As March 17th Approaches- A Moment In History…

 

 

“A Terrible Beauty Is Born”, a recurring line from the great Anglo-Irish poet William Butler Yeats’ Easter, 1916.

At the corner of Hancock Street and East Squantum Street forming a wedge in front of our old beige-bricked high school, and from that vantage point giving the building a majestic “mighty fortress is our home” look, there is a plaque that commemorates a fallen soldier of World War I, and is officially known as the Frank O’Brien Square. The corners and squares of most cities and towns in most countries of the world have such memorials to their war dead, needless to say far too many. That plaque furthermore now competes, unsuccessfully, with a huge Raider red billboard telling one and all of the latest doings, or upcoming events or honoring somebody or something, and in due course will be relegated to the “vaults" of the history of our town as well. This small sketch, however, is not about that or about the follies of war, or even about why it is that young men (and now women) wind up doing the dangerous work of war that is decided by old men (and now old women), although that would be a worthy subject. No, the focus here is the name of the soldier, or rather the last name, O’Brien, and the Irish-ness of it.

A quick run through of the names of the students listed in the Manet for the Class of 1964 will suffice to illustrate my point. If Irish names are not in the majority, then they predominant, and that does not even take into consideration the half or quarter Irish heritage that is hidden behind other names. And that is exactly the point. If North Quincy in the old days was not exactly “Little Dublin,” the heritage of the Irish diaspora certainly was nevertheless apparent for all to see, and hear. That North Quincy was merely a way station away from the self-contained Irish ghettos of Dorchester and South Boston to the Irish Rivieras of the area farther south was, or rather is, also apparent as anyone who has been in the old town of late will note.

And that too is the point. Today Asian-Americans, particularly the Chinese and Vietnamese, and other minorities have followed that well-trodden path to Quincy. And they have made, and will make, their mark on the ethos of this hard-working working class part of town. So while the faint aroma of corn beef and cabbage (and colorful, red-drenched pasta dishes, from the other main ethnic group of old Quincy, the Italians) has been replaced by the pungent smells of moo shi and poi and the bucolic brogue by some sweet sing-song Mandarin dialect the life of the town moves on.

Yet, I can still feel, when I haphazardly walk certain streets, the Irish-ness of the diaspora “old sod”. To be sure, as a broken amber liquor bottle spotted on the ground reminded me one time, there were many whiskey-sodden nights (complete with the obligatory beer chaser) that many a man spent his pay on to keep his “demons” from the door. To be sure, as well, the ubiquitous pot on the old iron stove for the potato-laden boiled dinner that stretched an already tight food budget just a little longer when the ever present hard times cast their shadow at that same door. And, of course, there was the great secret cultural relic; the relentless, never-ending struggle to keep the family “dirty linen” from the public eye. But also this: the passed down heroic tales of our forebears, the sons and daughters of Roisin, in their heart-rending eight- hundred year struggle against the crushing of the “harp beneath the crown”; of the whispered homages to the ghosts of our Fenian dead; of great General Post Office uprisings, large and small; and, of the continuing struggle in the North. Yes, as that soldier’s plaque symbolizes, an Irish presence will never completely leave the old town, nor will the willingness to sacrifice.

Oh, by the way, that Frank O'Brien for whom the square in front of the old school was named, would have been my grand uncle, the brother of my Grandmother Anna Radley (nee O'Brien) from over on Young Street across from the Welcome Young Field in the Atlantic section of North Quincy.

Easter, 1916-William Butler Yeats

I HAVE met them at close of day

Coming with vivid faces

From counter or desk among grey

Eighteenth-century houses.

I have passed with a nod of the head

Or polite meaningless words,

Or have lingered awhile and said

Polite meaningless words,

And thought before I had done

Of a mocking tale or a gibe

To please a companion

Around the fire at the club,

Being certain that they and I

But lived where motley is worn:

All changed, changed utterly:

A terrible beauty is born.

That woman's days were spent

In ignorant good-will,

Her nights in argument

Until her voice grew shrill.

What voice more sweet than hers

When, young and beautiful,

She rode to harriers?

This man had kept a school

And rode our winged horse;

This other his helper and friend

Was coming into his force;

He might have won fame in the end,

So sensitive his nature seemed,

So daring and sweet his thought.

This other man I had dreamed

A drunken, vainglorious lout.

He had done most bitter wrong

To some who are near my heart,

Yet I number him in the song;

He, too, has resigned his part

In the casual comedy;

He, too, has been changed in his turn,

Transformed utterly:

A terrible beauty is born.

Hearts with one purpose alone

Through summer and winter seem

Enchanted to a stone

To trouble the living stream.

The horse that comes from the road.

The rider, the birds that range

From cloud to tumbling cloud,

Minute by minute they change;

A shadow of cloud on the stream

Changes minute by minute;

A horse-hoof slides on the brim,

And a horse plashes within it;

The long-legged moor-hens dive,

And hens to moor-cocks call;

Minute by minute they live:

The stone's in the midst of all.

Too long a sacrifice

Can make a stone of the heart.

O when may it suffice?

That is Heaven's part, our part

To murmur name upon name,

As a mother names her child

When sleep at last has come

On limbs that had run wild.

What is it but nightfall?

No, no, not night but death;

Was it needless death after all?

For England may keep faith

For all that is done and said.

We know their dream; enough

To know they dreamed and are dead;

And what if excess of love

Bewildered them till they died?

I write it out in a verse -

MacDonagh and MacBride

And Connolly and Pearse

Now and in time to be,

Wherever green is worn,

Are changed, changed utterly:

A terrible beauty is born.