Elvis Ate Dynamite

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Lawyer, legal editor, mediocre guitar player, aging punk rocker.

My Sainted Irish Mother’s 102nd Birthday

Last week I wrote about a popular Christmas song by the Pogues, “Fairy Tale of New York,” and some of its challenging lyrics, so in the interest of fairness, today I’m playing my my all time favorite Pogues’ song, “Thousands Are Sailing,” in honor of My Sainted Irish Mother™, who would be 102 years old today. My mother led a fascinating life, from surviving the Great Depression to working at Naval Station Great Lakes during WWII while my father was overseas with the Army, to raising 11 kids, challenging housing discrimination, and launching a career as a middle school teacher. We lost her in November 2010, but not a day passes when I don’t think of her. While she was proud of her Irish heritage, she never thought it made her better than anyone else. To the contrary, she loved and embraced diversity. 

So here’s to you, Mom, and here’s to Ireland. “Where e’er we go we celebrate the land that makes us refugees.”

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2 responses to “My Sainted Irish Mother’s 102nd Birthday”

  1. Dr Banerjee Avatar
    Dr Banerjee

    That line from “Thousands Are Sailing” — “Where e’er we go we celebrate the land that makes us refugees” — lands with real weight when placed against your mother’s story: the Depression survival, the wartime work at Great Lakes, the fight for fair housing, raising that houseful of kids while teaching. It’s a fitting, understated way to mark what would have been her 102nd, letting the Pogues carry some of the pride and the ache without over-explaining. The continuity from “Fairy Tale of New York” feels right too — those tracks have a way of holding complex Irish-American lives without sentimentality. She sounds like someone who’d have appreciated the rawness in Shane MacGowan’s delivery, the way it refuses easy nostalgia. A quiet, powerful remembrance; thanks for sharing it.

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    1. Dave von Ebers Avatar
      Dave von Ebers

      Absolutely!

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