BEGINNINGS

                A very good friend asked in an email this morning if I was familiar with a movie, Song of Granite, playing at a local fine arts movie theater not far from home, the Pelham Picture House, in Pelham, New York, about a sean-nos Irish singer named Joe Heaney.  Home for me is Pleasantville, New York, and we have a very good fine arts theater here as well, the Jacob Burns, but March is the Jewish Film Festival, and not much of Irish fare seems to make it to the big screen, wondrous though it be.  I crafted a quick response to my friend.  No, I had not heard of the film, but I did know somewhat of Joe (or Seosamh, pronounced SHO-siv, the Irish for Joseph) Heaney, a BIG name (capitals fully intended) in Irish traditional music.  I went on at some length in my email reply, and the germ of an idea seized me, that I might have more knowledge, acquired over a lifetime of pondering just where and who I am in the peculiar diaspora of the Irish race, of this beautiful music that unites across miles and ages a people both disparate, unique, flawed and faultless, opinionated and wildly open to flights of fancy, at times bitter, divided, morose and joyously happy, not very different than the East River tides of the City where so many of our forebears first set foot in America, and in its suburbs reside not much more than a stone’s throw from where that foot first fell – and all of these emotions finding a home in the music we know and love, and would seek better to understand.

                And so the journey begins.  Rethinking Irish charts my personal exploration of one man’s Irishness, from a current vantage point of almost seven decades now of wondering about it almost every day.  My greatest feel for it has undoubtedly been the music, but there is also a wealth of other cultural manifestations meriting our time.  But the music, alas, remains the cornerstone.  “It inspireth my soul,” to quote, I think, one of the Psalms, though I will have to look further into the provenance of that phrase.  I hope the thoughts that will unfold in these posts will resonate with many, just as I know they will annoy some, or even quite possibly anger a few.  But it is my journey, and if anyone doesn’t like it, well, go chart your own path through the labyrinth of being an Irish-American!

                Now, a little bit of what I discovered about Song of Granite.  Ah, but the tea kettle boils, and that will have to wait for a further post.

Slainte!