I’m 25% Irish. But I didn’t know anything about being Irish until I met my husband.
He is 100% Irish, with parents who are right off the boat (or, plane, in this more modern case). His mother is one of 12 children and his father one of seven. Many of these siblings also came to America around the same time, and settled in the same general vicinity of each other — in an area that I affectionately refer to as The Compound. So my husband has, by my estimation, 412 first cousins. (Not really — but it sure seems that way sometimes.)
My 25% Irish blood played no real role in shaping my childhood. If anything, my grandmother of Irish descent put that part of her completely aside in order to be a good Italian wife (and cook) for her Sicilian husband — blasphemy back then, incidentally. There was far more marinara sauce than Irish soda bread in my life, and my most Irish genetic trait remains my fierce loyalty to U2. Oh, and my propensity to sustain an ER-level sunburn after three minutes of being outside.
As a result, I had nothing in life to prepare me for the first family wedding I attended with my husband, back in 2000 when we were just dating. At first, it seemed like most other weddings. Standard dinner music was playing.
And then, not so much.
The Irish ballads began to play. And let me tell you, I’ve never seen such military precision, en masse, of several hundred people rising from their seats and rushing the dance floor.
To waltz.
My then-boyfriend extended his hand as if it was a given that we were getting out there.
“Uh, I don’t think so,” I said. “This is level code-red intimidating. And you can waltz?”
“Of course.”
His hand was still extended and it was clear that he was not giving up. I shot the rest of my drink and hoped to blend into the crowd. After all, I reasoned with myself, I grew up a ballet dancer.
I’ve got this. It’s a waltz.
One, two, three — one, two, three.
I was getting by, even as I felt the eyes of 100 brogues burning into my back.
And there they were — mothers dancing with daughters, sisters with sisters, fathers with children, husbands with wives. The floor was packed, and they all did this so effortlessly, as if it was choreographed. They were having a ball. It was nice, actually. Really nice.
Just as I thought I might live through this, the waltz ended. And then I experienced what I can only describe as a movement — no, a mission — a series of shouts and beckons, dragging people from the bar to get everyone onto the dance floor. They were all excited. They were lining up. Who moves everyone away from the bar? What the hell was happening?
My date looked at me matter-of-factly.
“It’s The Siege of Ennis.”
“Excuse me? Are we under attack?”
“Just go with it.”
And then, this.
OK, it was clearly not these actual people. This is not wedding footage — it’s the Riverdance crew on YouTube. But I needed to give you a visual. Now, imagine a few hundred wedding guests of all ages on the dance floor doing this — again, with military precision. Well, drunk military precision. I was being spun and flung and sidestepped. It was abundantly clear that no amount of ballet training was going to help me save face this time. Where was the Tarantella when I needed it?
But I learned, slowly, wedding after wedding, how to survive The Siege of Ennis, the waltz and overall Irish group dancing.
And, five years later, when it came time for our own wedding (a union that my mother-in-law once labeled a mixed marriage because I’m not 100% Irish) I was in a quandary. I truly understood my husband’s wish to have Irish music at the reception, like his family always had. But it was also totally foreign to my family — who, at its core, is a group of true, true music lovers — particularly Motown and oldies. And it’s close to impossible to find a band that plays The Temptations and Irish tunes like “The Wild Rover” equally well. Trust me, I tried.
After our wedding ceremony
So, we did the (least) reasonable thing. We had two bands — one strictly Irish music, and one more mainstream wedding entertainment. You could have drawn a line down the middle of the room in terms of who was up and dancing for which songs. And so my wedding was, forever in my mind, Riverdance Meets The Sopranos. (Did I mention that my dad and his brothers kind of look like gangsters?)
But they all lined up for The Siege of Ennis. Which was pretty cool, I must say.
If you or I thought that was the end of my indoctrination, sorry. Over time, there have been a number of other things I never expected to experience, all in the name of Ireland:
- The circuit of St. Patrick’s Day parades in the greater NYC area. Not just the big one in Manhattan, but several others spread out over the course of the month so that there are no scheduling conflicts. They basically consume March.
- Attending an Ancient Order of Hibernians dinner dance to see my mother-in-law named Grand Marshall of one such local parade. Yes, there was abundant waltzing.
- A spontaneous intrusion of bagpipers to mark my father in law’s 70th birthday. To clarify, this was just a low-key, immediate family sort of party at their house on a Sunday afternoon. One minute, cake. The next, dudes in kilts marching through the house, playing bagpipes. Nobody flinched. Not even a little.
Don’t get me wrong. I joke about all of this a lot — but I totally respect the loyalty this family has to their heritage. I had nothing like this growing up. My husband and his 412 first cousins all have this allegiance to their culture that is very deeply embedded. And you don’t find that so much anymore.
So, hats off and Slainte to my husband’s Irish family today. And every day.
(Psst — “Black Velvet Band” is my favorite.)
