Why celebrating Irish culture in the US is so important

Writer and broadcaster Frank Delaney was honing his skills as a back-seat driver. We had passed a full-size replica of the oldest McDonald’s in the world, twice. He struggled on his mobile app to find a turn for the Hyatt.

It was almost midnight in Des Plaines, an outer suburb of Chicago. The person driving us to our hotel from iBam seemed lost. This was a metaphor for post-Catholic Ireland and Irish-America seeking their place in a changed world.

Ibam, Chicago's annual celebration of Irish books, art and music, had just presented Delaney with an award for his literary work, with special reference to his James Joyce podcasts. Now living in Connecticut, Delaney has been publishing short weekly podcasts guiding readers through Ulysses a page at a time. More than a million have been downloaded.

The spread of Irish-American taste was reflected in the recent iBam awards, which included recognition for artists ranging from the eloquent Delaney through to songster Paddy Reilly and actor John Mahoney.

But there were awards too for people not well-known in Ireland, people who are a vital part of maintaining networks for Irish emigrants in the US. Its Irish communities are no longer as coherent as they once were, but people still need support.

Lawyer Martin J Healy jnr was recognised for his community service in Chicago, and a couple from Mayo for building up the Irish American Heritage Centre where iBam holds its festival.

This year iBam was debating “illegal” immigration, among other issues vital to the Irish diaspora. Being Irish in America has seldom lacked a challenge. Talk of 40 million Americans of Irish descent means little in practice.

Volunteer labour

The centre operates out of a sprawling old school, restored and equipped by countless hours of volunteer labour, especially by Mayo men and women. It has a theatre, library and museum.

It has been the object of a good-natured send-up by visiting US television presenter Conan O’Brien, his mocking references to “Tayh-toh” crisps on his visit there becoming a YouTube hit.

Last March, President Michael D Higgins and his wife Sabina came, their visit marked by an inscribed flagstone across from those commemorating IRA hunger strikers and others deceased.

It can be easy to poke fun at Irish-America when celebrations include an excess of shamrocks and other paddywhackery. But the work of Irish Americans in pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, and helping succeeding generations whom this State failed is not to be mocked. Irish-America spans all classes, and is full of contradictions, but its organisations are a source of support for those at home and abroad.

Speaking at a session about the history of Chicago’s Irish Fellowship Club, I shared a platform with the great-grandson of Edward Dunne.

Edward Dunne attended Trinity College when Oscar Wilde was there and later became both the first Catholic mayor of Chicago and first Catholic governor of Illinois. Greatly respected, he was no Tammany Hall type and fitted no lazy Irish-American stereotype.

Evolving self-image

Today the self-image of Irish-Americans is as problematic as the self-image of Irish people in Ireland, with old and comfortable forms of identity falling away. On both sides of the Atlantic, Irish people need new stories to tell ourselves about who we are.

We are relatively less significant now than when this State’s creation myth of a rising national culture emerged. In 1849, Ireland’s population of eight million was almost half that of the US (where only slightly more people lived than in England and Wales). Today there are 360 million in the US and 57 million in England and Wales.

Between 2000 and 2010, the population of Texas alone grew by that of the Republic. And more than twice as many people live in the greater Chicago area, or Chicagoland as it is known, as live in the Republic. We are small fry. The world does not revolve around us.

The gala awards dinner at iBam began with the singing of national anthems, that of the US by a soloist was followed by Amhrán na bhFiann sung by the High Kings, whose gig the following night was sold out.

Old pillars of Irish self-identity still matter to many emigrants. But the Catholic Church and narrow nationalism do not anchor the majority of Irish and Irish-American people as they long did.

Without spirited new visions of where we see ourselves in the world, we Irish risk losing ourselves in the outer global suburbs.

Dr Colum Kenny is professor of communications at DCU. His An Irish-American Odyssey: the Remarkable Rise of the O'Shaughnessy Brothers is published by the University of Missouri Press