Why Ireland? Why now?

I am asked these questions quite often and, lately, I have taken great pleasure in saying, "I'm not sure, but it was the right choice" or something to that effect. Sometimes this is met with confusion; sometimes a postgraduate will smile knowingly.

Today I spent most of the day with Gabriella, but we didn't work on the conference for a large portion of the day. We worked and then went to lunch. And we stayed at that restaurant for four hours talking away, sharing stories about our lives and how we've reached the current moment. When we left the restaurant, we walked around Trinity as we continued the conversation. After we were cold and damp and a little hungry, we went for sushi and stayed almost until they closed.

In our conversations, I found myself articulating an aspect of this journey that I hadn't really been able to name. Or hadn't been ready to name. I could identify that part of it was my own relationship to my Irish heritage and understanding the roots and realities of my Irishness. The part I hadn't really discussed was how much of my awareness of Irish culture in my family has come through family funerals and, most profoundly, the death of my grandmother.

Since I arrived in Dublin one month ago, already I have discovered an analysis of Martin McDonagh's works in which the author wrestles with the appreciation of and aversion to this playwright's works (The Lenane Trilogy among others). In this essay, John Waters discusses the phenomenon of Irish forced to leave their communities (due to food and job shortages) and in this forced dis/relocation, it was as if they became a time capsule of culture, living a remembered Ireland in their new homes. So while Ireland has continued to grow and change, there are remnants of this older culture in other countries and communities, remnants that reflect old ways and values that may not be prevalent today in Ireland. He questions the kitchification of Irishness and the old ways while acknowledging that there are individuals living outside of Ireland (perhaps who've never lived there, but were raised by this dislocated Irish community) with stronger accents than someone who does live there. (This is an extremely condensed and not well organized synopsis, but hopefully some of the points he is wrestling with are apparent.)

So I have these theories and questions running through my head and here I am walking with Gabriella and explaining to her how I have come to understand the Irish cultural elements within my family and how I want to understand my family, my heritage, and myself by trying to understand how I could've not realized until recently that my family dynamic is palpably Irish. I am trying to understand the need to belong, to identify, and what that means when I am not sure 'Irish' is an accurate label: I am a citizen of the United States of America who had family from Ireland. And yet I feel differently about Irish history than I do about the histories of other countries and cultures.

The most difficult and wonderful part of all this is the affinity I feel for my grandmother. I have gotten to know her more since she had her strokes and since she died than I did before her health changed. Mostly, I have learned about her from my uncle Philip and his stories and experiences. I have looked at her pictures and wondered how she became the woman I knew. And when I recognize similarities between us, I wonder about the generational cycles and how far the similarities go. I wonder if I am confronting in my own way issues she also confronted. I wonder how much more I could've learned if I had thought to ask earlier.

When I read about Ireland, I feel an ache in my heart and I wonder how these political and social changes eventually made it worth the dangers of traveling across the ocean and relocating to an unknown place in order to fulfill a dream of something more fulfilling or promising than what they left behind. And I wonder if my desire to understand who I am and how I feel about a label of a country who doesn't recognize me as one of its own relates to an unnamed Irishness in the culture of my family. I wonder if the ways of interacting and joking and sharing within my family (immediate and extended) are the result of previous generations who started a new life in a new place without feeling a need to label their way of living with a nationalism despite the shared foundation.

So I guess I am still working it out, still don't know. I do know it has a lot to do with honoring the sacrifices that allowed me to become an independent and ambitious woman with a strong sense of loyalty and duty. And, in my attempt at honoring my family from days gone by, I will try to understand their stories so I can share them with others.