Three Cheers to the Irish Women

“Above all else, deep in my soul, I am a tough Irishwoman.” — Maureen O’Hara

 OK, it’s Saint Patrick’s Day, and so there’s quite a bit of the Irish blarney around. Everyone is wearing green and eating corned beef and cabbage, and there’s not a thing wrong with that. The problem is that the rest of the year, no one really thinks that much about the Irish. Sure, one day a year we’re all Irish and trust me even if you’re not really, we’re glad to have you be one of us, even for a day. Come in and have a pint, you’re welcome here.

So why then did a recent report reveal that 73 percent of Americans could not pick out Ireland on a blank map? Come on, it’s just a short flight away, how can you not know where it is? It’s an election year here and the United States may just get our very first woman president. Old news for the Irish, they elected Mary Robinson, their first woman president, in 1990. She served for seven years and who was president after that? Mary McAleese, another woman.

My opinion is highly biased for sure, but the Irish, particularly the women, are some seriously formidable people. It’s about more than some green beer and funny hats. Ireland in the mid 1800s was decimated by famine. What did a lot of them do? They left. Sure, it wasn’t easy and they weren’t welcome at first, but so what, we’re kind of running the place now, aren’t we? OK, maybe only some parts of it, but still, isn’t it just grand how far we’ve come? Irish guys are nice and all, I’m a big fan, but make no mistake there’s no way 1.5 million starving immigrants could get here and be as successful as we’ve been without some pretty amazing women shoving us all along.

When I was a kid, Irish was all I knew how to be, because it was all I’d ever been. My street was all Irish families — the Murphys, the Coffeys, the Kelleys and the Doyles — all living on top of each other on...wait for it...Emerald Road. My mother wasn’t much different from the rest of the mums on the street; except she stopped at two kids and the others all had at least six. None of these women were like the housewives in the ads, who wore heels and pearls to clean the house. They hung wash on the line, they smoked Lucky Strikes and they hollered out the window when it was time to come home. I do none of those things, but I am still very much like those women, at least as I remember them.

When my oldest was a baby, it was hard to adjust to being an at-home mom; there was no street full of other moms. My career had been in federal law enforcement. I wore suits and good shoes and had a leather briefcase and everything. Now my clothes were baggy and often covered in baby puke and I carried this butt ugly diaper bag with a blue elephant on it. Where did I turn? To the church of course. There was a mother’s group at the local parish and truly, that group saved my life. It was there that the Irish Women’s Committee was born. Now, I get that all women have an “estrogen posse” of close friends. You travel in packs, cluster at school pick up and go out for Chardonnay (the Lucky Strikes of our generation) but the IWC is different. This group of women was nothing short of miraculous. We’d gather in the church hall each week and laugh and talk and swap stories and advice. More than once I’d say something horrible and at least one of them would say, “Jesus, I know right? Me too!” Catherine, Trish, Kristen and Aileen were my role models, my confidantes and my sisters in every sense of the word.

It was over 20 years ago that we all found each other, and just this week we sat in a pub, as we have a dozen times, laughing, yapping and raising a glass to each other. Those years have been full of laughter and tears, life and death, whiskey and song. We have walked some hard roads, but never alone. None of us has ever had to doubt that the full force of the Irish Women’s Committee could be summoned to solve any problem, answer any call and calm any fear. Between us we have eight daughters who will carry on this tradition of strength and grace long after we’ve gone. Saint Patrick was a pretty good guy by all accounts, but this year I will raise my glass to the Irish women — the ones who have gone before me and the ones who walk with me now. Love you all, so much. Slainte!