was proud of his heritage and as time moved on, he seemed to seek vestiges of his Irish ethnicity. He maintained a collection of Irish folk music, large vinyl “LPs” housed in colorful Irish-themed jackets. And there was certainly nothing contrived about his fondness for Irish whiskey.

Perhaps it was this desire to reconnect that prompted Dad to invite an “Irish friend” over for drinks. In the Donovan household, this was fairly unheard of - other than obligatory uncles, aunts, and cousins, and maybe a priest now and then, no one came to socialize at our house.  Besides, Dad much preferred to conduct his social drinking in bars - home was reserved for the rest of his drinking.

The mystery of this invite was deepened by my Mother’s vagueness regarding the background of our guest. “Is he one of Dad’s high school teacher friends?”  No.  “Army buddy?”  No.  “A childhood friend, right?”  No.  We kids were left with the only possible conclusion:  this guy was the quintessential “shady character.”

I’m not sure who first suggested that Dad’s sudden new friend was a gun runner for the Irish Republican Army. In retrospect, the timing was right - Northern Ireland was embroiled in the “troubles” - a decades long struggle between Catholics and Protestants and questions of Irish vs. English sovereignty. Maybe our guest was on a recruiting mission - get the high school vice principal to sign up some young O’Brien and O’Shaughnessy kids to be sent over to advance the cause. “Give Ireland back to the Irish” I believe is how the song goes.

Oblivious to our confusion and reservations, the two “Irishmen” sat at the dining room table in our modest little home and conferred quietly between themselves, out of curiosity’s earshot, with Irish folk songs rising in background from the family console stereo.

Whatever the motivation for Shady’s visit, my lasting impression of the confab came near the end of the evening when, having polished off most of a bottle of whiskey, the track containing the Irish National Anthem queued up. Although substantially incoherent and unsteady in their movements, the two shot to their feet, the back of their knees roughly pushing their chairs away.  There they swayed at wobbly, silent attention until the anthem played out.

I never saw Dad’s Irish friend again. To my knowledge, no action program was developed or covert plan hatched as a result of this low level conspiracy.  The IRA was on their own. Then again, maybe this interlude was simply about a man reaffirming his sense of identity.

Supplement: Speaking at a memorial service for Dad’s best friend, fellow teacher and postulant Irishman, William Delaney, a one-time student of both offered up a controversial juxtaposition of the two men – Dad as a hard-drinking, cigarette-smoking, fear-inducing, unapproachable pedagogue; Bill as a benevolent, family-oriented, humorous mentor. Although the speech was developed to fete Mr. Delaney using Dad as a comparative foil, the commentator might have considered that Tom’s children could be in attendance. Nevertheless, Dad’s reputation and legacy deserved better. Click HERE to learn more about the man and the legend, courtesy of his youngest daughter and author of Winter Loon, Susan Donovan Bernhard, who, like several of her siblings, took umbrage at this portrayal.