Every St Patrick's Day, as the world loses its mind and forgets that to be Irish is to be blighted, blasted, woe-bitten and many other miserable fates beside, I like to take with me a small pitcher of whiskey and draw out from beneath my pillow that worthy and marvelous work known as An Béal Bocht which has otherwise been translated and known amongst the heathen as The Poor Mouth.
Now, I will tell you, I don't read this worthy text for edification or because it is even enjoyable. And sure as I don't read it for the humorous qualities it lacks. I don't read it to remind myself of my heritage, having that distinctly ambiguous pleasure--due to somewhere around half the world's population--of claiming Gaelic heritage. I hardly read the book to read it, either. Nor even do I take its small, smudged pages into my hands to have an excuse to drink an extra glass of whiskey on this day of my heritage.
No, you blessed people. The reason I glance at this tome is the great and wonderful truth contained between what is its torn cover and its creased back page. To wit: I read it to remind myself that to be Irish is to be cursed.
Therefore, and as a civic service to all you fools who think it's a good idea to gird your loins in green and drink beer that tastes like it has been burnt over a fire by some old man who forgot what he was doing, I am taking here the time to bless you all with a little bit of the wisdom contained within this book. May it serve as a warning.
First, it must be conceded that no true Irishman ever admits to having any part of goodness or sunshine in this life.
--And look here! Martin, isn't it the bad sign that the ducks are in the nettles? Horror and misfortune will come on the world tonight; the evil thing and sea-cat will be a-foot in the darkness and, if 'tis true fo rme, no good destiny is ever in store for either of us again.
Second, it must be said that no one of this ancestry ever spoke in any manner but which was the most clear and to the point:
I was very young at the time I was born and had not aged even a single day.
Third, to be Irish is to be familiar with crudish and brutish things.
In my youth we always had a bad smell in our house. Sometimes it was so bad that I asked my mother to send me to school, even though I could not walk correctly. Passers-by niether stopped nor even walked even in the vicinity of our house but raced past the door and never ceased until they were half a mile from the bad smell. There was another house two hundred yards down the road from us and one day when our smell was extremely bad the folks there cleared out, went to America and never returned. It was stated that they told people in that place that Ireland was a fine country but that the air was too strong there. Alas! there was never any air in our house.
Often in the middle of the night it seemed ot us that we could never see the morning alive. My mother and the Old-Fellow often arose and went outside to walk ten miles in the rain trying to escape from the stench.
Fourth, you will find naught but misery in your attempts to evade the misery that is natural to our people. For
There was never a night without a downpour upon us.
And therefore the natural attitude and pose of any of that island is this
I was reclining on the rushes in the end of the house considering the ill-luck and evil that had befallen the Gaels (and would always abide with them).
And finally, should things ever turn to good luck or anything benevolent, know that it is a true sign of the end times and much wrose torment to come. And I tell you the truth that there can be no worse sign for the future of humanity, no evil fate more securely assigned than when people, even those who are not cursed to be Irish at all, willingly take up the mantle of ashes and claim to be Irish!
--Little son, said he, I don't think that the coming night's rain will drench anyone because the end of the world will arrive before that very night. The signs are there in plenty through the firmament. Today I saw the first ray of sunshine ever to come to Corkadoragha, an unworldly shining a hundred times more venomous than the fire and it glaring down from the skies upon me and coming with a needle's sharpness at my eyes. I also saw a breeze going across the grass of a field adn returning when it reached the other side. I heard a crow screeching in the field with a pig's voice, a blackbird bellowing and a bull whistling. I must say that these frightening things don't predict good nes. Bad and all as they were, I heard another thing that put a hell of a fright in my heart... --All that you say is wonderful, loving fellow, said I honestly, and a little account of that other sign would be nice. The Old-Fellow was silent for a while and when he withdrew from that taciturnity, he did not produce speech but a hoarse whipsering into my ear. --I was coming home today from Ventry, said he, and I noticed a strange, elegant, well-dressed gentleman coming towards me along the road. Since I'm a well-mannered Gael, into the ditch with me so as to leave all the road to the gentleman and not have me there before him, putrifying the public road. But alas! there's no explaining the world's wonders! When he came as far as me and i standing there humbly in the dung and filth of the bottom of the ditch, what would you say but didn't he stop and, looking fondly at me, didn't he speak to me! Amazed and terrified, I exhaled all the air in my lungs. I was then dumb with terror for a little while. --But...said the Old-Fellow, laying a trembling hand upon my person, dumb also but making the utmost endeavour to regain his power of speech, but...wait! He spoke to me in Gaelic!
May the Lord be with you.