Talking Memories
Talking Memories is not for everyone. Author Thomas O’Reilly interviewed some twenty-five residents whose first-person Compiled by Thomas O’Reilly, 2013 stories begin in the early 1900s and extend to the first decade of Review by Brian Hanrahan the 21st century. Think of your parents or grandparents in the rish Americans whose forbears Midwest or East Coast in the departed the Emerald Isle in forties and fifties and of the yarns the dead of night with only that they spun. the clothes on their backs often Talking Memories offers a passed down little genealogical respectably entertaining image of information to descendants. That what life in Clonaslee might’ve so many of them were illiterate been like. In spots the tales ocdoomed first and subsequent casionally descend to humdrum, generations to learn Irish famyet there are recollections of ily history and about life during extraordinary pluck and grit told the Great Hunger while seated in the voice of nonchalance that around dinner tables in tenements the stout of heart often bear. dotting the East Coast of the Requisite text is also dedicated U.S. and Canada. to pursuit of sport in ClonaOthers are fortunate enough to slee, which means hurling and have their Irish genealogical tree Gaelic football. “Hurlexquisitely researched and detailed into impressive ing combines the skills tomes by distant relatives who evidently had nothof baseball, hockey, and ing better to do than to travel to Ireland and prowl lacrosse in one high speed, through ancient graveyards and churches to gather high scoring sport,” boasts names, birth and Baptism records. one plug. A quick search Talking Memories melds Irish family legitimizes the claim that histories passed from generation to generation hurling has a toehold with genealogical research to exquisitely detail life in North America, with in Clonaslee, a tiny village off the beaten tourist collegiate teams formed path in County Laois. at such schools as Boston Clonaslee, (Cluain na Slí), population 800 College. No surprise there. give or take, lies situated in verdant foothills some Prefaced by a snap127 kilometers west of Dublin. The name means shot of each person and “way of the meadow.” On an island that witnessed chaptered by them telling prehistoric settlements as early as 8,000 B.C., Clo“their story,” Talking naslee began as an Anglo-Norman town in the late Memories speaks of an Ire12th century, which some scholars call “the greatest land now largely vanished. century,” if you’re keeping track.
Life in a Small Village
I
The Desert Shamrock
For geographic reference, those familiar with Tullamore D.E.W.—meaning the whiskey not the song by Dan Fogleberg—nearby Tullamore, Chandler, Arizona’s sister city in County Offaly, was once home to the Tullamore distillery and a must-stop where tourist buses still disembark passengers for a taste of the pricey dew. So, if you’re in the neighborhood… Frankly, I like the book’s folksy cadence and the simple stories told within. At least one copy of Talking Memories should be frequently available at the McClelland Irish Library at the Irish Cultural Center in Phoenix, Arizona.
ARTS
Book Review:
Brian’s great great grandfather arrived in Canada on a coffin ship out of Limerick in 1852. After a year or two in frigid Montreal, he migrated to balmy Wisconsin where he joined dozens of other Irish immigrants to farm in Erin Township, which even today remains replete with Irish surnames.
January – February 2015
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