The worth of a pub can often be measured by how well they pour a pint of Guinness.
Recently I went to McP’s Irish Pub in South Lake Tahoe and put them to the test. And while watching a glass slowly fill with the creamy, turbulent black beverage, I did some pondering of things Irish and Irish-American in preparation for Saint Patrick’s Day.
First of all, there’s the saint’s day itself. Attitudes toward Irish-Americans can get altogether too comfortable on Saint Patrick’s Day. On March 17 it seems like a whole lot of folks suddenly find Irish ancestry, drink green beer, wear silly little clover hats and generally get soused in honor of the guy who converted much of Eire to Christianity.
It wasn’t always so.
"No Irish need apply!" accompanied most help-wanted ads less than 100 years ago in this part of the world. Like many immigrant groups coming to North America in large numbers, the Irish were not welcome. The willingness of poor immigrants to work for scraps drove down wages. What’s more, many Irish back then didn’t speak English and they were just so damned clannish and Catholic! Mexicans and other non-European immigrants run into much the same bigotry today.
Of course, I’m awfully biased about the Irish. I’m Irish-American year-round, all-round, on both sides of the family. I have a brother named Daniel Patrick and sisters named Molly Patricia and Laureen. My mother’s maiden name is Doyle. Two of my aunts are nuns and my late uncle was a Jesuit. To cap it all off, my immigrant grandfather was so Irish and Catholic that the Klu Klux Klan awarded him one of their burning crosses on the O’Hanlon front yard in Fullerton, Calif., more than half a century ago.
I consider myself a credentialed Irish-American and authorized to talk on these matters.
Consider Saint Patrick. As a Roman boy he was a hellion who eventually was captured and enslaved in Ireland. After escaping back to mainland Europe, he grew up and returned to Ireland in 432 A.D. as a free man and a Christian. He then converted the island to Christianity and ended slavery. This he did, it’s a fact. Then there are the myths.
St. Patrick is accredited with using a staff to drive all the serpents out of Ireland. But he must have been a poor exterminator because he missed one. To this day there is a single species of lizard in Ireland.
Biologists today believe all the warmth-loving reptiles were actually chased off the island by the cold weather of the last ice age, which ended about 10,000 years ago. Because Ireland is so far from the mainland source of snakes and lizards, the once ice-locked island wasn’t replenished with reptiles when the land warmed up. Only the one small, harmless serpent made it.
Then there’s the shamrock, the clover with three heart-shaped leaflets used by St. Patrick to teach the Irish about the Holy Trinity. That probably happened. Today the plant has come to symbolize Irishness itself to Americans.
Great Irish-American fakes come to mind too. Take Ronald Reagan and the infamous Guinness incident.
On a visit to Ireland during his presidency, Reagan wasn’t keen on drinking a pint of Guinness, the national beverage. Seems the Secret Service didn’t trust a drink they couldn’t see through. Refusal to even try the dark ale came across as peevishness and a sort of disloyalty which cast enormous doubt on the "Great Communicator’s" ancestry. Only by thumbing his nose at the Pope could Reagan have topped that faux pas.
And remember the forgotten Irish-Mexicans. During the war with Mexico (1846-48), U.S. soldiers fought their way south, sacking Mexican villages along the way. When the Catholic churches were looted and burned, many Irish-American soldiers recognized a higher loyalty and switched over to the Mexican cause. They were called the San Patricios and were later captured and executed by the US.
In Mexico today there are still Irish names in prominent places – if you can recognize them. There’s "O’Brien City," for instance, better known as Ciudad Obregon in the northern state of Sonora. Alvaro Obregon (1880-1928) was a famous and admired Mexican soldier and statesman. Today few towns in Mexico are without a street by the name. O’Brien became the Spanish "Obregon," just like O’Dunn and McMurphy are changed to American-English "Dunn" and "Murphy."
But back at McP’s Pub, bartender Rick Krantz returned to top off my half-full pint of Guinness settling there beside the tap (as any properly poured Guinness should be allowed to do). He shaved off the excess head with a butter knife and handed it over, passing the test with flying colors.
Sláinte maith agat! (Irish for "Good health to you.")