I remember reading a book on the Irish and there was an illustration from a Swiss warfare manual that came out in Europe around 1521. It was a watercolor by Albrecht Dürer’s of ‘Irish mercenaries” and here was a drawing of four scraggly looking guys with spears and dressed in some sort of kilts. They didn’t look that menacing, but the selling point for hiring these guys was the exclamation “these men will eat roots!” I chuckled that in a lot of ways, nothing has changed for the Irish.
Whether it be pondering the potato and that complicated intertwined history or the whole notion of emigration to start literally digging our way out of ditches, we Irish have had our very soul in roots.
There is something about it-that hardscrabble sort of earthiness that is the very first thing most strive to throw off in the search for the American Dream. And in the Irish community, throwing it off as increasingly we have become well-educated and into what would be considered elite also results in losing something very precious.
Dirt and roots are lovely reminders that we Irish are people of the earth. That our celebration of being Irish is more about that than any other kind of accomplishment we could ever achieve. As people of roots and dirt, our forebears were able to not only survive, but rely on the fact that there isn’t much more to fall back on once all of life’s luxuries and fleeting fancies evaporate.
I don’t mean it literally as much as spiritually. Not everyone these days even has a patch of land to get their fingernails blackened in. More so, it is that sense of humility that comes with being connected to the very essence of that all too recent existence.
It is interesting to note that when the An Gorta Mor, the great hunger of the potato famine occurred, the Irish literally lost their roots. Without them, they died and drifted to the four corners of the globe.
Irish people should never forget that connection with earth, land, roots. Coaxing beauty, nourishment, existence and meaning out of the very ground. That feeling of earth in and around you. Like the time spent at my cousin's cottage in County Mayo, a blazing fire of turf: earth and roots, the floor with trailing bits of sod and black soil from the day's work. That sense of being Grounded. Not too much and not too little. That is a feeling I will always treasure.
When the Irish people lose that notion of roots, then we have lost our identity. To be of roots and earth is to be able to look at our fellow men and women through that perspective as well. To realize that our fortune should be only one root, one cupful of earth away from our fellow human traveler. Compassion, empathy and generosity are the roots of that soil and little else should matter. All else, for the Grounded Irish, is nothing but a sad illusion.
It is something to reflect upon, living in a world that pushes for extravagant attention. To be noted as being better by what you possess and what your portfolio holds. To convince yourself and ego that somehow what you have, you created completely alone.
It is far better to embrace that we came from nothing but roots. That we can truly say “everybody is Irish” on St. Patrick’s Day if we cling to that understanding that we all come from a place of want, or wanting and the idea that we have the power to grow and nourish equally. That wherever we are in our status in life, we keenly remember that we are rooted in that memory of roots and earth.
Read Martin's other blog for this week here.