An Irishman's Diary

IT MUST BE something in the water. No sooner has one south Offaly town celebrated its part in creating a Hawaiian-born US president than another is marking its contribution to the life of an arguably even more exotic figure: the hero of Philippine independence.

His name was José Protasio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda, or Jose Rizal for short. And no, he didn’t have a great-great-great-grandfather from Offaly. But he did fall in love with a daughter of that county, named Josephine Bracken. And one of his last acts before he faced a firing squad in 1896, aged 35, was to address her in a famous poem, viz: “Farewell, sweet foreigner”.

The extraordinary story will be told in Birr next Tuesday night, in a new play whose title echoes the poem: Tu Dulce Extranjera. In fact, the piece – written by Layeta Bucoy, with Shamaine Centenera-Buencamino as Josephine – will also be presented in Dublin this evening, for a Filipino audience.

But insofar as there is an official world premiere (the play was previewed earlier this week in Quezon City), it will be on Tuesday at the Birr Theatre and Arts Centre. And courtesy of the Philippines Commission of Culture, which sponsored the work as part of Rizal’s 150th birthday celebrations on June 19th, admission is free.

That Josephine Bracken is being brought “home” – in dramatic form – is something she never achieved in person. In fact, to call her a daughter of Offaly involves a certain amount of licence. It’s where her father was from, at any rate; although even on that matter, there are competing claims.

Strictly speaking, James Bracken was a native of Ferbane. But an ancestral home has not been identified. So any commemorative plaque may have to be erected in the amusingly-named village of Crinkle (which was Críonchoill, meaning “withered wood”, in the Irish, before anglicisation made it sound like a variety of Walker’s crisps) outside Birr.

That’s where James Bracken lived for time as a soldier in the British army barracks. Which career destined him and his Antrim-born spouse to a globe-trotting life. Their first child was born in Ireland, the second in Gibraltar. Two more arrived in Malta. And the last of five – Josephine – was delivered in that outpost of empire, Hong Kong, in 1876.

Mrs Bracken died there, only a month later, something all too common then after childbirth. But for reasons still debated, Josephine was listed in the baptismal register as being “Anglo-Chinese”, of a mother unknown. Other evidence – including her appearance – contradicted this. Despite which, the suggestion that she was the product of an extramarital dalliance has lingered ever since.

Whatever the truth, she was now without a mother. So her father gave her up to adoption. And it was through her stepfather, one George Taufer, that she was to meet Jose Rizal, whose multiple talents included being a much sought-after ophthalmologist.

When Taufer began to lose his sight, he was among those doing the seeking. With his now-teenage daughter, he travelled to the Spanish-ruled Philippines to track the charming, handsome doctor down. They found him eventually, but – in the patient’s case – to no avail. When the consultations were finished, Taufer still had his blindness. And in the meantime, he had lost his daughter.

It was love at first sight, or something like it, for the 34-year-old eye specialist and the 18-year-old Josephine. But the romance was probably already doomed by circumstances. That Josephine and her stepfather had to search for Rizal is no overstatement, because he was living in internal exile on the island of Mindinao, condemned for writing a novel in which he excoriated the Spanish-run religious orders which were the Philippines’ effective rulers.

The dangers of their relationship apart, Rizal’s stand-off with the church led to the other supposed scandal of Bracken’s life. She was soon pregnant with Rizal’s child (later miscarrying) and he wanted to marry her, but was refused permission for an official ceremony.

According to some accounts, they were wed hours before his execution – like Joseph Mary Plunkett and Grace Gifford 20 years later. That too is disputed, however, along with claims that Rizal recanted his criticisms of the church at the end. It matters little now. Whatever her formal status, Rizal inscribed his parting gift with the words: “To my dear and unhappy wife”.

Rizal was not actively involved in the revolution that broke out in 1896. On the contrary, he had championed reform by non-violent means. Even so, a military court sentenced him to death for his role in events and he made no attempt to escape his fate. He is now regarded as one of the martyrs of that revolution. His birthday is a national holiday. And there are few Philippine towns or cities that do not have a street, park, or school named after him.

Bracken too is commemorated, and not just in verse. Among other tributes, Manila has a “Josefina Street” and a statue of the lovers’ last moment together. But her later years were obscure. She was forced to return to Hong Kong, where in time she married another Filipino, before dying in poverty, only 25, from TB. She was buried in an unmarked grave.

One of the many ways in which Barack Obama differs from Josephine Bracken is that while his connection with Offaly is tenuous, compared with hers, he has at least seen the place. Rizal, incidentally, once travelled from New York to Europe in a ship that stopped briefly in Queenstown, as it then was. So the irony is that he may well have set foot in Ireland, whereas his Irish sweetheart never did.