At the pre-parade brunch at the Harvard Club, Fordham’s president, Tania Tetlow, paid homage to the University’s Irish founder, Archbishop John Hughes, and the generations of Irishmen and women who helped build the U.S., brick by brick.

“It is hard to imagine what this country would be without the Irish—every stone that we laid and every canal that we dug. But not just that—because we have brought our adopted home an intellectual brightness, an obsession with poetry and drama, the ability to laugh at what should make you weep. Without us, this country would be missing a certain sense of joyfulness,” President Tetlow said. “And without us, there would be no Fordham University—because it was founded for us.”

“I didn’t expect that many Fordham people along the parade route wearing their maroon on St. Patrick’s Day, but they were out there,” said Robert Sutherland, FCRH ’14, vice chair of the Fordham University Alumni Association (FUAA) Advisory Board, who carried the University banner. “I think that’s a credit to where the University’s come: President Tetlow, the basketball teams … it’s a great time to be a Ram.”

Mixed in among the usual shouts of “Go Rams!” were more than a few cheers for Fordham basketball—a nod to the women’s team’s seventh straight postseason appearance and the men’s team’s most successful season in 30 years.

“We energized New York with the basketball team in February and March,” said FUAA board member Steve Centrillo, FCRH ’79, GABELLI ’81, who marched with his wife, Deidre, GABELLI ’81. “I’ve been going to games at [the Rose Hill Gym] for 40-plus years, and I’ve never seen six games in a row where the students were just going crazy, and every seat was filled.”

Extending the Tradition

Some marchers paid tribute to late members of the Fordham community who touched their lives in some way. Paul Stavish, FCRH ’73, for example, adorned his black coat with a shimmering green shamrock pin he received seven years ago, at the funeral of Joseph “Jay” McGowan, dean of student affairs during the 1970s and ’80s.

Other alumni brought members of their family into the Fordham fold. Jeana Somers, LAW ’22, came from New Jersey with her husband, Patrick, and her daughter, brother, and nephew. “It’s a good way to honor my husband,” she said. “It’s his birthday, so it’s a fun day to do a family event. [We’ve also been] to Ireland for the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, and we sat in the grandstand seats. [This is] very different.”

Celebrating 175 Years of Military Heritage

Cadets and instructors from the Fordham ROTC program also marched in the parade. Lt. Col. Paul Tanghe, Ph.D., professor of military science at Fordham, noted that the program has historical connections with the New York National Guard’s 69th Infantry Regiment, which has strong Irish heritage. He said many Fordham alumni have served with distinction in the regiment, which was also represented in the parade.

“I think it’s wonderful to celebrate our affiliation with the Fighting 69th,” said cadet Diana Kim, the program’s battalion commander and a member of Fordham’s Class of 2024. She noted that cadets are presented with a ceremonial shillelagh, or traditional Irish fighting stick, when they graduate and are commissioned as officers within the ROTC program.

Given that the University is celebrating the 175th anniversary of military instruction at Fordham this year, “it feels really special to be a cadet here at Fordham,” said another cadet, Brian Inguanti, a member of the Fordham Class of 2025.

A Commitment to Raising Families’ Prospects

Earlier in the day, more than 200 members of the Fordham community brought a dose of Ram pride to the Yale Club, where they gathered for brunch before the march up Fifth Avenue.

Karen Sbaschnig, PCS ’15, took a day off work for the occasion. “I wanted to come this year because I haven’t been for a few years because of the pandemic,” she said, and “I haven’t met the new president yet. That’s another reason why I wanted to come: to hear her speak and to see what her vision is.”

Tetlow told attendees how excited she was about the parade and joked about her “suspiciously English last name.”

“Let’s get down to the important thing: I’m the first president [of Fordham] in generations not to have an Irish last name, and I know that’s a concern,” she said. “But rest assured, the grandmother I was closest to was a Mullen—that family came from Cork generations ago.”

She said the Catholic Church and Jesuit institutions of higher education helped raise her family’s prospects: “That is what we stand for as a church: To take a family from coal mining to university president in two generations.”

She paid tribute to Fordham’s founder, Archbishop John Hughes—and mentioned Hughes again during the parade, when she was interviewed by NBC 4. (Tune in to the 7:36 minute mark to see the interview, and the 25:40 mark to see the Fordham contingent march past.) At the brunch, Tetlow described the University as one that helps solve the world’s problems by pushing “on the boundaries of human knowledge”—and by understanding that talent is too often squandered when opportunity is narrowly disbursed. “We know we have assembled the best and the brightest of the world because they look like the world,” she said. “And still, 20% of our students are the first in their family to go to college, as many of you were.”

“For me, it is humbling beyond measure to take up this work—to lead Fordham into a future where education has never mattered more.”

Chris Gosier contributed reporting to this story.

“It was somewhat of a surprise, obviously good and exciting news. I’ve done a lot of [work]over the years in the Irish community, so it was nice to have that recognized and acknowledged,” he told Fordham Magazine in 2020.

Irish and New York blood run deep through his veins. His great-grandfather Daniel Houlihan immigrated to the Bronx from County Kerry, Ireland, in 1874. And his maternal grandmother, Rose Valerie Murray, emigrated in 1913 from County Tyrone in Northern Ireland. That’s why Houlihan has been so dedicated to supporting the Irish community. In addition to leading the Great Hunger Memorial project, he has worked with the Irish Arts Center, based in New York City, to curate an exhibit titled “Fighting Irishmen: A Celebration of Celtic Warriors,” which commemorated people who are “heroes to the Irish,” Houlihan said.

Houlihan also has been a longtime supporter of the Fordham community. A former member of the University’s Board of Trustees, he previously served as chair of the Fordham President’s Council and as a member of the WFUV advisory board. In 2011, Fordham honored Houlihan with its Founder’s Award, given to individuals whose personal and professional lives reflect the highest aspirations of the University’s defining traditions, as an institution dedicated to wisdom and learning in the service of others. He and his family have established scholarship funds for students and helped renovate the baseball diamond at Jack Coffey Field, which was named Houlihan Park in honor of him and his family.

For many attendees, it was a chance to see New York City come back to life after two years of social distancing and separation. Meghan McAlary, a senior at the Gabelli School of Business, who serves as the president of Fordham’s Gaelic Society, said she was grateful to participate in the parade after going through the pandemic.

“We’ve definitely had a lot of pent-up energy to get out here, so it’s nice to finally be able to get together,” she said.

Continuing the Tradition

McAlary was marching with her father, John, who said that he was thrilled to see his daughter so involved with both the Fordham community and her Irish roots.

“We got to travel together to Ireland before the pandemic, so just to see her out here as the president of the Gaelic Society—I couldn’t be prouder. I grew up in New York City and I used to come down to the parade every year as a child, and to see her continuing that tradition is just wonderful,” he said.

Eight decades’ worth of Fordham Rams participated in the parade, spanning graduates from the 1950s to current students. All nine of the University’s colleges, as well as Marymount, were represented, according to Michael Griffin, associate vice president for alumni relations.

Two of those generations were represented by the Wiedenhoft family, as Fordham College at Rose Hill sophomore Carolyn Wiedenhoft marched in the parade with her dad Robert, FCRH ’86.

“Seeing her love it and being able to share that with her is a great connection,” he said.

Catherine Trapani, a 2013 graduate of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Fordham University Alumni Association advisory board, brought her daughter and best friend to the parade to participate for the first time. Trapani said that she wasn’t sure how the turnout would be with the weather and pandemic-related hesitations.

“It’s nice to see it filled with all different ages and schools,” she said.

Across the region, other traditions returned this year. In White Plains, James J. Houlihan, GABELLI ’74, served as the grand marshal of their St. Patrick’s Day parade to honor him for helping to establish the Great Hunger Memorial, among other volunteer and philanthropic works in and beyond Westchester County.

James T. Callahan, general president of the International Union of Operating Engineers, served as the New York City parade’s grand marshal. The parade featured a moment of silence for victims of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as in memory of the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and the war in Ukraine. The Fordham contingent stopped at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on its way up Fifth Avenue and tipped their caps to the church.

Honoring Father McShane: “It’s Why I’m Here”

This year’s parade marks the last time that Joseph M. McShane S.J., president of Fordham, addressed the delegation, as he will be stepping down in June. For many alumni, saying goodbye to him was part of the reason they decided to march.

“It’s why I’m here—this morning I got up and it was raining, but I said ‘I’m going anyway because it’s McShane’s last (one),’” said Stephen Centrillo, GABELLI ’79, ’81.

“He’s the most inspirational human being I know. I’ve known him for 20 years now and I’m just so happy for what he’s done for Fordham. And I wanted him to see as many Rams here, recognizing how we feel about him.”

At ‘Every Moment in Fordham’s History,’ Becoming People for Others

Before the parade, more than 200 participants gathered for brunch at the Yale Club. Father McShane served as the keynote speaker, and was met with a standing ovation from those in attendance. He called on the crowd to remember not only the story of St. Patrick, but also the story of another Irishman, Fordham’s founder Archbishop John Hughes— “a latter-day St. Patrick.”

Father McShane said that Hughes did four vital things for the city: purchasing land where the new St. Patrick’s Cathedral was built on Fifth Avenue; making sure there were Catholic schools for children to attend at their parishes; starting St. John’s College, which would become Fordham University; and helping to start Emigrant Savings Bank, which provided banking services to previously underserved Irish customers when it first opened.

“All of them really were aimed at one thing—taking care of the downcast, the downtrodden, the forgotten, the marginalized—us,” Father McShane said. “And Fordham has kept faithful to that mission.”

Father McShane said that “at every moment in Fordham’s history, Fordham is drawn to helping young men and women who have “great hearts and exceptional intellectual ability” find their way in the world and become people for others.

“This is what we’ve done for generations we’re able to do it now because of you—your kindness, your goodness, your generosity,” he said.

Those in attendance said that they were grateful for Father McShane continuing that mission throughout his tenure, particularly during the last few years.

“I feel like this St. Patrick’s Day, this parade is marking the point of [getting]  back to normal—it’s a brand new day, and it’s also being led by Father McShane,” said Sally Benner, FCRH ’84, chair of the Fordham University Alumni Association’s (FUAA) Advisory Board.

“We didn’t lose him and his leadership during the pandemic—he led us to the finish line and now we’re safe, we’re going to be OK.”

Shannon Quinn, FCRH ’10, GABELLI ’18, associate director of alumni relations for NYC programming, accepted the award on the University’s behalf during a ceremony at Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus.

More than 500 students, alumni, family, and friends marched up Fifth Avenue and past St. Patrick’s Cathedral on March 16.

Many of the Fordham marchers had gathered for breakfast at the Yale Club earlier that morning, where they heard Cathal Pratt, a Fordham doctoral candidate in English, relate the long history of the University’s Irish studies program. Founded in 1925 by Irish nationalist Joseph Campbell, it may very well be the oldest such program in the world.

Pratt emphasized how Campbell reminded Fordham of its Irish heritage, an immigrant past filled with both challenges and compassion that Fordham celebrates to this day.

Based on reactions, comments, and shares*, here are the Fordham News stories that were most popular on Facebook this year.

10. Fordham Provost Stephen Freedman Dies at 68
To call an obituary a “popular” post may seem incongruous. The word is very fitting, however, for our late provost Stephen Freedman, who was loved and admired on the Fordham campus and beyond. His untimely death in July shocked the University community; we still grieve for him as we strive to carry on his legacy.

9. Management Course on Spinning Bikes Gets Students Up to Speed
Struggling to fit in your spin workout and still make it to class? Students did both in Julita Haber’s management class, the first ever fitness integrated learning (FIL) class to be offered on an American campus.

8. Faces in the Class of 2018
Hailing from all over the world, these 10 members of the Class of 2018 were just a small sample of the many talented graduates who do us proud each year.

7. Spending a Year With the Jesuit Volunteer Corps
For some Fordham grads—including Charlie Shea and Annie David—the Jesuit Volunteer Corps offers a chance to experience a different community and find a sense of purpose.

6. Performing Arts Programs Earn Top Rankings
Our performing arts programs took center stage this year, earning top spots in several prestigious rankings. Bravo!

5. Fordham Opens New London Centre
Fordham officially unveiled its new London Centre, now located in the Clerkenwell neighborhood and offering study abroad opportunities in liberal arts, business, and drama.

4. Fordham Marches in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade
As always, the Rams had a great showing on Fifth Avenue for the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. We took first place among universities for the third year in a row.

3. Remembering Nicholas Booker
Friends and Fordham staff came together to remember first-year student Nicholas Booker, an athlete, a pal to many, and a promising young man whose future was cut short by a severe asthmatic attack.

2. Moving in on Opening Day
There was plenty of Fordham spirit on display as Opening Day welcomed new and returning students to campus.

1. Sistine Chapel Reproduction Installed at Rose Hill
And our most popular post of 2018 was a recent one: A quarter-scale reproduction of the Sistine Chapel fresco—a gift from the Met—now hangs in Duane Library’s Butler Commons. Be sure to check it out in January, when the University will open the room to members of the campus community.

*A note about our methodology: This list is based on total reactions, comments, and shares, including reactions to other people’s shares– which are not reflected in the numbers seen at the bottom of the posts here.

On Oct. 22, members of the St. Patrick Day Foundation presented Fordham with the first-place plaque at the McNally Amphitheatre on the Lincoln Center campus. Accepting the award on the University’s behalf was Shannon Quinn, FCRH ’10, GABELLI ’18, associate director of alumni relations, NYC programming. Other universities were also honored at the ceremony.

More than 500 Rams marched up Fifth Avenue in Manhattan for the parade this March. About half of them gathered for brunch at the Yale Club earlier that day, where Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, spoke with pride about Irish immigrants who risked so much to achieve the American dream.

He said that St. Patrick’s Day is a day for “savoring everything our ancestors did to leave Ireland and come to a place filled with uncertain promise.” Those that left their troubled country, he said, would have never dreamed of the successes their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren would eventually realize.

A Fordham contingent has been marching in the parade since 1937, with a brief hiatus during World War II. No fewer than eight Fordham alumni have served as grand marshals.

This year more than 500 Rams marched up Fifth Avenue past the cathedral bearing the name of the Irish saint, its soaring edifice built by Fordham’s founder, Archbishop John Hughes.

Before the parade, about 250 Fordham marchers gathered at the Yale Club for an annual breakfast. John Harrington, Ph.D., dean of academic affairs for Fordham’s new London Centre, gave a short talk about Irish studies at Fordham and its “lineage of strong scholars,” but he also homed in on Archbishop Hughes’s Irish past.

Harrington noted that that the Hughes family farm, like many Irish farms, wasn’t contiguous. Plots could sometimes be separated by miles. The Hughes family farm had plots set about a mile apart with the border separating Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland running between the two.

“The family was up close to separation and sectarianism,” said Harrington. “I think if he could look back, he’d have strong ideas about Brexit.”

Throughout the sunny day the mood remained cheerful, but suffering from The Troubles and the struggle of 30 million Irish-American immigrants was not far from the minds of marchers, not least Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham.

“The whole story of the Irish experience in New York City, in the 1840s, 1850s, and 1860s, is of being outsiders, of being looked down upon and despised,” said Father McShane. “Hughes was the guy at the head, defending his people, but at the same time he was excoriating them to get them to rise, and education was very important to that.”

Father McShane said that St. Patrick’s Day is a day for “savoring everything our ancestors did to leave Ireland and come to a place filled with uncertain promise.” He said the Irish that left their troubled country would have never dreamed of the successes their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren would eventually realize.

“Even here at the Yale Club!” he said. “Who would have thought in the 19^th century we’d be here using their cutlery instead of cleaning and polishing it.”

Patrica McCarthy, an M.S.W. student at the Graduate School of Social Service, said that her grandfather came from Ireland. She said that it’s important to continue to “open people’s minds and to open doors” for immigrants.

Her husband Kevin McCarthy, LAW ’78, agreed. McCarthy teaches at nearby John Jay College.

“It’s important to try to legalize the status of our DACA students, especially for students at Fordham and at John Jay where there’s a very large contingent of DACA students,” he said.

As they waited for the parade to start, Liam Strain, PCS ’03, and Mary Grogan Strain, FCRH ’92, said they represent a mixed marriage: He of Lincoln Center, she of Rose Hill. Liam said he should have graduated in 1984, but returned to get his degree in 2003.

The Strains, like Harrington and others at the parade, also expressed concern about Brexit, saying that any “hard border” between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland may disrupt newfound peace.

“When I came back to finish my degree at Fordham the Celtic Tiger was in full bloom, the Good Friday agreement was forged,” he said. “As a political science major and it was a great time to see Ireland as a model for change and moving toward the future.”

When the Strains were in school they met at the Gaelic Society, where Liam was then president. Then, as now, the two said it was easy to draw parallels from the Irish experience to today’s immigrant experience.

“Dagger John Hughes was a big defender of the immigrants—they happened to be Irish at the time, but that story resonates today,” said Liam Strain.

His wife agreed.

“I was an Irish history minor, so New York City was a great place to connect to the history of the Irish, but it was also a great place to connect to the history of immigrants from all over the world,” she said. “New York is a really diverse campus so it’s a great place to celebrate any heritage.”

The parade drew 250 members of the Fordham community, whose marching performance earned Fordham first place in the Universities category.

Accepting the award on the University’s behalf before the foundation’s quarterly meeting at the Lincoln Center campus were Tom Dunne, vice president for administration, and Shannon Hirrel, FCRH ‘10, assistant director of alumni relations, NYC programming.

Fordham’s deep ties to the parade will continue, as Michael J. Dowling, GSS ‘74, president and chief executive officer of Northwell Health, will serve as Grand Marshall for the parade in 2017.

A native of Limerick and a former professor of social policy and assistant dean at Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Services, Dowling is believed to be the first head of a hospital to lead the 255-year-old parade.

The group, which began their march at 45th St. and 5th Avenue, included Joseph M. McShane, SJ, president of Fordham. Father McShane led the group through the streets, and when passing St. Patrick’s Cathedral midway through the route, stopped to hand a bouquet of flowers to the delegation representing Timothy Cardinal Dolan of the Archdiocese of New York.

“Yesterday’s St. Patrick’s Day Brunch was one of the most well attended in recent history,” said  Shannon Hirrel, FCRH ’10, assistant director of Alumni Relations, NYC Programming, “and the Fordham community continued it’s strong representation at the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. This event is a wonderful opportunity for our Fordham family to celebrate our Irish heritage together.”

The parade’s Grand Marshall was former Maine Senator George J. Mitchell, who was the commencement speaker at the Fordham graduation ceremony in 1999. One of Sen. Mitchell’s aides is alumna Bridget Hanretta O’Brien, FCRH ’98, GSE ’01. (Photos by Chris Taggart: Music by Slainte)

A photo posted by Fordham University (@fordhamuniversity) on Mar 17, 2016 at 9:57am PDT

A photo posted by Fordham University (@fordhamuniversity) on Mar 17, 2016 at 10:21am PDT

A video posted by Fordham University (@fordhamuniversity) on Mar 17, 2016 at 12:05pm PDT

When I lived in Dublin and met an Irish person, I would almost always get the same two questions. The first one was often asked with a raised brow: “Do you know that Colleen means ‘girl’ in Irish?” I quickly tired of that question. But the second one I never tired of hearing because it was always asked with respect and excitement: “You used to live in the Bronx?!”

I bring this up not only to thank Fordham for the street cred it earned me among my Irish friends but also because it shows that when I moved to Ireland, I talked about Fordham and the Bronx quite a lot, to strangers and friends alike.

The link between Ireland and the States is self-evident: It’s there in history, in street names and surnames, in Irish-American culture, in St. Patrick’s Day, which we celebrate by marching up Fifth Avenue.

But the link that joins Fordham, New York, and Ireland is not so generic as to be reduced to the common knowledge of mass Irish immigration to America in the mid-19th century. It’s a link that is constantly revitalized. My life, from the moment I stepped foot in the Bronx at the age of 18 seven years ago, has been living proof of that fact.

I grew up in Connecticut as an obsessive Irish dancer, going to feiseanna every weekend, dancing at local halls and television studios, even skipping school on St. Patrick’s Day. Like many other Irish Americans, I grew up listening to tales about the home country, the stories my aunts and uncles would tell about the family farm in County Clare. Since I was a small child, I loved Ireland, but it wasn’t until I came to Fordham that I truly learned what it means to be Irish. At Fordham, I came to know Ireland outside of its myth.

Getting in Tune

One of the best things to ever happen to me occurred during my freshman year at Fordham, when I became involved with WFUV’s Irish music program, Ceol na nGael, the Music of the Irish. I was blessed to carry the torch of hosting the show, and every Sunday afternoon my co-host and I sat before the mics in the studio in Keating Hall.

The tunes we played were our weekly bridge to the greater New York Irish network, to our listeners across the nation and even across the Atlantic to our Irish fan base. Each Sunday we’d get a slew of requests for the community’s favorite Irish classics—folk songs like “The Fields of Athenry,” “When New York Was Irish,” and “The Leaving of Liverpool.” After only a few months at FUV, I had the lyrics to all those ballads memorized, and I used to sing them in my awful soprano to my roommates when I’d head back to my dorm on a Sunday night.

But the music wasn’t only with me on Sundays. Those ballads merged with my weekday life as a student. During my sophomore year, I took a course in Irish-American history as part of my Irish studies minor. One particular class meeting we focused our discussion on Famine history, and I remember how the whole class took a moment to pause our conversation and reflect in silence at the staggering reality of the recorded numbers: 1 million dead, over 1 million immigrants, all in just five years. We sat together in disbelief as we realized even today Ireland hadn’t recovered its population.

As I left class that day, I popped my headphones in to prepare for my walk across campus. “The Fields of Athenry” happened to come on my shuffle as I walked, and with the class discussion still whirling in my mind, I listened to the lyrics of that ballad, really listened to them for the first time. I bore witness to the song’s story of Michael, who stole food to feed his family and was forced to depart on a prison ship—a narrative that, I knew from my class, was based in historical truth.

These reflections didn’t shatter the illusion of my family’s folktales. Rather, I felt more connected to my family history than I ever had been before. The next Sunday, as I prepared for Ceol na nGael, I included “The Fields of Athenry” on my playlist, and I chose one for my great-grandfather too: “From Clare to Here.”

Finding an Irish Voice

Such an anecdote was characteristic of my Fordham education—what I learned in the classroom always pushed beyond the facts to the feeling and ethics behind the knowledge. At Fordham, I gained more than history, however. I gained, or rather, regained, a language. I can’t think of many other colleges that would have provided me the opportunity to learn a minority language like Irish; and Fordham even did more than that—the college sponsored me to travel to Connemara for a summer and live in the Gaeltacht, to break bread every day with an Irish-speaking family and enhance my conversational skills. By the time I was a junior at Fordham, I had an entirely different voice than when I first arrived in the Bronx. For the most part I sounded the same—my accent hadn’t changed, much to my dismay. But in just two years’ time I was able to slip into a language that hadn’t been spoken in my family for generations.

Fordham not only made me a better speaker of English and Irish, it made me a better listener as well. When home for Thanksgiving the first autumn after my summer in Connemara, I overheard my mother and my uncle talking in the kitchen while preparing the turkey. When my mom laughingly told my uncle, in her thick pseudo-New York accent, to “put the kaibosh on all that baloney he was chatting,” she was, unbeknownst to herself, speaking a form of Irish.

Kaibosh comes from the Irish caidhp and bás—caidhp in Irish is a hat, and bás means death, so kaibosh becomes a “death cap.” Put the kaibosh on it. Put an end to it, already. As for baloney, you might be surprised to hear that slang word isn’t related to the deli meat, but to the Irish béal ónna, which means “silly mouth” or “silly talk.” Later that night at Thanksgiving dinner, when my brother asked my cousin if there was any gravy left, and she replied, “There’s gravy galore,” I heard Irish again. Galore comes from the Irish go leor, which sounds and means, like it does for our Irish-American slang, “plenty” or “a lot.”

The myth that Irish was a dead language, the myth that my family was strictly monolingual, was irreversibly broken that Thanksgiving. I heard in old family phrases the new Irish words I had learned in Connemara; I heard how a centuries’ old language breathed new life each day in contemporary American conversation.

Through history, song, and language, my roots back to my ancestral past in Ireland grew stronger and stronger with each month of my time at Fordham. But perhaps the most important tie Fordham sewed for me was through literature and surprisingly through feminism.

Songs of the Unsung

My challenging liberal arts education as an English major at Fordham made me thirsty for further study. With support from my faculty mentors at Fordham, I was accepted at my dream program, the Master’s in Irish Writing at Trinity College Dublin. For a year I read the great Irish works of Joyce and Beckett, Swift and Yeats. I walked down Nassau and Grafton Streets every day, took a turn around Stephen’s Green regularly, passed by the home of the Book of Kells on my walk to class, learned, wrote, and virtually lived (as it felt in those arduous essay-writing months) in the house where Oscar Wilde was born on Westland Row, where our master’s course met for study.

By the time the final leg of the dissertation came along, I was surprised but thrilled to find myself in the college’s rare and early printed books room, reading an original copy of a novel published in 1809 by a young a woman from Dublin—a novel only I and a handful of other Irish scholars today have read. I gladly took the risk of making an argument for this unknown writer named Sarah Isdell and her little-known novel, The Irish Recluse, a rather radical narrative about a woman who creates a feminocentric family unit in a castle in Kerry.

At the end of the work I conducted for my master’s, I looked down at my 70-page dissertation—at the work I had slaved over, that I was so proud of, that had cost my poor father a tearful international call or two from his daughter—and it suddenly registered that my connection with this novel had roots in a speech I heard on freshman orientation day at Fordham.

“To be bothered.” That’s what Joseph M. McShane, SJ, president of Fordham, said he wanted out of us as students: to leave Fordham bothered by the questions our education had raised, by what we encountered outside the University walls.

I was undoubtedly romanced by the literature I had studied at Trinity, by Dublin’s historical charms, but I never let that romance eclipse the Jesuit ideal of justice and suspicion that had been ingrained in my undergraduate education. Whether I was conscious of it at the time or not, I was quietly bothered by that androcentric syllabus list I received on my first day at Trinity, by academia’s small, sometimes exclusionary canon of authors. I left Trinity more widely read, more worldly and confident than when I had arrived, but I left it the way I left Fordham, the way Father McShane encouraged us to feel—bothered. I knew I had more work to do for Irish feminist literary criticism, and it was that inquiry that brought me to Boston in pursuit of a PhD.

Making the Irish American

I share all these personal anecdotes not to wax lyrical about myself, but to demonstrate that Irishness is a multifaceted, complex, precious, and constantly unfolding thing. Irish culture comes from a place of struggle and pain, but beauty as well, laughter and spirit, all expressed in the most exquisite art forms, and yes, even in a bit of myth and magic. If I hadn’t gone to Fordham, I’d only know the mere surface of this cultural depth.

Now that I live in the States again, I often get asked—with a similar expression of respect—“You used to live in Dublin?” And when I go back to Ireland this summer, I’m sure I’ll get that same interest in my Bronx connections when I swap international stories with the people I encounter.

In the Irish language, when someone asks you where you’re from, the reply is phrased Is as mé, which directly translates as “I am of.” I am of New York and of the Bronx, and I am of Dublin just as much as I am of a tiny town in Connecticut, and maybe even still of a tiny town in County Clare.

To be Irish American is to be of many places and to be of two nations, to inhabit two homes at once. I am grateful to Fordham for teaching me how invaluable that multiplicity is.

One of the most common signatures of being Irish is a reverence for folklore. No doubt the Irish have an instinctive penchant for telling stories. Walk into any pub in any town in Ireland, and you’ll see it proven true.

But I think the best part of Irish culture are the stories that haven’t been told, the ones muffled by history and prejudice.

So I encourage you to listen thoughtfully to the Irish tales you hear in conversation. Listen thoughtfully to the lyrics of a Dubliners ballad or the words of a Seamus Heaney poem. Go to Ellis Island and listen to its silence. Hear again, with new ears, the very sound of your own name. There are more stories lingering there than you realize, more stories waiting to be recorded. Irish America is a story only partially written, and it’s places like Fordham that inspire us to fill the empty pages.