Marie McKenna dissertation

Institute for Clinical Social Work

The Influence of Irish Colonial History on Subsequent Generations

A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Institute for Clinical Social Work in Partial Fulfillment for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

By Marie McKenna

Chicago, Illinois June, 2021

Copyright © 2020 by Marie McKenna All rights reserved

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Abstract

This study aimed to explore the lived experience of first and second-generation participants growing up with ancestors who immigrated from Ireland, a country colonized for over 800 years. Fifteen first or second-generation Irish Americans whose ancestors emigrated between the years 1900 and 1950 were interviewed using narrative qualitative methodology. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using thematic analysis. Ancestors came from a depressed land where loss and civil and religious strife made their homeland unsustainable. Participants’ experiences were that many ancestors kept an emotional distance from them, kept secrets, and revealed little personal information. Participants did not understand the reason for the reluctance to share.

Participants also noted that their parents/grandparents did not adhere to the rigidity of separation of religion as required in sectarian Ireland. Though coming with little to nothing, they could also support their families in the new land. Further study would assist in finding best treatment practices for those who come from families where little has been shared or is shared. This study also considers the responsibility of mental health practitioners and researchers in sharing their findings on the effect of oppressive societal structures on their client’s health and society in general.

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This dissertation is dedicated to all the ancestors, descendants, advocates, mental health clinicians, and researchers who have worked toward healing the wounded.

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The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and their children’s teeth are set on edge. ~Ezekiel, Chapter 18, vs. 2

Too long a sacrifice Can make a stone of the heart.

O when may it suffice? ~ Easter, 1916, Yeats, W. B.

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Acknowledgments Go Raibh Mile Maith Agaibh (A Thousand Thanks)

Appreciation abounds for Joan DiLeonardi, PhD, committee chair which served as a professional advisor, faithful coach, Irish companion, and a very patient and tenacious journeyer.

Gratitude also to committee members Freda Friedman, PhD, and Ida Roldan, PhD, who have been there when needed offering encouragement Gratitude for committee readers Karen Bloomberg, PhD, and Pat Seghers, PhD, who both stepped in when asked.

Gratitude also to Sr. Eileen Lowe, MSW, SLW, who offered support during the ups and downs of this project and the ongoing life, joys, and challenges through these years.

MM

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Table of Contents

Page Abstract…………….……………………………………………………………………iii Acknowledgements...…………………………………………………………………....vi Chapter I. Introduction………………………………………………………………………1 History of the Problem General Statement of Purpose Significance of the Study for Clinical Social Workers Statement of the Problem to be Studied and Specific Objective to be Achieved Theoretical Frame and Conceptual Framework Statement of Assumptions Foregrounding II. Literature Review……………………………………………..………………..16 Historical Context Object Relations A People Distressed Relational and Attachment Perspectives Identity and the Relational Matrix

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Table of Contents—Continued

Chapter

Page Northern Ireland Social, Contextual, and Identity Perspective Loyalty, Difference, and Distrust Loss Immigration A History Handed Down

III. Methodology……………………………………………………………………68 Introduction Type of Study and Design Scope of Study, Setting, Population Sampling Data Collection Methods and Instruments Plan for Data Analysis Statement on Protecting the Rights of Human Subjects Limitations of the Research IV. Results.…………………………………………………………………………..79 Participant Demographics Introduction Finding I Finding II Finding III

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Table of Contents—Continued

Chapter

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V. Discussion and Conclusions…………………………………………………..106 Introduction Participant Experience of Their Ancestors Experience of Relationship and Intergenerational Transmission Klein and Positions Related to This Study Implications of Injury to the Relational Field Treatment Implications for Clinical Treatment Recommendations for Further Research Conclusion Appendices A. Sample Press Release………………………………………………...……….157 B. Questionnaires...……………………………………………………………….159 C. Individual Consent for Participation in Research…………………………..163 D. Open-Ended Questions/Probes……………………………………………….167 E. End of Interview: Questions Pertaining to Researcher Participation and Summary………………………………………………………………….……169 F. Researcher’s Family Letter……………………………………………….…..171 G. Poems/Songs.......................................................................................................174

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Table of Contents—Continued

References…………………………..….………………………………………….185

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Chapter I

Introduction History of the Problem Times of political turmoil directly impact the lives of those who have lived through such ordeals (Manktelow, 2007). Ireland is a country that has been in cultural, political, and religious turmoil for centuries. Northern Ireland, in recent years, has been described as one of the most “divided countries in the world and one of the most violent” (Hargie, 2004, p. 11). In many ways, Ireland’s identity is formed on the divisions. The question for this study is how the residue of that turmoil affects the sons, daughters, and grandchildren of immigrants who began their lives there. The focus of this study is the impact of poverty, hatred, violence, and trauma on subsequent generations of Irish/Northern Irish immigrants to North America.

In our lifetime, the “troubles” of the 1960s through the 1990s brought Northern Ireland international attention; however, for generations, Ireland has lived through ethnocultural, political, and sectarian disruption. More recent studies have documented the impact of living in such civil disharmony (Harge, 2004; Manktelow, 2009; Smyth & Hamilton, 2003; Rice & Benson, 2005). But little has been written about the impact of the previous generations of Irish diaspora on the next generations raised outside of Ireland.

2 The citizens of Ireland experienced an ethnocultural identity formed by threats from within as well as from without. The subjugation of colonial rule from its neighbor, the United Kingdom, added dangers to the Irish people. This study explored this heritage’s impact on subsequent generations, who have no experience living in a divided land.

General Statement of Purpose Recent studies from Ireland have noted that many Irish residents who lived through the “Troubles of the 1960s” often experience a heightened sense of helplessness and victimization, to name a few of the effects (Taylor & Fraser, 1990). The purpose of this study is to explore the relational matrix of these participants from family roots where cultural, political, and religious turmoil existed.

Little was found in the literature addressing the impact on next-generation Irish Americans for the period depicted in this study, 1900-1950. This study considers what characteristics are passed on having ancestors that lived in a land of civil strife. Walls (2006, p. 118) notes that family heritage can contain unhealthy “society ideological underpinnings.” What is the human cost of such conflict on the next generations, even when they immigrate to a new land? Are the effects noted for ages to come? (Manktelow, 2007).

Significance of the Study for Clinical Social Work Clinical social work is a discipline that considers both intrapsychic and interpersonal aspects of the human person. The Code of Ethics of the National Association of Social Workers (Workers, N. A., 2008) stresses the “profession’s focus on individual well-being

3 in a social context and the well-being of society” (Preamble, p. 1). The International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW) and the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) both state the importance of social work’s awareness of and the impact of societal strife where it occurs (Manktelow, 2007). It is of concern to the discipline of social work to ascertain the effect of conflict on the populations we serve, note the areas of need caused by that strife, and address or meet those needs.

It is essential for us as clinicians to consider our clients in their broader cultural context. It is in the broader context that a person continues to develop and understand themselves. This study explores participants’ experiences from families with older generations who lived in a land of division, poverty, and violence. It is not uncommon to have clients raised in families in clinical practice where this is part of their heritage, though they may not have come from war-torn countries. Ireland has one of the highest migration rates by population (McGoldrick, 2005). Who is the Irish American client we see? Which values, norms, and meanings are part of the fabric of the person we see? The Clinical Social Work profession’s responsibility is to promote “human rights and social justice” (Tolleson, 2009, p. 190). This study seeks to further inform clinicians as to the needs of the Irish American client.

Statement of the Problem to Be Studied and Specific Objectives to Be Achieved Times of political turmoil directly impact the lives of those who have lived through such ordeals (Manktelow, 2007). Northern Ireland has been described as one of the most “divided countries in the world and one of the most violent” (Hargie & Dickson, 2003, p.

11). However, how does the cultural residue of that turmoil affect the sons, daughters,

4 and grandchildren of those that lived through it? The impact of violence and trauma on subsequent generations of Northern Irish immigrants to Canada and the United States is the focus of this study. One question the study asks is: how do the descendants in this study understand the experience of their forebears?

The Troubles (1960-1999) brought the conflict in Northern Ireland to international attention. Still, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland have been in ethnocultural and political turmoil for many generations. For this study, the years after the Great Famine/Hunger of 1845-1849 will be considered as it told the story of division the most.

The Gaelic-Irish population saw this tragic event as a natural disaster and a trauma created by Britain’s policies (Rice & Benson, 2005).

There are numerous explanations for generations of ethnopolitical turmoil in Northern Ireland. Historians and scholars blamed external factors such as the Roman Catholic Church, Protestant churches, British imperialism, and other influences. More recently, however, there is support for the turmoil in Northern Ireland as being directly related to “the clash of two ethnic identities rooted in the social, economic, cultural and geographical structures within Northern Ireland” (Manktelow, 2007, p. 32). This latter explanation builds on the history that Ireland was partitioned into two countries in 1921, during the years many of the ancestors in this study resided. The South had a Roman Catholic majority, while the North had six counties and a Protestant majority. The South became independent from the United Kingdom in 1948, becoming the Republic of Ireland. The North, and the primary focus of this study, however, remained part of the British Empire and was and is still governed by the Protestant majority. The most recent turmoil of the 1960s often referred to in the media as the “Troubles,” is thought to result

5 from inequality in opportunity for the minority Catholic population. Employment, social resources, and political influence are linked to religious affiliation (Manktelow, 2007).

The centuries-long control of Ireland by the United Kingdom has been seen as a significant contributor to Irish instability. This study explores how these participants experienced parents/grandparents who lived much of their early years in a divided country.

This study includes the transition from emigree to immigrants. Emigrees from Ireland left their homeland with an ethnocultural identity formed by threats from without and within. Colonialism existed, as did the results of policies enacted. Recent studies suggest that those who remained in Ireland as of 1990 passed down secondary victimization to the next generations (Taylor & Fraser, 1990; Kapur & Campbell, 2014).

This study considers impacts, if any, on the next generations raised in these families of immigrants. The ancestors of this study are said to come from a distressed background in their home country where there is poverty, lack of opportunity, interpersonal challenges, and loss, to name a few. This study also addresses the areas of resiliency found in both ancestors and participants. Immigrants from Northern Ireland come from generations of family members raised within the framework of conflict. (McGoldrick, 2005). A question for this study: is moving to a new land enough to transform the frame? Volkan & Greer (2007) suggest that it was not enough for Holocaust survivors to immigrate to a new land and begin unscathed. Though the psychological ability to detach from the past to create room for the new can assist the new immigrant to function “as if” the past had nothing to do with their present life, how much is lived out in the present in unconsciously dissociated ways? Are enactments played out in subsequent generations? How has

6 prolonged ethnocultural conflict influenced past generations’ beliefs, ideas, personal actions, and relationships with family? How do these effects play out in subsequent generations even across the pond?

Theoretical Frame and Conceptual Framework The fundamental theoretical framework of this study is psychodynamic, primarily from the relational psychoanalysis lens. Psychodynamic thought has at its core what is described as “dynamic organization to the way we unconsciously register experience” (McWilliams, 2004, p. 29). This study considered both the experience as well as the meanings that participants attached to that experience. The study utilized social constructivist theory as the fundamental underpinning philosophy: what the person has been exposed to within the context of family and close society influences their sense of reality and the meaning placed on that experience.

Question to be explored.

The central question to explore for this study is: what is the experience of growing up in a family that lived in Ireland/Northern Ireland during times of ethnopolitical turmoil?

Operational definitions.

This study will not presume the participants’ operational understanding of their experiences (Geertz, 1973). The meaning of a person’s life cannot be measured nor simplified to assume that there is one accurate way of looking at what one experiences.

Theoretical rather than operational definitions allow this study to be grounded in each participant’s personal experience as much as possible. Some focused more on history,

7 others on the disturbing events in family life, others wondering about the gaps in their relationship with their ancestors. In keeping with a qualitative study where the intent is to “probe into the deeper meaning and social context of the processes and outcomes in each case,” this study considers an “initial set of anticipated meanings” (Rubin & Babbie, 2008, p. 172). The theoretical areas that are expected to be part of this study are the following:

Trauma.

In this study, trauma is considered a felt experience of fear, anxiety, upset, and mistrust when placed in a situation where one is overwhelmed. This is distinguished from the reality of the event itself (Brandell, 2012). Each participant will describe what they consider traumatic for their own lives and those who share in the stories. It has been noted that trauma for this study is related especially to ambiguous loss.

Loss.

Loss in this study considers loss through death, country, identity and power, and loss of hope that there will be change. Loss is also considered as the absence of intimacy felt by many of these participants. Of particular importance in this study is the ambiguous loss referred to by Boss (2006). The Irish ancestors in this study had little to no hope that they would experience an end to their loss. Ireland would never be different from the country in constant turmoil where dreams were not allowed to exist and thrive, where the human connection was focused on who one was for or against. The Irish and Anglo-Irish ancestors in this study expressed a disturbance in basic functioning as individuals. There

8 was a lived stance of being on guard against the enemy. Though often close, relationships were grounded on loyalty to one side or another with no opportunity for individual diversity. Individuality was seen as dangerous for the life of the community and could not be trusted. The community became, in a sense, very needy and had to be protected. The individual role was to protect the group.

Elements of loss considered here are the inability to note an end to the loss, difficulty knowing who is and who is not part of the loss, and the long-lasting influence of loss on the individual’s basic functioning (Boss, 2006). This study explores stress reactions to traumatic events themselves and the experience of ambiguity surrounding loss. The next generation did not expect that intimacies would be shared to assist in contextualizing their family story in their family.

Intergenerational transmission.

Intergenerational transmission in this study is considered from the participant’s family of origin and societal, religious, and cultural influences. This study believes that interpersonal relationships and enactments in relationships are related to personal, family, and other influences. In this study, it is understood that there are multiple ways of transmitting experience and that world views are formed directly and indirectly. Many themes and the meanings of those themes may be divorced from the original experience of the turmoil. One participant, for example, was processing their relationship with an immigrant father in an attempt to understand that relationship in the context of the father’s Irish history, not only concerning his marriage but to her mother with mental

9 illness. What then is the transmission of his early years of depravity, loneliness, and experiences of violence?

Relational matrix.

A relational Matrix is used to reinforce that interpersonal and intrapsychic relations are both equally important. “The most useful way to view psychological reality is operating within a relational matrix that encompasses both intrapsychic and interpersonal realms (Mitchell, 1988, p. 9). To this end, the study also considers this lens helpful in considering “self-organization, attachment to others, interpersonal transactions” (p. 8) as well as participants’ understanding of their history and story.

Individual.

For this study, the individual is defined in the context of their life experience with others. Thus, the individual is considered “a dialectical entity” where the “individual and the individual’s context are inseparable from one another” (Twemlow, 2003, p. 6).

Cultural and religious identities.

Ireland is divided into two ethnocultural groups: Gaelic-Irish, who trace their roots to Ireland itself, and Anglo-Scot Irish, who may have lived in Ireland for generations but trace their roots and loyalties to the United Kingdom (McGoldrick, 2005). This division is further complicated by religious identity. During this study’s time frame of immigration, 1900-1950, Gaelic-Irish is predominantly Roman Catholic, and Anglo-Scot Irish are Protestant. These divisions are what one is born into, not a matter of choice. This

10 clarity was important for community cohesiveness and safety in a country of division, giving security in cultural, religious, and political identity. What is handed down to these participants may be influenced by growing up in this milieu.

Those who identify as Protestant do not identify as Irish per se but more as AngloScot Irish related more to Britain (McGoldrick, 2005). Many of these descendants came from ancestors who were brought to the shores of Ireland from the United Kingdom, predominantly to the South for Anglo-Irish and Scot-Irish settling in the North.

Added to this cultural identity was the ongoing onslaught of negativity toward GaelicIrish identity from within and abroad. Whether Catholic or Protestant, being Irish was depicted as less intelligent and civilized than peoples of other nations – especially within United Kingdom (O’Connor, 1993; Dhiarmada, 2016). The British rationalized colonization as a mission to help what were considered ‘backward people’. Britain characterized the Irish as needing to be ruled and brought into civilization for their good.

As a result, self-identification as Irish carried negativity.

McGoldrick (2005) states that many Irish immigrants to the United States tended to have more identity in their new homeland than with Ireland by the second generation.

What remained of their heritage was a “sentimental part of their lives, and often they knew little of their heritage” (McGoldrick, 2005, p. 597). At the same time, the Irish have retained their cultural characteristics “longer than most other ethnic groups” (p. 597).

This study considers how these participants came to understand their roots given the complexity of the history handed down or denied them.

The following terms related to Ireland are utilized in this study and add clarity to their usage by participants.

11 Gaelic-Irish and Anglo-Scot Irish.

Gaelic-Irish refers to the indigenous Irish, mainly Roman Catholic, who have their roots in Ireland itself. Anglo-Scot Irish usually trace their roots from the United Kingdom and identify as Anglican for the Anglo-Irish or Presbyterian for the Anglo-Scot Irish descendants. The Anglo-Scot Irish are mainly identified in the literature as a social class and often listed as the “ascendency.” For this study, indigenous Irish are referred to as Gaelic-Irish. This study is about ethnic and religious sensibilities, which are intended to be a more accurate descriptor.

Ireland/Irish Free State and Northern Ireland.

This study covers two different eras in Irish history. The first era considers Ireland as one country, a colony of the United Kingdom. In 1921, after frequent insurgencies, the Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed, dividing Ireland into two distinct parts. The Irish Free State was 26 Counties in the south portion of the island. This State was renamed in 1937 as Ireland and then again in 1948 when Ireland became a republic. Today it is referred to as the Republic of Ireland. In the 1921 Treaty, the remaining six northern counties of Ireland remained part of the United Kingdom and were referred to as Northern Ireland today. The North of Ireland had a majority Protestant population who sought to remain loyal to the Crown and remain part of the United Kingdom.

Ethno-nationalism, ethnocultural, ethnopolitical, ethnocentric, and socio-political.

These terms have been used in referring to Irish history. However, for consistency, the term ethnopolitical will be used throughout when possible. Ethnopolitical is used to

12 acknowledge the use of British colonial authority and power over the Irish population.

Ireland had an indigenous Irish ethnic identity that was usurped by colonialism using political, national, spiritual, and cultural disengagement and subjugation.

Ethno-nationalism is present relating to loyalty for Gaelic and Anglo-Irish to particular groups rather than nations. Both groups consider themselves representing a nation, but they are distinct groups with loyalties to ideology. Ethnocultural is identified more with Irish and indigenous culture passed down through the generations; little was present in this study describing Anglo-Scot Irish culture.

IRB, IRA, RUC, and Black and Tans.

Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) was a “secret” fraternal organization dedicated to the establishment of an independent democratic republic in Ireland between 1858 and 1924. Although the IRA were volunteers formed in 1917, they believed “all of Ireland should be an independent republic free from British rule” (Irish Republican Brotherhood, 2021).

The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) was formed as an official police force in Northern Ireland after 1921. They were known to work with loyalist (to the Crown) paramilitary forces. Before the treaty, the police force was called the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), also known as B-Specials (Royal Irish Constabulary, 2021).

The Black and Tans were British ex-soldiers recruited to disrupt Gaelic-Irish activity.

Though not formally authorized, they were able to terrorize with impunity. Sinn Féin is a political party in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. It is democratic socialist and remains active till this day.

13 Statement of Assumptions This study carries the basic assumption that children from a heritage where parents, grandparents, and others, influenced by societal trauma, are impacted on both an intrapsychic and an inter-relational level (Hargie, et al., 2003). The impacts are not assumed to be all negative, but they are assumed to be related to one’s dynamic organization referred to by McWilliams (2004).

There is also an assumption that participants were entered into the process of inquiry to draw meaning from their own experience and communicate this to some degree during the interview.

This study also assumes that it is of value for participants to explore the meanings of their experiences growing up Irish American. The constructive social framework allows the study to present various social and relational realities, not synthesize but rather explore them as “multiple realities” (Creswell, 2007, p. 19). Having the material “emerge” (p. 19) allowed the meanings attached to those experiences to surface. The social constructivist view also allowed for this study to begin with no set defined theories but waited for the emergent qualities to come forth (p. 21).

Foregrounding The interest in first and second-generation Irish Americans came from two primary considerations - my first-generation Irish Canadian heritage and an ongoing interest in societies experiencing constant societal and religious turmoil.

I grew up very familiar with the stories of my North of Ireland Roman Catholic family members. My father’s family came from the Falls Road area of Belfast, Roman

14 Catholic, and were actively involved in what they considered surviving in the early part of the 20th Century. My ancestors shared stories of violence, bigotry, and inequality that permeated their childhood and young adult reality. The reality of the Roman Catholic Irish oppressed was often felt not distant reality but very much alive. Included in this study, as Appendix F, is a letter from one of my ancestors living in the North of Ireland to my parents depicting the communication style and sentiment that was familiar to me.

As a young adult, I became interested in the subject of social upheaval and violence.

In my early adult years, a few trips to the North of Ireland helped me focus on societal discrimination’s spiritual and psychological impact. In Ireland, I was exposed to new projects in the early 1980s where joint Roman Catholic and Protestant Conciliation programs took root. These programs brought Protestant and Catholic young people to live together in group homes. I was particularly interested in forming these communities in an environment where the particular faith of the individuals was respected and lived out.

They did not seek to make a community where everyone settled for common practices and beliefs. Catholics and Protestants remained as they were. These communities talked about the differences, and it appeared to increase toleration of difference.

I also chose the North of Ireland for this study because of my exposure to immigrant clients from war-torn countries. Furthermore, since the Peace Accord of the 1990s, Ireland had recent studies that addressed the ongoing psychological effects of living in a country with societal and religious turmoil for generations. Therefore, this study considered what the research suggests concerning intergenerational components and the

15 influence on the immigrated population. In addition, I was interested in similarities and differences passed on to the next generations not raised in the North of Ireland.

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Chapter II

Literature Review

This study’s findings led to a further literature review than considered during the proposal. More broadly than planned, the theory now includes more stress on the relational matrix. Sustainability, for example, was initially regarded as ethnopolitical turmoil from sectarianism. Therefore, the initial inquiry focused on the violence and subsequent trauma ancestors endured and its impact on the next generation. Participants, however, were more generalized in their experiences. The findings, therefore, led to further review of literature on characteristics of the Irish raised in a country that had such a long history, various forms of distress, and the impact on the next generations.

Literature related to emigration and immigration is explored. The transmission of trauma to the next generation is particularly noted. Developmental and attachment issues are referenced by considering the primary caregiver/child dyad and the influence of unresolved trauma/stress. Finally, the literature considers identity and identity formation within a social contextual framework.

Historical Context

17 This study is placed in the context of history. As Shakespeare states in his play, The Tempest, “Whereof what’s past is prologue, what to come. In yours and my discharge” (p. 51). There is a need to honor the realities of Irish heritage’s social, religious, political, and cultural aspects as part of the relational matrix.

The impacts of significant events in Irish history are connected to this study. Ruth Fallenbaum (2003) notes the connection between political reality and the work of therapists: “The first point of contact between politics and psychoanalysis for me lies in the centrality of history and the constant process of Its demystification and assimilation into people’s consciousness and lives as a precondition for emotional and civic health” (Fallenbaum, 2003, p. 3).

Colonialism: Linking past and present.

As therapists, we have the voices of the client sitting with us and the ghosts of their past (Karr-Morse et al., 2013). Often clinicians experience vague hunches that there are influences that are unavailable to the client. It is important to consider the significant, impactful element influencing Irish society, such as the island’s colonization, when considering what remains hidden. The ancestors represented in this study came to this country from a colonized land where political, financial, and legal authority was taken from the Gaelic-Irish indigenous peoples resulting in generations of civil strife, religious sectarianism, and generations of interpersonal and intrapsychic impact. The island’s history after colonization becomes a “story of Ireland as a narrative of oppression and suffering inflicted on the Irish People by English and British colonialism over eight centuries” (Dawson, 2010, p. 58), from which the Irish people were forever changed.

18 Colonialism is the act of subjugating a people in another land to the will of the prevailing conquerors. Colonialism requires that the country’s population clearly understand they are no longer in charge of their destiny. Colonialism takes control over of resources and human capital (Lomb, 2015). With this action, the indigenous people (Gaelic-Irish) were no longer the makers of their history, the deciders of their fate.

Why colonize another country? Colonization allows the conquering country to exploit resources and to add to their collective strength. To this end, laws, and policies in Ireland, for the past centuries, became about what was best for the British Empire, not the Irish population. In the 1700s, for example, penal laws made it legal for Britain to deforest the land, criminalize the speaking or teaching of the Irish language, and many other decisions that affected the Irish population (Moane, 2014, p. 122).

Colonization is about social and psychological domination. Thus, there is both internalized oppression and internalized colonization (Moane, 2014, p. 124). One country’s usurpation of another’s power occurs for self-interest and is justified by blaming the colonized themselves. The prevailing sentiment was that England helped Ireland by subjugating a failed people. The Irish experience then becomes what Dawson described as a suffering and oppressed people. (Dawson, 2010).

From the British public point of view, they were seen as saving the Irish from themselves: “The imperial narrative denied the validity of the nationalist perspective: in Ireland as elsewhere, palpable suffering—during the Famine, for example—was held to be the responsibility of the colonized people themselves rather than of those who governed them” (Dawson, 2010, p. 58).

19 Colonialism is traumatic to a culture (Barbre, 2015, p. 119). Much of the history of a people is lost. It morphs into the popular account of the conquering nation. The Ireland of 1900-1950, the span of years the ancestors of this study lived there, was not at the beginning of colonialism but a country with over 800 years of colonial rule. One very impactful result of colonial rule for this study was Irish emigration. John Lee suggests three waves pertinent to this study (Kapur & Campbell, 2014). The first took place during and after the post-Great Hunger/Famine. Emigration during this time is thought to be a result of English trade policies and Anglo-Irish landowners controlling the legal, social, and political authority. In the second period, from 1900-1940, Lee states that emigration was to be “blamed on the psychological inadequacy of emigrants themselves” (p. 137). With the third wave, from 1946-1956, emigration was primarily seen as a general lack of opportunities, with five of this study’s participant ancestors leaving their homeland.

Lee (2019) focused on Britain’s self-interest as the main building block in connection to Ireland. He states that the economy was not an “abstract external force” but rather “a product of society” (p. 137). Lee believes that Britain’s policies were done to exploit the resources and favor emigration, building a political and social structure that forced the Irish, who were not adding to Britain’s interest in the country, to leave (Kapur & Campbell, 2014). If true, then in many ways, the Gaelic-Irish people were exiled. In other words, policies and laws were enacted to force the Irish discontents out of the country.

Since the Partition in 1920, Kapur & Campbell (2019) state:

20 [The following years] were marked by tension between the real and perceived injustices, which many Nationalists [Gaelic-Irish] felt, and the hopes and fears of a predominantly Protestant, Unionist majority that possessed almost total control of political and administrative powers of the state. (Kapur & Campbell, 2014, Chapter 1) After the Partition, Northern Ireland remained divided, experiencing high unemployment, poverty, and “social and health needs” (Chapter 1).

With the history

of colonialism, two important events are needed to understand the history and dynamics of the impact on the Irish people. Though neither were referenced directly by these participants, these two events are considered meta stories that far surpass one generation.

These are stories that influence generations of Irish up to the present day. They are highlighted here because they have had a significant influence on the Irish psyche generationally, and the study considers participants’ experiences in the context of their family history.

The first, Great Hunger/Famine, was the event that provided much of the energy for actions against British rule and the Ascendency Class (Anglo-Scot Irish). This story became a representation of grievance and opposition against British will. The second significant influence on the Irish people was re-plantation, which split the country by culture, ideology, and religion.

Gorta Mór/The Great Hunger: The wound.

The Irish Potato Famine of 1845-1852 was one of the first results of many British policies. This is the meta-story from which everything is explained and measured. It is a trauma that influenced society and left a wound that heals more from the outside than the

21 inside (O’Connor, 1995). For many, especially the Gaelic-Irish population, this is the story of stories explaining their people’s suffering. It is offered as a reason and a justification for acting on grievances. Freud noted that one event in history could be a “symbol” for similar aspects (Rice & Benson, 2005), and this event was memorialized in that way. However, the event still assists in condensing the beliefs of the people. Symbols such as this have power and represent reality; they can provide the reason for opposition, fuel anger and resentment, and justify aggression. The influence of the Irish Potato Famine is the story handed down from generation to generation. Volkan explores such events and refers to them as “chosen traumas” (Ast et al., 2002, p. 44). These are traumas that take on a meaning and become part of the fabric of a people.

For the Gaelic-Irish population, those considered most affected by the Great Hunger; this event communicates what years of toil have meant; it fuels the passions of oppression (O’Connor, 1995). “A large group makes a choice out of awareness that chosen trauma encapsulates the group experience, gives it meaning, group identity (Rice & Benson, 2005, p. 221).

When considering the wrong done, it can often give authorization for any action, even violent action, justified as retribution, against those that caused it. It is powerful enough to cross generations and provides clarity to an otherwise ambiguous reality.

Ancestors, both Gaelic-Irish and Anglo-Scot Irish, were part of the machinery that upheld the sentiment and reinforced the spirit of the commitment for generations. It was a “this is the way it is” aspect. Twemlow, when discussing communal trauma, notes the importance of historical injury (2017, p. 45). This injury became a symbolic

22 representation of the pain of the Irish community through the centuries. It also became the justification for the animosity and actions of an aggrieved population (p. 45).

“The past continues to torment because it is not the past—it is not over but permeates everyday life” (Dawson, 2010, p. 10). For the Anglo-Irish population and Britain, the Potato Famine reinforced their dedication to remaining in power to save the Irish from themselves, a belief that Lee (2019) suggests was reinforced from the 1900s-1940s.

Though the Great Hunger was 50 years past for the participants’ oldest ancestor, the memory coalesced around the trauma. Families were changed forever, many having perished or emigrated.

The British perspective, important for the communal memory, is far different than for the Gaelic-Irish. Britain and the Ascendency class considered the Famine of 18451852 a natural disaster where a disease-ravaged crop, the potato, was a primary source of sustenance for the Irish people. The Irish themselves were blamed for being over-reliant on one crop and not diversifying their food source. The Irish, in this scenario, were not ambitious enough to work for their self-survival (O’Connor, 1995). High mortality rates and emigres proved this lack of ambition during the years of the famine. The narrative was that more industrious people would have been spared such a significant impact; however, though impactful and traumatic, natural disasters are not under human control.

Significantly, for most Gaelic-Irish, the trauma of 1845 was not the famine per se, but rather Britain and the Anglo-Irish decisions surrounding the natural disaster. For the Gaelic-Irish population, the disaster was most often referred to as the “Great Hunger” (Gorta Mór in Irish), clearly highlighting starvation as a result. From this perspective, the

23 significant historical injury is that the Irish people were sacrificed for profit and deemed expendable.

Gaelic-Irish farmers did not depend solely on potatoes for sustenance, as British authorities stated. The British were in control of food distribution and exported most of the other crops to the United Kingdom and other trade countries. If the food had been accessible to the Irish people, it could have curbed the starvation during this time.

Instead, trade remained the priority and protected by Britain at all costs, including the lives of the Irish population. This story is remembered in song, literature, and art as starving people stood by the shores, gazing at ships filled with crops destined for England. During these years, millions of people starved to death or emigrated.

In Irish history, the name of this event is indicative of its country’s pains. The Great Hunger highlights the starvation of a people not as an act of God/nature but because of policies enacted at the highest level of governmental authority in the United Kingdom.

The Great Hunger names the belief that policy created both disenfranchisement and genocide. The Great Hunger lives long in the psyche of the Gaelic-Irish population and roused when needed to call the population to attention.

For this study, it is thought that the Gaelic-Irish emigree was considered an “exile,” driven from their home never to return. “The Irish language did not even have a word expressing the voluntary sense of ‘emigrant.’ Instead, the word used to describe someone who left Ireland for any reason was deorai – exile” (Miller & Miller, 2001, p. 2). Miller (2010) also notes two other words for leaving Ireland: “dithreabhach, which means one who is homeless; and debeartach, meaning one who suffered banishment” (p. 104).

“Deora” focuses on the people forced from the land of their birth, not primarily because

24 of the blight of a crop but mainly because of British policies. Unlike the Exodus story of the Jewish people, a story of departure with hope and promise of return (p. 13), the Irish emigrant had no such expectation

Replantation: A journey to otherness.

Replantation of Anglo-Scots to Ireland is another factor for this study. Britain’s expansionist policies led to the subjugation of many peoples throughout the building of the British Empire. Ireland was but one of the countries that England sought to rule.

Controlling resources and power was gained in part by a policy of replantation.

Replantation meant that British loyalists were sent to Ireland to help ensure Ireland’s commitment to British policies.

In many cases, lands were taken from the Irish and given to new immigrants loyal to the Crown. These implants were the ascendency class and had property, resources, and authority. By this study’s ancestors’ time, the Anglo-Scots were well rooted in Ireland and identified themselves as Irish. Consequently, Irish identity developed through the generations, dividing between the Gaelic-Irish and Anglo-Scot Irish.

As with the Famine/Great Hunger, this aspect of Irish history is a meta-story, overarching and meaningful historically to the relational matrix connections made in this study. Replantation, as a policy enacted on the Irish people, significantly altered Irish society in all aspects. For example, access and authority in most parts of government, education, law, and business increasingly fell into the hands of the colonizers. As a result, the Gaelic-Irish people found themselves impoverished, barely able to eke out a living in their own country, while colonizers became increasingly wealthy.

25 Repopulation had another significant result related to this study. Once a predominantly Roman Catholic country, Ireland became divided religiously with British colonizers, primarily Protestant. The roots of sectarianism had gained a foothold in the country, and religion became a primary point of contention. The Protestant population increased in both wealth and power in their new land.

The Irish people began living in a country no longer familiar to them. “It is not simply a fact of the past but the experience of being shot into a future that is not entirely one’s own” (Caruth, 2016, p. 71). Inherent in colonization, there needs to be a turning away of the people from the ways of the past and connecting with the ways of the conquering people; a turning away from their culture, religion, and social connections as needed. Generations of Anglo-Scot Irish claimed Ireland as their home and attempted to retain power over a challenging control of the Gaelic-Irish Catholic population (Dhiarmada, 2016).

The history of Ireland became what the ruling authority emphasized. Walls, in his paper “The Normative unconscious and the Political Contexts of Change in Psychotherapy,” states: “Unconscious ideas . . . may operate as mechanisms of a culture dominant ideology to produce and maintain political, social and economic inequalities” (Walls, 2006, p. 119).

For colonization to be successful, it is crucial to win over the hearts and minds of people, the population must believe the narrative that the colonizer uses to name the new reality. The thought is to “serve some individuals at the expense of others, typically while denying or obscuring the fact that it is doing so” (Walls, 2006, p. 119).

26 Colonization was justified on religious grounds as well. Britain, as the narrative went, had a moral obligation to dominate those considered inferior. Thus, a perfect Ireland would have been a Protestant Ireland.

Gabriele Schwab (2010) writes of the “dehumanizing effects of atrocities” (p. 2).

The Famine/Great Hunger is a transgenerational trauma for the Irish population. It can be said that Ireland is a country steeped in atrocities, poverty, prolonged exposure to civil conflicts, and a continual disenfranchisement of its people. Schwab places their analysis of atrocities within a societal context and trauma framework.

Collective trauma is passed down to individuals in multifarious and refracted ways.

Some lives are hit with catastrophic trauma over and over again; then trauma, with its concomitant strategies of survival, becomes a chronic condition. Defenses and denial become second nature; traumatic repetition becomes second nature. ( Schwab, 2010, p. 42) The aggrieved experience is compelling. Volcan & Fowler, in their article, “Narcissism and political leaders,” states that the dominant culture forms the identity of the people (2009). Regarding identity, the Gaelic-Irish population, rather than assimilating to the dominant English culture, continued to develop their own cultural identity and assimilate the wrongs done to them. The Gaelic-Irish were known to be recalcitrant under British rule and the authority of British and Scot Loyalists.

“You have not prospered, they say, because you would not settle down contentedly like the Scots and form part of the Empire” (Dhiarmada, 2016, p. 19).

The Gaelic-Irish, unlike other people under British colonial rule, was seen as difficult. It is noted, later in the discussion, that part of the Irish psyche is said to contain

27 patterns of victimhood. This victimhood is linked directly to their reality being divided into being persecuted and being the persecutor. In this frame, identity is, in part, formed in opposition to the other. One blogger suggested that in Northern Ireland, “identity is usually defined in opposition to the other” (O’Mahony, 2014).

What happens then when a country’s population is untrusting and suspicious? What may seem like assimilation by the Gaelic-Irish might be a mindset rejecting assimilation.

Ireland, at its core, became a land of conflict: conflict between the Irish and Anglo-Scot Irish and Irish against Great Britain itself. Replantation had a great impact on the identity of the Gaelic-Irish people and the Anglo/Scot Irish.

The Gaelic-Irish people trace their heritage well before colonization. For over 800 years, Ireland as a colony experienced Britain enacting laws and policies that unremittingly stamped out every spark of national feeling, making Ireland a land of wealth and factories, whilst they extinguished every thought and every idea that was Irish . . . all our characteristics gone . . . all that differentiates us from the English lost or dropped; all our Irish names of places and people turned into English names; the Irish language completely extinct (Dhiarmada, 2016, p. 19).

As noted, replantation was the central policy to shift authority and power to the Anglo-Scot ascendancy class loyal to Great Britain. With time, Anglo-Scots claimed Ireland as a home not as settlers but as Irish themselves.

Irish identity developed significantly around the divisions of two ethnic, cultural, and religious groups. The Gaelic-Irish identity increasingly became sentimental where community connection came by music, poetry, sports, and language (Hayden, 2001; Murdock, 2008). However, Irish nationalism has been embedded within those very

28 cultural aspects (Murdock, 2008).

The Anglo-Scot culture connection came from their British roots. Since the country was in a chronic oppositional frame of mind, the hold on British culture was stronger because of the dynamic developed through the centuries. An essential component to this study is that while these two cultures live on the same island, attempting to provide for themselves and their families, each has kept the other side from gaining power or amassing resources: both locked in a battle for legitimacy and supremacy. Unfortunately, Anglo-Scot Irish have held legal, business, and political authority, whereas Gaelic-Irish had little to none.

What then is Gaelic-Irish nationalism that has developed through the years? Object relations is utilized in this study to inform the dynamic this creates. For this study, the most impactful nationalist organization was Sinn Féin’s development (We Ourselves), an Irish nationalist paramilitary organization founded in 1905 in opposition to what was considered subjugation by British and Anglo-Scot power on the Island (Dhiarmada, 2016). British troops were recruited as a paramilitary force to help control the population.

These forces were split into two groups, the Black and Tans and B Specials, culminating in a power imbalance. As a result, Sinn Féin was deemed a militant terrorist group, while the British troops and Black and Tans had official authorization to quell disturbances.

Ireland’s ethnonationalism was divided into two sects: Gaelic-Irish and Anglo-Scot Irish, with a long, chronic history of civil disturbance, occupation, and sectarianism. The Irish people have a disconnect regarding their roots despite their past. There are Irish who trace their origins to a people before colonization, mainly Roman Catholic Gaelic-Irish and Anglo-Scot Irish with roots connected to the United Kingdom. There were many

29 distinguishing factors between the two, particularly language and faith (Dhiarmada, 2016). It is crucial for “a people” to clarify their boundaries to identify the most valued culture. This study considers religion as the primary boundary.

Colonization of the mind.

Colonization relates to a country and connects directly to the relational matrix.

Sandra Silverman’s work is considered to assist in placing the damage to the relational matrix in context. Though her work was written focusing on gender trauma, her discussion on the colonization of the mind is apt for this study.

By colonized, I am referring to the lodging of another’s mind; another’s evacuated fears and traumatic history in the developing mind of the child. I have chosen to use the word colonize because the colonized are not just invaded but occupied. The colonizer seeks to own and control the unconscious hope of preventing the colonized from developing an independent and separate identity. Mentalizing is about making space, creating a room or thought, and reflection about ‘thinking together in relationships.’ It is about the reflective space between one’s mind and another, between one’s intent and one’s impact, creating the space between being crucial.

Colonization is about destroying space, crowding another’s mind with the unprocessed contents of one’s mind, about restricting the freedom to think. To colonize is to invade, inhabit and alter. (Silverman, 2015, p. 53) One psychiatrist, Dr. Anthony Clare, referenced by O’Connor in his paper on malignant shame (1995), states the following:

30 While emphasizing the “extraordinary vigour and vitality of so much of Irish life,” also describes the Irish mind as being ‘enveloped, and to an extent suffocated, in an English mental embrace’. This development has occurred, he says, in a “culture [that is] heavily impregnated by an emphasis on physical control, original sin, cultural inferiority and psychological defensiveness.” (O’Connor, 1995) This study considers the question of whether this “embrace” is found in the next generations.

Schwab refers to trauma effects as “colonization of psychic space” (Schwab, 2010, p. 26). He, as well as Kapur & Campbell, consider the societal impact and need for healing. “Decolonization of the mind and of psychic space is a political necessity for both victims and perpetrators. It is psychic work we cannot afford to ignore in the struggle for social justice and a less violent world” (2014, p. 26).

Ireland is described as a country steeped in very conservative cultural and religious traditions. As much as they are relational matrix dynamics, this conservatism is influenced by colonialism, a control system. (Inglis, 2017; O’Connor, 1995).

Ireland’s state of mind.

Numerous studies have looked at the psychological and social impact of colonization on the indigenous population of countries and increasingly so on the Irish population (Inglis et al., 2017). For this study, the following states of the Irish mind are highlighted: the sense of inferiority, helplessness, ambivalence, restricted identity (Inglis et al., 2017).

Rice and Benson (2005) also noted the impact on the relational matrix when they state, “humiliation and shame leading to rage and desire for revenge which can, in turn, lead to

31 ‘humiliation of others’” (p. 222). O’Connor references “malignant shame” causing low self-esteem, pathological dependence, self-misperceptions of cultural inferiority, and suppression of feelings (O’Connor, 1995).

Kapur & Campbell note their assessment of present-day Irish having a “rigidity of thought,” meaning “rigid, such as no surrender with deep levels of suspicion” (2014, p.

268). They note that this rigidity results in an unquestioned set of beliefs that become “holy truths.” They also refer to the “strong man” state of mind that is “moralistic” and “despises vulnerability, idealizes aggressive object relations and intimidates others to prevent any thinking about difficulty” (p. 268).

States of mind in this study include the transmission of cultural beliefs that are considered absolute. There is no questioning as to the veracity of “the cause.” Even with participants who had no experience growing up in Ireland, there was an unquestioned “cause” even though little was discussed with them by their parents/grandparents. The emotional connection occurred before a belief system was developed (Wallin, 2007; Twemlow, 2003). For Kapur & Campbell (2014), Ireland has, until recently, remained in a distressed phase.

Object Relations Object Relations was chosen as an appropriate field of exploration because this theory delves into the interpersonal dynamics needed for relationships. Freud believed that human struggles were driven by internally driven fears of “retribution, bestial wishes, and guilt” (Mitchell, & Black, 2016, Chapter 4).

32 In Kleinian Object Relations theory, the goal of relationships is central to life needs.

Fears were of the “deep terrors of annihilation (paranoid anxiety) and utter abandonment (depressive anxiety)” (Mitchell & Black, 2016, Chapter 4).

“In Kleinian theory, individual psychopathology is manifested through the fear of destructive impulses destroying either valued internal or external experience (Kapur & Campbell, 2014, Chapter 3). Klein, who based her theory on working with children, focused on the human person desiring and needing connection with “objects” such as caregivers. From birth, a child’s goal is to experience good emotions and keep bad ones out. As they begin to experience life, just because they want something does not mean it is available. Starting at a young age, not being fed or not being picked up when they wanted are considered as bad things happening. Klein acknowledges this reality and suggests that the human person solves the problem by keeping the good emotions and discarding the bad. Klein refers to this protective process as splitting; good and bad do not co-exist (Mitchell & Black, 2016, Chapter 4). Klein formulated two positions allowing relationships to be protected, the paranoid-schizoid and depressive.

The infant is dependent on the relationship, which often protects what is needed. The paranoid-schizoid position is a defense against the good being destroyed by the bad.

Because of an infant’s dependency needs to receive good emotions rather than bad, the caregiver’s relationship is of primary importance. A good relationship is loving, giving, and protecting, whereas the bad one creates uncomfortable emotions. What then is to be done with the bad? Klein theorizes that the “malevolence” experienced is separated from the self, “what is bad inside is put out or projected into the object and takes on the characteristics of a persecutor” (Kapur & Campbell, 2014, Chapter 4).

33 Resolution is sought, and human emotions become “split” (Kapur & Campbell, 2014, Chapter 4). The split that Klein noted leads to clear boundaries of devaluation or idealization. As the perceived danger is extreme, the paranoid-schizoid position becomes more rigid, where distrust becomes central, and the split is experienced as either all good or bad. For Kapur, this is the experience in Irish society. The split of good and bad is rigid and enduring. Our side is good; theirs is bad. (Chapter 4). This position can lead to the destruction of relationships because, in this position, a person is seen as a saint or sinner. There is no ambiguity; however, there are extremes of what Kapur & Campbell consider a “devaluation or idealization” (Chapter 2).

What is known as a depressive position in object relations is different as it allows for bad things to exist without the rigid boundary found in the paranoid-schizoid position. In this position, relationships can be repaired and connections rebuilt (Kapur & Campbell, 2014, Chapter 2).

The depressive position is Klein’s answer to what keeps a child experiencing the struggle of not getting what is needed while keeping the relationship intact. Klein suggests that the relationship’s attachment is valued so that the bad cannot be destroyed entirely. The child becomes aware that they have the power to destroy the relationship they have become dependent on. Though seemingly, there is more control by splitting, they cannot afford to destroy the object that is providing good. They begin to feel guilty about wanting to destroy and turn back to the relationship with an increased ability to experience the ‘object’ more inclusively, tolerating both good and bad co-existing. Of significant importance for the relationship is that the child experiences that the relationship has continued even though they have had destructive feelings.

34 These positions can fluctuate throughout a person’s life cycle. When the paranoidschizoid position becomes rigid, the depressive position is not experienced. As Kapur & Campbell state: “These bad experiences become focused on negative feelings projected out onto others, leading to dehumanization and the potential for the further justification of hate and violence” (2014, Chapter 4).

In summary, Klein describes the human capacity to build relationships and accept the ups and downs in those while also having the capacity to “corrupt and destroy” (Kapur & Campbell, 2014, Chapter 4).

When someone is deemed dangerous, there is a split and then the person is seen as bad. It can be as simple as a child asking a question perceived as a threat. Unfortunately, the child is left with no explanation for why the question’s response led to such a strong reaction.

A People’s Response.

This study considers Raman Kapur and Jim Campbell’s work (2019), psychiatrists in Northern Ireland who have written extensively about Irish citizens’ mental health post Peace Accord of 1999. Their work includes assessment and suggested treatment protocols for individuals as well as groups. Kapur & Campbell chose to utilize object relations because, in their clinical practice, they saw the distress of current residents in Northern Ireland related primarily in the area of interpersonal relationships Our thesis is that Northern Ireland society has been so damaged by its violent history that everyday relationships are inevitably contaminated by mistrust; new experiences are not welcomed as opportunities to achieve richer human relationships but are

35 perceived rather as the possible erosion and decline of the individual in society.

(2014, Chapter 3) In a country with centuries of turmoil, Kapur & Campbell (2014) name numerous repercussions of that history. They center their work on intrapersonal and interpersonal aspects. “Justification can be found for cruelty towards others. However, in Northern Ireland, we have grown up with cruelty being normal and compassion abnormal” (2018, Chapter 3).

Human beings are believed to engage in relatedness behaviors (Mitchell, 1988).

Object relations theory offers a lens through which to understand the findings individually as well as collectively. Kapur & Campbell (2019) propose that there has been significant damage to relationships in the Irish population related to its chronic, transgenerational injury.

Historically, Ireland has predefined boundaries passed through the generations where one’s identity is placed on one side or the other. The binary thinking has the Irish population divided into either saints or sinners, good or bad, persecuted or persecutor.

This split has far-reaching implications and allows a justification for all actions taken when on the right side. Within the Kleinian theory framework, relatedness creates two “positions” to help navigate attachments’ complexities. These boundaries have been reinforced transgenerationally by what Kapur & Campbell (2019) call “polarities” (Chapter 2), one having the capacity to deal with ambiguities and developing the capacity to understand others and build relationships; the other a “tendency to corrupt and destroy” (Chapter 2). What then are some of the stressors that influence the relational field pertinent to this study?

36

Relational and Attachment Perspectives In this study, the person is seen from the point of view of the relational matrix.

(Mitchell, 1988). Attachment from this point of view is considered a behavior of relatedness.

In interpersonal and attachment theory, primary bonds are necessary for the developing human person to have a felt certainty of safety. John Bowlby and Peter Fonagy (Palombo et al., 2009), both researchers with attachment perspectives, agree on important areas of concern in this regard and note that anxiety is directly linked to the loss of a primary object. We interpret what we experience and develop representations.

Early development matters, and the primary caregiver is critical regarding attunement with the child as “an autonomous need for relationships exists in all human beings” (p. 337).

We can draw from attachment research that primary caregivers who are traumatized or profoundly stressed may have little ability to be emotionally tuned to their children and potentially other intimate relationships. The literature suggests that it is difficult, under these circumstances, to provide for the needs of a child when the attention is more on the needs of the parent. (Adelman, 1995; Silber, 2012).

Ruth Leys (2000) writes about the importance of individuals understanding their own agency regarding life experiences and relationships to develop healthy ways of living. When a caregiver’s affective state is unformulated and cannot voice feelings or concerns with words, how can one help regulate a small child’s affective state? In this study, participants noted that ancestors were of little help when informing them about the

37 whys and hows of their experiences. This study suggests that for many ancestors, it was difficult to formulate much of their experience, so sharing with the next generation did not often occur. Instead, their sharing primarily focused on day-to-day providing for their family. There were a few participants who reported more intimate connections with their caregivers, but these were few.

Fonagy (2007) connects the caregiver’s ability to help regulate the child’s affective state and the child’s ability to develop the capacity to realize and tolerate differences experienced in others (Palombo et al., 2009). For this study, the ability to tolerate differences is a significant aspect. Fonagy’s term, ‘‘mentalization” (Twemlow, 2003, p.

4), based on secure attachment, refers to an individual’s capacity to understand that the “other” may experience different needs, feelings, and desires. Fonagy also spoke of the importance of primary caregivers and how societies (cultures) need to provide for interpersonal connection for a person to be psychically healthy (Twemlow, 2003, p. 4). In the Irish stories in this study, this was mainly done by families and society providing some security for children to grow up in. Belonging meant being initiated in the ways of the local community—behaviors, beliefs. The Irish ancestors grew up in homogeneous communities based on community identity where the needs of the individual were considered under that umbrella. Irish society certainly fostered a connection to the community but did so based on us/them, creating enemies because a person/group belonged to the other side. A child learned that they belonged to one group and the other groups were to be resisted. In the social contextual framework of Northern Irish immigrants, this is vastly important. The culture and relational customs of Irish nationality help create an atmosphere of connections as well as separations. Under

38 conditions of warfare and civic turmoil, for example, it may not be possible or permissible to consider the enemy’s needs, desires, or feelings. It may also be that people living with prolonged civil strife become accustomed to not attending to the everyday wounds and needs of the individual, even in their community. A caregiver with disturbance in their capacity to understand feelings and needs of self or others may have difficulty tolerating different feelings and needs in their child, let alone their enemy.

Winnicott (1973) looked at relationships with primary caregivers as imperative to a child’s full development. It was not perfection in the relationship that was important but a “good enough” relationship. For Winnicott, a parent needed to be able to tolerate their child’s strong negative affective states at times and not retaliate by withholding. When this toleration is not there, a child tends to disavow the negative feelings about the parent and possibly internalize them as feelings directed at self instead. Winnicott believes that a child then develops a false self and denies personal experience to comply with parental needs. The security to know that one can experience anger, even hatred, toward a loved one and know and experience the relationship remaining intact is necessary for healthy development.

In attachment literature, much has been written about relationships and the importance of primary bonds with caregivers. A story told by child psychologist and Holocaust survivor Alice Miller (1987) highlights the mechanism of attachment during times of traumatic stress. The parents of a two-year-old were terrified that their child might make a sound, thus jeopardizing the family’s safety in hiding while soldiers searched their home. Miller poignantly states the girl had “been good . . . suffering quietly and without crying” (p. 10), remaining silent. For Miller (1987), the child hones

39 into her parent’s needs ahead of her own. In referring to the work of Fairbairn, Mitchell notes, “The subordinate need of the child is not for pleasure or need gratification, but for an intense relationship with the other person” (1988, p. 27). Clinicians need to consider how what is left unspoken can become repressed material within the patient “on account of a direct empathy with the unconscious or the rejected psychic matter of the parental object” (Abraham et al., 1994, p. 48) Three customary categories of attachment are noted for this study. An attachment that is “secure” assists a child to be resilient even in a stressful situation (Palombo et al., 2009; Wallin, 2007). In Ainsworth’s study, mothers of secure children were noted as being supportive, encouraging, and relaxed (p. 313).

In contrast, children described as “avoidant” portray a lack of distress when separated from a parent and show little relief upon the parent’s return. There is more of a sense of detachment when separation occurs. Mothers of these children tended to be sad and had difficulty in bonding with their children.

The third are “ambivalent children who are focused and preoccupied, so they have little ability to explore. Even with a mother’s return, the child remains focused on the caregiver. These mothers tended to be unpredictable with little reliable consistency (Wallin, 2007).

Main added “disorganized” as the fourth category of attachment (2009, p. 307). This category describes children who experienced their mothers as secure at times but then unpredictably were perceived at other times as “dangerous” (physically or emotionally abusive). For Main, the mothers who related to these children were frightening in their relationship with their children and frightened themselves. These mothers had profound

40 distress in their lives and were often cruel and abusive while, at other times, loving (Wallin, 2007). “We might reasonably infer that the strength of the parent’s capacity to reflect coherently on her past will significantly affect her ability to impart security to her child” (p. 33). Main further suggests that a child will do what it takes to retain the “parent’s psychological status quo” when the parent is in loving mode (p. 38).

Fonagy (2007) notes that when parents are unable to respond to the child in ways that help contain the distress, the child “tends to behave in ways that reflect an internalization of the parent’s characteristic responses to those effects” (p. 50). A child raised by a parent who dismisses their disturbance by disavowal will probably grow to use disavowal as a norm for managing distress themselves. “Effectively, the children of insecure parents “borrow” their parents’ defenses and, thus, the legacy of parental insecurity is often parallel insecurity in the child” (p. 50). How then does the child understand her reaction to her distress? Wallin suggests having a parallel experience of managing distress is the key. The child may develop a response pattern to distress based on the “internalization of the parent’s characteristic responses” (p. 50) to preserve the relationship and avoid object loss. There is a loyalty to the caregiver to such a degree that part of the self is lost to remain in the relationship. Volkan refers to a “permeable border” existing between a mother and a child where there exist “messages, affective and psychological, which the children may experience as intrinsic to their own mental life” (Volkan & Greer, 2007).

Faimberg (2005) connects identity development with parental narcissism when there are unresolved conflicts in the relationship. She rightly notes that the difficulty for the child is that these conflicts are not theirs but rather their primary caregivers’. The ghosts

41 of the past can directly impact the child’s natural development of identification with internalized parents. Parents’ preoccupation with their own needs and wants “appropriate” (p. 11) the child’s identity as their own. The child in this situation is required to satisfy the parents and be what the parents want to be loved. The alternative that the child does not satisfy the parents’ longing brings about hatred in the relationship.

Faimberg notes that the intrusive nature of the parents’ “expelling into the child all that they reject, the internal parents define him by a negative identity” (p. 10). In the parents’ need to disavow parts of themselves, they disavow much of their child. Hatred can become an organizing factor in the parents’ relationship with their child. The difference becomes intolerable, and sameness is not only wanted but needed. It can well be that the child becomes familiar with being estranged themselves. Love for the parent is now experienced as “appropriating” (p. 11) from the child. The hatred that is so familiar is passed down, and the child becomes a container for it. (Volkan & Greer, 2007) note that although the child is an active participant, the parent deposits their view on the child, i.e., the child becomes a container. The child is unaware of the dynamic. Moss (2010) notes that the child “identifies with the damaged parts of the internal parent” (p. 19). Future attachments often focus on finding security in unsafe persons, thoughts, or situations (Symington, 2002).

Identity and the Relational Matrix Perceptions of self are shaped within the relational matrix. Multiple facets of influence help reflect the individual and others (Mishler, 1999; Charme, 1984; Boss, 2006). Identity is related to communal stories; Rothman (1997) defined this as being “by

42 the way our lives are narrated by ourselves and others.” Lijtmaer (2006), in her work with bi-racial identity, also acknowledges the importance of others in this process. “Identities can only function effectively where the response of the individual to themselves (as a social object) is consistent with the response of others” (p. 130). Thus, we come to know who we are in a relationship with others.

National identity and religion.

We begin the discussion on national identity because the literature suggests that the Irish people are first and foremost identified as a group. In Ireland, sectarianism is the one marker that reveals national identity. Consideration of Irish discord is simplified by noting that one belongs either to Roman Catholic or Protestant. “Religion became a marker of difference between the native Irish and the conquering English, now added to those of culture, language, and ethnicity” (Dhiarmada, 2016, p. 10). McGoldrick states that Gaelic Irish national unity “developed on loyalty to the Church and hatred of the English” (2020, p. 4).

As noted previously, religion in Ireland was used as a tool by the British to cause division and undermine the culture. The propaganda was significant and connected to generations of distrust and fear that the “papists” would take power away from civil authority. What then are some of the stressors that are found surrounding religious identity?

For Roman Catholics, the strong reliance on their religion created a dependence on another external authority besides British rule to help make secure their identity. The people were predisposed to rely on, if not on the British, then the Roman Catholic

43 Church. Relying on external guidance instead of internal (Miller, 2010. McGoldrick, 2005).

McGoldrick (2020) suggests, as do O’Connor (1995), O’Laughlin (2013), and Keating (2019) that the “Irish struggled with their sense of sin and guilt. (McGoldrick, 2020, p. 4). The Gaelic Irish character is the belief that people are bad and will suffer deservedly for their sins. The myth of badness, related to the concept of original sin, is the unquestioned conviction that no matter how hard we try to be good, we will fail (p.

4).

The Irish Catholic was to bear suffering silently. However, the confessional was available where penitents confessed their bad thoughts and deeds, made amends and received absolution with no need to speak outside the confessional box. It is here that we see secrecy reinforced. Also noted previously, Irish Catholics were easily blamed for their own ‘lot’ of poverty, unlike the Anglo-Scot Irish seen as productive. Furthermore, unlike the Exodus story held up in the Judeo-Christian tradition as a story of liberation, the Irish Catholics did not have stories of becoming free by leaving and returning.

(Miller, K. A., 2010). Instead, the Irish story ended with emigration considered an exile, with no narrative to allow for the “return” to the homeland to live in freedom.

There was communalism to Irish society that superseded individual thought and action. It can be said that the Roman Catholic Church influenced the world view that authority stems from the outside and not internally. Colonialism, in many ways, defined what ‘patience and stasis’ meant for the Irish Catholic. The quality of the people became the one to blame for their lot in this world. One study done in recent years considered

44 Roman Catholicism and found poverty existed for both Catholics and Protestants in Ireland.

The difference lies in influence.

The major difference concerns the level of social structure. Protestants in Northern Ireland have never experienced social disadvantage as a group regarding access to social structure resources. In material terms, the Protestant working class were mostly in the same position as their Catholic neighbors. However, in terms of cultural and political resources, they had a sense of belonging to the State that poor Catholics lacked (Higgins & Brewer, 2003, p. 109).

There is also collusion creating a link between societal power structures, in this case, colonialism, and the religions in the society. Religion reinforces cultural biases for harnessing power as well as to justify actions to keep that power. Suggesting that Roman Catholicism does not abide by the scriptures and is instead run by the Pope infers that it is not so much a religion as an authority attempting to usurp the existing government structure and is a danger.

Anti-Catholicism in some settings is therefore mobilized as a resource for critical socio-economic and political reasons, using processes that are recognizably sociological other than theological. . . . The colonial relationship between the United Kingdom and Ireland ensured that the social structure of Irish Society was dominated by the endogenous relationship between Catholics (natives) and Protestants (settlers), which persisted in Northern Ireland after partition . . . Anti-Catholicism survives in Northern Ireland where it has declined elsewhere . . . because it helps to define group boundaries

45 and plays a major sociological role in producing and rationalizing political and economic inequality” (Higgins & Brewer, 2003, p. 110).

Religion stands in place for ethnic identity and thus represents the differentiation patterns in an ethnically structured society. . . . Anti-Catholicism helps to define the boundaries of the groups involved in competition over power, wealth, and status; it is mobilized to regulate and control that competition and is used in social closure to defend the monopoly of the Protestant ethnic group (Higgins & Brewer, 2003, p. 111).

Phiala, our oldest participant, stated her grandfather worked on the Titanic as a carpenter. She noted that while working, carpenters were heard hitting nails with their hammers, saying, “Goddamn the Pope.” Thus, the Pope became a symbol of the battle between good and evil, Protestant and Catholic. This study noted instances where religious conversions were kept secret in the family. It was pointed out that this was primarily done to keep pure the group identity. The Pope, for some, became a symbol of the “antichrist” (Higgins & Brewer, 2003, p. 116). Therefore, Protestant ascendancy was seen as the chosen people, whereas the Roman Catholics were considered bad and dangerous.

Myths are a method of ordering experience, defining social and moral boundaries, or concealing unpalatable truth; they are, indeed, a form of communication and tell of the past, present, and future. They are often explicitly related to the sacred, they can be ritually expressed, and they are closely related to the development and maintenance of culture. (Higgins & Brewer 2003, p. 118).

Given the importance of religion in Irish society, it is surprising that these participants did not state more. This may be due to the ‘taken for granted aspects of their

46 faith. Though all noted belonging to a religion, there were few references to the local parish they belonged to, their education, and other institutions such as health care.

Although most participants referenced little, they grew up in reasonably homogenous neighborhoods in major cities where other Irish immigrants were at their church, shopping locations, and schools which may have accounted for little being said. Maire, one participant who lived in a diverse ethnic area of her city, mentioned she had few Irish immigrants where she lived. One participant grew up with many other first-generation Irish but did not realize until later that she was the only one that went to a Protestant church. It was just not an issue for her.

For Roman Catholic immigrants, the church is noted as a place to join other Irish to gather support and share a common bond (Murdock, 2008, p. 234). Though few in this study noted they relied on the church, most grew up in Irish areas and were able to draw upon the broader services of the church. “The Church became the center of Irish Catholic life with its network of schools, hospitals, and social service agencies” (p. 234).

For Roman Catholics living in a colonized country, religion may also have taken on aspects of rigidity to protect the people from their ongoing suffering as oppressed people.

The Catholic Church offered the afterlife as a place of refuge to the pains of this world.

One could endure suffering silently because there were promises of God’s benevolence to do so.

Gaelic-Irish communal identity and injury.

The story of the Great Hunger was a significant representation of the injury.

47 Ramzy (2007) notes how group injury or trauma is transmitted in conscious and unconscious ways. On the one hand, consciously, subjugation stories are handed down in families and communities to impart certain truths to the next generation. In a sense, it is who we are—cultural identity. Likewise, music and literature were used to reinforce the connection of the Irish community to one another. On the other hand, there were also the stories of actions taken to protect the community from outside forces; Ramzy notes these intergenerational conscious parts of history are passed to the next generations. This is who we are. This is what we do. These are our friends; these are our enemies. They also note unconscious elements referred to as “transgenerational” (Ramzy, 2010, p. 10). They state that the unconscious elements are passed down “through psychological mechanisms such as identifying the parent’s psyche” (p. 10). Walls states: “Unconscious ideas . . . may operate as mechanisms of a culture dominant ideology to produce and maintain political, social and economic inequalities” (Walls, 2006, p. 119).

Ireland has been steeped in rigid unquestioned beliefs. Some are conscious, but there are unconscious elements passed down transgenerationally. This study considers both the stories and the indications of “identification with the parent’s psyche” (Ramzy, 2010).

Generations of carrying ‘we’ve been done too” have permeated the relational field. As a people scorned, identification leads quickly to being oppressed, and we fight against it.

Rousseau and Drapeau (1998), in their work with other European cultures withstanding political turmoil, found that identification of the issue and the “meanings assigned to it” are significant (p. 469). When people are unable to identify the source of strife, they are left to conjecture. Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy, states that “(The individual) contains

48 condensations of the unsettled relational accounts of his family of origin, in addition to a re-enactment of his early psychic processes” (Schutzenberger, 1998, p. 23).

The coalescing of experiences can have a profound influence on the relational matrix.

Condensations may lead to overdetermination, for example, where a child becomes the container of unresolved. Bettelheim (1985) states, “What cannot be talked about can also not be put to rest, and if it is not, the wounds continue to fester from generation to generation” (Jakob, 2020). The experience of trauma influences, Stolorow notes, “(A person’s) unity of temporality–the sense of stretching along between past and future–that is devastatingly disturbed by the experience of emotional trauma” (2013, Vignette 4).

Effects of trauma can be present in the relational matrix without knowing what triggers reach into the present. Intergenerationally, in this study, both trauma and loss are “invisible object[s]” (Fairmberg, 2005, p. 2) but still an object. Locating this study in the area of loss, the “relational home,” reflects the reality of what is experienced as “exile” in this study.

Northern Ireland Social, Contextual, and Identity Perspective Perceptions of self are shaped within the relational matrix. Multiple facets of influence help reflect the individual to self and others (Mishler, 1999; Charme, 1984; Boss, 2015). Identity is defined “by the way our lives are narrated by ourselves and others” (Rothman, 1997, p. 34). As mentioned earlier, Litjtmaer (2006) also notes the importance of the community in forming identity.

Identity formation is most pronounced during the adolescent years (Kohut, 1987; Kroger, 1993). Past identifications are part of a person’s history, and as Faimberg (2005)

49 states, “This is a ‘history condensed’ which, at least partially, does not belong to the patient’s generation. In this sense, I speak of ‘alienated identifications’” (p. 9).

Considering the centuries of development, the past is very powerful and may in some ways be “alienated.” This may influence what an immigrant, even as an adult, identifies with within a new country.

Kroger looks at the work of Marcia (1993) with the focus on ego identity and the person’s ability to choose roles and values in their life. Marcia looks at ego identity in relation to the person choosing roles and values defined by others or those they considered themselves (Kroger, 1993). Marcia found that adolescents who have come to conclusions on their terms come from families who emphasize the individual, not in isolation but in connection with others. In Ireland, however, it is suggested in the literature noted above that identities were formed mainly in connection with others which is not nurturing independence of thought. Those who base their decisions on family/religious/cultural/tradition roles and expectations show less independence. The Irish and Anglo-Irish in this study are often described as more detached from their children.

Family Identity.

Lyman Wynne (2006) defines family identity as “the family’s subjective sense of its own continuity over time, its present situation, and its character” (p. 119). The reason for leaving a homeland is important when there is conflict, financial deprivation, and prejudice. Rothman notes, “identity-driven conflicts are rooted in the articulation of, and the threats or frustrations to, people’s collective need for dignity, recognition, safety,

50 control, purpose, and efficacy” (Rothman, 1997, p. 7). The goal of colonialism was nothing short of subjugating peoples of other lands. Subjugation creates a tear in the identity of the indigenous people; in this case, the Irish having a significant influence on the family and community. Once the identity was positive, Unresolved conflicts, by their nature, remain deep in the intergenerational scaffold of individuals, families, and cultural groupings (Volkan & Greer, 2007).

Loyalty, Difference, and Distrust.

Loyalty.

Loyalty is an Irish cultural touchstone. Loyalty to the social group becomes a significant factor in a time of ethnocultural turmoil. The more threatened the individual identity becomes, the more pronounced is the social identity and the more intense is the expectation of loyalty. Niens et al. (2003), in their work on Northern Ireland, concluded that “social categorization plays a key part in the maintenance of the conflict” (p. 124).

Built on social identity theory, Tajfl (1978) concluded that loyalty to the cause was often identified by school attended, church attended, and place of origin. This is particularly true in Northern Ireland. Auerhahn & Laub (1998) in their work on survivors of massive trauma, notes the area of memory begins to be organized around loyalty to a cause, to the group. There becomes what he refers to as a general “sense of obligation” (p. 31) to be loyal. This loyalty to the social group identity has the potential to be influential in the relational matrix. Disproportionate attention to incidentals may be part of this presentation. For example, a parent may experience a child disagreeing with them as an instance of disloyalty rather than as simply a different point of view. As expressed by

51 disagreement, individual needs are often smothered or left unattended with demands of loyalty to the group. (Miller, 1987).

Auerhahn & Laub (1998) in their work on survivors of massive trauma, noted that memory begins to organize around loyalty to a cause. There becomes what they refer to as a general “sense of obligation” (p. 31) to be loyal. This loyalty to the social group identity has the potential to be influential in the relational matrix. Disproportionate attention to incidentals may be part of this presentation. For example, a parent may experience a child disagreeing with them as an instance of disloyalty rather than merely a different perspective (Miller, 1987).

Even though divisions and loyalty seek to protect, Niens et al. (2003), in their work on Northern Ireland, concluded that “social categorization plays a key part in the maintenance of the conflict” (p. 124). There is a reinforcement of separateness. These past identifications are part of a person’s history. As Faimberg (2005) states, this is a “history condensed which, at least partially, does not belong to the patient’s generation.

In this sense, I speak of ‘alienated identifications’” (p. 9).

“Them and us”: Difference and identity.

In a Northern Irish study, Connolly and Healy (2004) found that children from three or four were already clued to identifying sectarianism differences (p. 293). Those young children were able to identify their group’s flags and symbols. By seven and eight, they found children chose chums according to those in their group. The peer group reinforced socialization separateness. They identified “them and us” (p. 293) by this age. There is a rigidity handed down with few changes in our group’s beliefs and theirs from one

52 generation to the next for transgenerational transmission. That Ireland’s identity is based on separateness, loyalty, and trust are Irish cultural touchstones. Loyalty to the social group becomes a significant factor in a land with ongoing social, religious, and political turmoil. The more threatened the corporate and individual identity becomes, the more pronounced is the social identity and the more intense is the expectation and need for loyalty.

Trust and “otherness.”

Within a society that is engaged in ethnopolitical turmoil, there is often ambiguity and “confusion about [who belongs in or is excluded from] a particular couple or family” (Boss, 2006, p. xvii). In Irish society, on the surface, these boundaries are clearly defined.

Gaelic-Irish are Roman Catholics and connected. Anglo-Scot Protestants are together as well. However, the difficulty occurs when there is a need to intermix with “the other” and even join the other.

The country where a constant vying for power, control, and legitimacy took a severe toll. During the years of this study, Anglo-Scot Irish are stakeholders and value their Irish heritage. Gaelic-Irish, however, does not recognize their legitimacy. For centuries Ireland has been an environment of distrust. As referred to earlier, suspicion has been seen as part of the Irish character until today. There is an injury to the element of trust. Though it can be said that there is the distrust that the other side will act against you, can you trust those even in your own community? There are numerous reports of “informers,” and in this study, one parent was assigned as an IRA officer to inflict punishment on anyone caught, up to and including death. In their current work, Kapur & Campbell (2019) also

53 note the lack of trust and overall sense of suspicion. Who can be trusted? Who is welcomed into our clan? What do we need to watch out for? Is there a collaborator betraying family, friends, and community? Deep distrust is part of the relational dynamic in Ireland. Distrust can dig deep and bleed into trusted relationships as well. Suspicion and distrust lead to rigidity of thinking that has little toleration for the difference. The energy is spent on creating an “us against them” mentality. We are good, right, and they are bad, wrong. Though the boundaries often worked, there was the chance that the ‘other’ would permeate what was meant to be sealed. Lack of loyalty to the cause could mean something as simple as affiliating with somewhere from the other side. Working on behalf of peace was distrusted, as was not taking sides in the fight. Ivan BoszormenyiNagy notes that families with trauma histories rely on social and individual loyalty to function well (Schutzengerger, 1998). Undoubtedly the case in the Irish experience.

Individual identity/communal identity influenced by an atmosphere of distrust.

James Marcia (1993) looks at ego identity in relation to choosing roles and values defined by others or choosing for themselves. For Marcia and Erikson (Kroger, J., 1993), identity considers the individual and society as important. Kohut (1987) and Kroger (1993) note that identity formation is most pronounced during the adolescent years. In his work on ego identity, Erik Erikson emphasized that the adolescent life stage focuses on congruence between “past identification with the vicissitudes of the libido, the aptitudes of endowment, and the social role opportunities” (Palombo et al., 2009, p. 215). In Ireland, there is a significant focus on communal needs and not on individual needs.

54 Loyalty to a cause combined with a deep distrust in the relational matrix become part of Ireland’s identity.

Within a society that is engaged in ethnopolitical turmoil, there is often ambiguity and “confusion about [who belongs in or is excluded from] a particular couple or family” (Boss, 2006, p. xvii). Though there were clear boundaries as to what side a family belonged, there was also a long history of informants in Ireland. Generations of Irish lived in an environment where there was a perceived belief that the conflict would continue because, at its heart, it was a conflict of citizen against a citizen and often a family member against a family member. Though there were perceived and real influences coming from outside Northern Ireland with stakes in the conflict, it cannot be ignored: The Irish were also embattled in a fight with themselves. Not only was it divided against Gaelic-Irish and Anglo-Scot Irish, but in 1922, there was a civil war where Gaelic-Irish were on opposite sides of the decision to sign the treaty. This created a civil war where brothers fought against brothers. There was a breakdown in the boundary of certainty of who was safe and who was not. Those who fought side by side in the Easter Rising and the 1919-21 War of Independence often became enemies.

In this type of environment, distrust is built into the relational matrix. Who can be trusted? Who is welcomed into our clan? Is it possible someone could betray us? Deep distrust creates a very real “us against them” mentality. We are good, right, and they are bad, wrong. This impacts the relational field–against the enemy and eventually influences all parts of the relationship. Though there was a strong sense of community for the individual and family by identifying with a particular church, street, and, at times, town, there was always the acknowledgment of the enemy and the possibility of betrayal. Lack

55 of loyalty to the cause could mean something as simple as affiliating with someone from the “other side.” Working on behalf of peace was distrusted, as was not taking sides in the fight. As noted in an interview in this study, betrayal at times in history meant certain death. Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy (1998) notes that families of trauma rely on both social and individual loyalty to function well.

The question for this study is how a basic frame of trust and mistrust is found after immigration as well. Families impacted by generations of trauma often do not have the tools or skills to reflect on or communicate what is impacting them in the relationship.

Loss This study considers what was communicated to these participants, as well as what was missing. Dan Bar-On, an Israeli psychologist, author of Fear and hope: Three generations of the holocaust (1995), connects on a form of communication and ambiguous communication to a population who have lived in oppressive circumstances.

He considers this approach to communication appeasement when needing to respond to an oppressor while at the same time retaining internal beliefs that are not in agreement with an authority. Thus, the authority receives what they want to hear, and the person can affirm their own beliefs internally.

In Irish society, one form of communication found in the literature is called “doublespeak” (Scheper-Hughes, 2010, p. 153), with double meanings. Reismann (2008) also notes that in storytelling where there are “hidden imbalances and historical contingencies (p. 76), there is often found hidden meaning to what is communicated.

Nancy Scheper-Hughes (2010) notes that doublespeak “requires a sharpness of ear, a

56 feeling for halftones and shades of subtleties” (p. 153). The form of Irish communication utilized by these participants is important since communication passes from one generation to the next. The act of hiding oneself from another may play a part in the lived experience of these participants. It must be said that communication styles used to manage conflict with authorities may also influence intimate interpersonal fields. This form of communication does not enhance getting to know the other. O’Toole and McGoldrick note the result of oppression on communication.

It certainly relates to a history of oppression. Poor people who depend on the whims of their betters learn to tell the powerful what they want to hear such as “I say a little prayer for you every day, sir!” and tell themselves what they need to say, “The bastard doesn’t know that the prayer is that he may rot in hell!” (O’Toole, 2013).

For many centuries the Irish used their words to enrich a dismal reality. Indeed, they have more expressions for coloring reality with exaggeration and humor than any other ethnic group: blarney, malarkey, the gift of gab, blather, hooey, palaver, shenanigans, and “the craic,” to name just a few (McGoldrick, 2005, p. 598).

A common phrase used by the Irish is “Top of the day to you,” and silently, or in a whisper where the receiver is unable to hear, the sentence continues with “and the rest of the day to myself (sic).” This type of speech allows for an acceptable public face while retaining a disavowal or a separate wish. There is another example of doublespeak in the Appendix of this study.

Ambiguous loss.

57 According to Boss (2006), and for this study, ambiguous loss is particularly compelling because it is related to a loss with no clear end in sight. This type of loss existed in the past, exists now, and is believed to be part of the future. For this study, loss includes societal as well as personal loss. Boss notes that ambiguous loss, i.e., an unnamed and un-locatable loss, may result in “relational and emotional processes unable to function” (p. 9), impacting the relational field. The ethnopolitical turmoil in Northern Ireland is one example of a society where losses and trauma have existed for many generations and had no clear end in sight. Ambiguous loss may lead to a sense of hopelessness and helplessness. Palombo (2010) and Boss (2006) note that ambiguous loss may result in a person’s decreased ability to function at an expected level. It is found in situations that are “unmanageable and traumatizing” (Boss, 2006, p. 38).

Loss in this study considers ancestors’ experiences pre-emigration as well as postimmigration. The experiences in this study reveal that many of the ancestors could not build a better life in their homeland. As noted previously, leaving is described in poetry and song as a violent act of separation from family and culture as an exile with no hope of return. In her book Ambiguous Loss, the narratives in this study reflect what Pauline Boss notes as an “ambiguity of absence and presence” (Boss, 2015) in families. The consideration of absence is important when considering the human person experience “psychoanalysis is distinctively organized around the vicissitudes of absence in the forming of human subjectivity and the centrality of restitution” (Tolleson, 2009, p. 196).

Importantly, ambiguous loss does not lead to restitution; the loss continues and becomes mired in the everyday experiences of life. Though Boss notes that the Irish in many ways were “more direct with goodbyes” (Boss, 2006, p. 378) having rituals such as “Irish

58 wakes” after the Great Hunger, there was no indication by these participants that their ancestors experienced any communal goodbye. An old manuscript tells the story: It was just like a big funeral . . . . And the last parting . . . it was indeed sad to see . . . . The parents especially were so sad, as if the person leaving were dead . . . . You would rather not be there at all if you would be any way sort yourself” (Boss, 2006, p. 378).

Loss and dissociated anxiety.

Freud noted, on anxiety, that there is often profound suffering called melancholia, and connected it to loss (Khan, 1963; Brandell, 2012). In this study, ancestors communicated to their descendants’ profound loss not with identification but with actions. The use of alcohol, for example, was seen, by some, as a way to manage loss.

They kept secrets and leaving parts of one’s life unspoken was also seen as their ancestor’s inability to talk about difficult things. Loss, in this study, is losing something tangible, such as family members moving miles away, but also the kind based on an underlying sense of scarcity and the threat of a future loss.

There were instances in this study where parents displayed anger and anxiety when asked questions by our participants. These questions may have put the ancestor in a situation where they could not, will not, process the answer. Dissociation is often used as a protective device when not processing (Donnel, 2006). Walls (2006) notes that experiences of anxiety may become dissociated and not be locatable. Many traumatic experiences and loss occurred to small children in this study; age combined with the adverse conditions appeared as chronic stress. For example, signal anxiety can protect

59 one from imminent danger when confronted by a threatening situation. However, when the threatening situation is out of one’s awareness (i.e., dissociated), the person may feel tremendous anxiety without locating the source of the anxiety. In such situations, anxiety is often displaced and associated with something else the person has experienced, for example, perceived danger in a current relationship. In connection to the participants, the question for this study is also if anxiety is passed on to the next generation, disconnected from their own experience of danger. Is there an ambiguous danger that is not locatable?

Ethnopolitical realities were significant in the daily life of the ancestors of the people in the study. Walls (2006) notes that “politically dangerous thoughts and impulses are first suppressed, then internalized and dissociated.” The fact that the political unconscious is dissociated means it remains split off from personal/relational consciousness though not totally repressed (ibid, p. 122). It becomes part of the fabric of how things are. Walls also acknowledges that whatever is handed down from parent to child as dissociated material becomes part of the “socialization process” itself (Walls, 2006, p. 122). Ideas are not consciously acknowledged and possibly unspoken through the generations but greatly influence interpersonal relationships. As noted above, ideas, beliefs, and actions are profoundly influenced by the prejudicial stereotypes passed down from parent to child.

The study considers, for example, the negativity about the Irish character that came from the British colonizers.

A History Handed Down Many who have experienced socio-cultural trauma, oppression, and upheaval find that they need to live with “their deepest cultural history denied” (McGoldrick, 2005, p. 12).

60 For many Irish, this is the case. Though Irish sentimentalism may appear steeped in history, the deepest levels of that history are often not explored. “Irish sentimentality will turn these graves into martyrs’ shrines” (Nic, 2016, p. 1660). Some ancestors chose to disavow their cultural heritage and begin life anew in the new land connecting with little to no Irish culture after immigration. One first-generation Irish author, Tom Hayden, was quoted in McGoldrick, I had no historical rationale for why I was rebelling against my parents’ achievement of respectability and middle–class comfort. There was no one teaching the Irish dimension of my radical discontent, in contrast to Jews and blacks who were instilled with values of their ancestors. . . . The Irish tradition . . . seemed more past than present, more sentimental than serious, more Catholic than political . . . Was it only coincidental that I responded to a crisis reminiscent of my evicted, starving Irish ancestors . . . ? I was Irish on the inside, though I couldn’t name it at the time.

(McGoldrick, 2005, p. 12) Many immigrants continue the culture of the homeland through rituals and symbols.

One connection to culture and homeland also comes through music, art, traditions, and rituals. These elements are also ways of keeping the conflict alive in the Irish diaspora community. Recent research in Ireland showed that symbols such as the Irish flag, musical instruments, statues of martyrs, and religious and secular holidays reinforce sectarian separation from an early age (Higgins & Brewer, 2003). They also note that “ideas, individual actions, and social structures” (p. 305) are involved in the experience of sectarianism. Rice and Benson (2005) note ritual elements in the telling of a story as a primary way of “managing a profound psychic trauma” (p. 219). How, then, is this

61 continued into subsequent generations? For the Irish much of the storytelling for these participants was through music, with only a few exposed to Irish culture outside their home.

The overall culture handed down through the generations influences the “collective representations” (Rousseau & Drapeau, 1998, p. 465). Though the Irish have a tradition of storytelling, as noted by Bar-On (1995), the next generations, in many instances, only receive part of the story where much is left untold. Josselson & Lieblich (1993) suggest that with these omissions, identity is “taken away” from the individual (p. 24). A person cannot find a context to their affect or know something is going on but cannot name what it is. In Ireland, the focus was on survival, being right with the clan, and knowing the enemy. When discussing the findings and literature, more is said about secrecy and the unspoken.

Without the ability to organize and make meaning and tell the story of one’s experiences, much left is “unassimilated and then becomes unthinkable” (Schutzenberger, 1998, p. 160). Rousseau & Drapeau (1998), in their work with other European cultures withstanding political turmoil, find that identification of the issue and the “meanings assigned to it” are of major importance (p. 469). When people cannot identify the source of strife, there may be a significant impact on the relational matrix for several subsequent generations. For Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy (1998), the individual “contains condensations of the unsettled relational accounts of his family of origin, in addition to a re-enactment of his early psychic processes” (Boszormenyi-Nagy, 1998, p.

23). As noted in the section discussing Gaelic-Irish communal identity and injury can significantly impact the relational matrix. The injury remains unknown but has power

62 through the generations. From an interpersonal perspective, we assume that enactments are present in relationships. The question is more about how these enactments are detrimental to the relationship. Inter-generationally, we may find in this study that both trauma and loss may be an “invisible object in psychoanalysis” (Faimberg, H., 2005, p.

1).

A few characteristics noted in the literature of the Irish psyche are pointed out in the literary culture. One is a sense of being victimized by an outside authority. Another element that connects with believing one is ‘done to’ is the righteousness of getting back in any way possible. The influence on the relational matrix is also noted where the relationship with primary caregivers is sometimes connected to ancestor actions against an adversary. The area of meaning-making with suffering, especially for Roman Catholics, is connected to self-blame and given as a punishment for failings. Senator George Mitchell considers the intergenerational aspects of memories being “generated out of antagonisms, violence, and suffering” (Dawson, 2010, p. 4).

Culture of victimization.

The culture of victimization, reinforced for generations, compromises individuals’ ability to have empathy for the suffering of others. Ruth Leys (2000) notes that current trauma literature describes individuals seeing themselves as passive recipients of experience and, therefore, limited in their ability to act on their behalf. In Ireland, colonization for so many centuries had both passivity and passive-aggressive components. She refers to this as a “culture of victimization” (p. 312). She stresses the importance of individuals acknowledging their agency regarding their life experiences and choices. For a people subjugated by others, there is little opportunity for direct

63 expression of agency. In their study on Northern Ireland, Smyth & Hamilton found “widespread and comprehensive identification with the victim position” (2003, p. 34).

Horney (1965) notes that victimization can be protective when there is perceived danger from outside and inside. In some ways, the Roman Catholic Church reinforced this by focusing on the afterlife, working toward a new tomorrow in heaven. This, in some ways, assisted people to remain in a victim position and not work toward providing for their own needs and wants. As noted earlier, Irish history is fraught with examples of obstinacy against authority, rebelliousness as well as passivity. Doublespeak is an example that is both passive and rebellious. Recent research done on the Northern Ireland conflict (Smyth & Hamilton, 2003) notes that victim identity “precludes the acknowledgment of the suffering of the enemy” (p. 34). The work also posits that this inability to empathize with the suffering of the other is both the “cause and effect of the Troubles” (p. 34). This victimization is linked with political as well as personal identity.

Once again, in the relational context, “The child echoes what exists in the parents’ inner worlds; the child’s psychic reality thereby reveals the indelible marks left by trauma” (Auerhahn & Laub, 1998, p. 22).

Current research about the Northern Ireland conflict shows elements of victimization have become part of society’s fabric. For example, Hargie notes, the phenomenon of “whataboutery” (2004, p. 292)—i.e., the dismissal of criticism by pointing out an opponent’s faults—was pervasive. Likewise, suffering was perceived as wrongdoing at the hands of another (Pearlman, 2001). How do habits of victimization impact subsequent generations far removed from direct political turmoil in their lives?

64 Vengeance and Hostility.

Those raised within a culture preoccupied with societal conflict resist letting go and have a tendency to hold on to the past (Searles, 1965). For our study, it is of note that hostility is often reframed as “righteous wrath” ( Searles, 1965, p. 179) from past wrongs done to restore a sense of pride, a hoped-for victory, as well as to keep “under repression, feelings of hopelessness about one’s life” ( Searles, 1965, p. 179). To protect oneself from this may involve holding on to vengeance. Searles suggests that vengefulness is a “defensive function” (p. 177) that is connected to grief as well as anxiety.

Similar to attachment research, studies finding vengeance show that a child raised in an atmosphere of violence may have difficulty bringing to mind the needs and desires of another. This inability to mentalize impairs a person’s ability to imagine other modes of thinking, feeling, or managing feelings such as fear or psychic pain. Getting back at another may be the option that is available, justified, and necessary (Twemlow, 2003).

This study considers if or how this way of operating on the relational field continues even without the violent environment for the next generations.

Pleasure and identification.

A history of trauma and the element of pleasure is also considered in the literature and has significant relevance to a discussion of intergenerational transmission of trauma.

For example, Moss (2010) writes about his relationship with his father and the intimacy he experienced with him sharing wartime experiences. On one level, Moss knows that he should have been horrified by what his father shared with him, but he found himself experiencing pleasure in the sharing rather than revulsion. He states:

65 I’ve heard people speak this way about shooting up cocaine. They speak of an intensity of pleasure that they know the rest of the world will never provide. They speak, then, of the harm done to them by pleasure. This is what I am trying to do now: speak of the harm done to me by pleasure. (2010, p. 248) Moments with a beloved parent may contain pleasure where we would not expect to find it. Successes in battle are celebrated while dismissing the horror. The hurting of another for a “just cause” becomes part of the narrative, the relationship. The ego is satisfied and wants more. What happens when feelings of hatred become mixed with feelings of pleasure? Many immigrants bring such stories to the next generation. In this study, one family discussed their relationship with their father, who had direct involvement in violence against others. Their experience is an example of how the relationship is retained, focusing on the righteous commitment to the cause.

Suffering as binding.

Research highlights the importance of finding meaning in the experience of suffering (Boss, 2006; Stolorow, 2007). For example, Mishne (2006) quotes Herz and Rosen’s comparisons between the Irish and Jewish experience of suffering: In Irish families . . . , the assumption is that one suffers because one deserves punishment for one’s sins. For the Jewish family, the predominant view is that one suffers because of what the world does to one. Suffering is even a form of sharing with one’s fellow Jews. It binds Jews with their heritage, with the suffering of Jews throughout history.” (Herz & Rosen, 2006, p. 217)

66 For the Irish, suffering is often blamed on British occupation or Anglo-Irish or Irish terrorism. Especially for the Roman Catholic community, there was a significant focus on suffering resulting from what they deserve. Though others were blamed internally, there was an identification with the identity of the lazy Irish. Irishness was the cause of the pain, and the church offered hope for salvation in the afterlife. The suffering understood as punitive would be more apt to lead one to a heightened sense of self-incrimination (McGoldrick, 2005). An identity that is formed with a construct of punitive suffering may have meaning for this study. For Roman Catholics in Ireland, the sacrament of reconciliation was altered from the original public confession of acts damaging the community to a private, secret experience of forgiveness.

Spirituality and the formal Christian religion as part of the fabric of Ireland have significantly influenced how citizens relate to one another and their world. However, a punitive religious narrative combined with interpersonal conflicts may internalize pathological beliefs about self and others (McGoldrick, 2005).

Immigration Bar-On (1995) has done extensive work interviewing Israeli survivors of the Holocaust and their children; he notes in his study that immigrants’ first responsibility is to communicate their history to the next generations who have no experience and likely will never live in the old country. He then discusses three focus areas for this transmission of information (p. 342): 1. The story itself: The story of the ancestor’s life gives context to the next generation of their generation’s lived experiences. Bar-On notes that these stories are explicitly chosen to be passed on. These are stories that often take a prominent place in

67 family lore, passed on through the generations. They help to connect the past with the present. Thus, the next generations can find themselves connected to the family that has this history. He also states that “the story told reflects the choices they make, consciously or unconsciously” (p. 331).

2. Real-Time present experiences: Bar-On highlights the importance of what immigrants pass down to their families in real-time experiences. What is transmitted here are items of importance relating to the life of the present. He states that the next generation “imitates and learns from” the ancestor. These are often values shared and meanings placed on current family life. For example, in this study, one participant states that she “knows that my parents love me, I just know.” Another participant noted that he knows he is loved when his father gives him “tips for life,” such as “keep your head down.”

3. Content left unspoken: The third element noted is what is passed down more as feelings not verbalized. For this study, this third element is what these participants focused on the most. Bar-On suggests that what remains unspoken for the immigrants in his study was to protect the next generations from the horrors of their experience during the war.

Bar-on also notes that the story not told leaves a gap between what was transmitted verbally and what was transmitted nonverbally that strongly influenced the next generation. Why? Perhaps because it bypassed the possibility of choice, a necessary step in the reconstruction process that determines which part of my predecessor’s story I ‘take with me.’ Working through, on the other hand, requires the ability to uncover the

68 prior loss of choice, to conceptualize in a new way the link between the now and then. (Bar-On, 1983, p. 336).

.

69

Chapter III

Methodology

Introduction This study utilized the qualitative method to explore the experience of the effects on subsequent generations of societal/political conflict in Northern Ireland. Participants share a common Irish heritage where ancestors have directly been impacted by Irish ethnopolitical conflict. As Denzin and Lincoln, in their 2005 work on Qualitative Research, this study notes the importance of participants reflecting on their places in the world. It was a hope in the study that participants would be able to go beyond the surface level of facts and move further into the level of meaning. Polkinghorne highlights the fact that “people have access to much of their own experiences, but their experiences are not directly available to public view” (2005, p. 138); therefore, this study looked closely at the participant’s interpretation of direct experience. The study used a narrative method to enter into experiences through a storied form (Riessman, 2008). The social constructionist framework allows for multiple stories to exist. The strength of narrative analysis is to look at the particular individual stories without compiling overarching themes. Thus, the stories retained the voice of the participants rather than having one overarching narrative created by categories and themes. As Lieblich et al. (1998) note,

70 stories are the means we have to provide meanings regarding our lives, and those meanings are sought in this study.

Narrative theory is the primary mode of inquiry. This allowed individuals to share their personal experiences of growing up as they reflected on the influence of their ancestors growing up in Ireland at a time of great societal turmoil. The interviewees’ experience is what was sought.

Type of Study and Design As noted in the narrative method, it is necessary to go beyond facts and build on the participants’ unique experiences. Thus, the narrative study provided not only the “what” of the story but also the “how” and “why” incidents are told. Riessman’s work was used to assist in defining the scope of narrative analysis. “Narrative analysis refers to a family of methods of interpreting texts that have in common a storied form” (2008, p. 11).

When discussing sample size, Morse (2001) notes that one of the elements to consider is whether participants will also be including what he refers to as “shadowed data” (p. 291). For Morse, this type of data reflects not only the participants’ experience but also that of other people who influenced them. This study, by necessity, invited “voices” of ancestors into the narrative in absentia. Drawing upon postmodernism and relational theory, the storyteller drew upon not so much “true” stories as much as stories in the context of remembering. There is a real experience of the other as they are remembered. The size of this study was kept small to allow for richness in the stories. As noted by Mishler, the interviews were considered with a process that allowed for “two active participants who jointly construct narrative and meaning” (Riessman, 2008, p. 23).

71 Scope of Study, Setting, Population, Sampling The participants were adults who self-identify as Irish descent with Irish ethnopolitical turmoil as part of their family history. The sample consisted of 15 participants, allowing in-depth meanings to surface regarding the experience (Morse, 2001).

The sampling method was non-probability/purposive sampling, where a selection is made based on believing participants will “yield the most comprehensive understanding of your subject of study” (Rubin & Babbie, 2008, p. 428). This theoretical sampling approach was a “homogeneous” (Creswell, 2007, p. 241) sample allowing for further emergence of insight (Strauss & Corbin, 2007). Strauss & Corbin stress that theoretical sampling aims to “build a theoretical explanation by specifying phenomena in terms of conditions that give rise to them, how they are expressed through action/interaction, the consequences that result from them, and variations of the qualifiers” (Cresswell, 2007, p.

128).

Data Collection Methods and Instruments Collection process.

Participants were found primarily through word of mouth in the Irish community. In a few cases, participants found family members agreeing to participate in the project. Participants were also acquired through flyers and published materials from organizations of Irish organizations in a major metropolitan city. These organizations were contacted for permission to place flyers in appropriate locations and to place a

72 public service announcement (PSA) in their newsletters. The flyers and PSA’s noted basic information regarding the study, the population sought, and contact information.

The flyer/ad gave contact information (telephone number and email), the study’s basic focus, and the commitment expectation of one interview.

Initial Contact: If contact was made by email, the interviewer requested a follow-up telephone call if the person remained interested in the study. The goal of the first telephone contact was to assess the appropriateness of the study and give prospective subjects enough information to decide whether they care to follow up. In addition, an initial form (included in appendix) was filled out to assess whether the caller had ancestors within the scope of this study, and demographic and family tree information was taken.

Initial telephone interview.

Over 20 initial telephone interviews were completed. Three callers did not satisfy the focus of the study. Two callers, though interested, expressed their reluctance to “getting into that stuff.”

The final count was 15 participants, four recruited by a participant from their own family. It must be noted that this was not the case, contrary to the researcher’s expectation that contacts in the Irish community would make getting participants a simple process. It took over a year with all the tools used above to gather the number of participants needed. When they confirmed their participation, the participants were asked where the best place would be to have the interview: 10 chose to interview from their

73 own home, two participants chose to be interviewed in their work office, two at the interviewer’s office, one Canadian participant chose to be interviewed over skype.

Interviews.

Interviews began with a review of the interview’s purpose. A statement that there would be no pressure for participants to share what they did not wish to was given. Next, permission to record the interview was asked, along with signed consent. The details of each section on the consent form were gone over to confirm the participants’ understanding of the details. It must be noted that a few interviewees were so excited about telling their stories that they began before the initial business was able to take place and, in a few cases, before the recorder was on.

Open-ended questions were used during all these interviews. In keeping with the initial telephone interview, participants were asked to start talking about their lived experience of growing up with a parent or other significant adult(s) having lived through ethnopolitical turmoil in Ireland. The initial questions were kept to a minimum as much as possible. As recommended in narrative research, prompt questions (included in the appendix) were prepared in advance and used on occasion as needed (Creswell, 2007). In Riessman’s words, “The specific wording of a question is less important than the interviewer’s emotional attentiveness, and engagement and the degree of reciprocity in the conversation” (2008, p. 24). This was the approach used. The interviewee told the story they wished to tell, not the story the interviewer expected or wanted to hear.

Subsequent questions were considered: how do adult children of Irish descent experience themselves knowing about the distress of their care of their givers? How do subsequent

74 generations experience themselves regarding difficult life events? Are there unique aspects to the Irish experience found in this study compared to other countries with political upheavals?

For example, the turmoil has been going on, the cross-community element where both peoples identify as Irish, the myths and other stories remembered from before precolonial days. What differences and what similarities are found in the literature specific to the Irish experience and other countries. What differences exist when the conflict has been cross-community and ethnopolitical? How do those raised with parents who were directly affected perceive their parents—as survivors or passive victims? How does that view influence one’s self-identity? (Barocas & Barocas, 1973)

Most interviews lasted two hours.

Data collection was primarily taken from the direct interviews combined with the survey information taken during the initial interview. In keeping with an overall sense with the Irish, one must be circumspect when sharing their history.

All interviews were audio-recorded with permission. Each participant signed a consent form that clearly outlined the study’s scope, how the information would be gathered and protected and gave the participants’ contact information for the interviewer if there was a need.

Plan for Data Analysis This qualitative narrative analysis utilized interviews as the entryway into the material. As Riessman (2008) considers, structural analysis will be the primary mode of

75 analysis while also utilizing thematic analysis when appropriate. As Riessman notes, narrative can be seen in six parts: abstract (summary and point of the story); orientation (to time, place, characters, situation); complicating action (the event sequence, or plot, usually with a crisis or turning point); evaluation (where the narrator steps back from the action to comment on the meaning and communicate emotions—the soul of the narrative); resolution (the outcome of the plot); and coda (ending the story and bringing the action back to the present (p. 84). The researcher utilized open-ended questions to “facilitate storytelling” (p. 21). The storytelling procedure is unique by its nature as each participant’s point informs the study of view. Previous generations’ influence on their lives is unique, yet familiar threads could help further inform this study.

The goal in the interview was to “generate detailed accounts rather than brief answers or general statements” (Riessman, 2008, p. 23). Open-ended questions allowed for a story to unfold as the storyteller chose to frame it. The researcher’s role was to be attentive and engaged in the process.

Using the six components noted above, each story was analyzed structurally to understand the words of the story and the “overall structure” (Riessman, 2008) and thereby receive a fuller grasp of the meaning of the participant’s experience. It is of interest that a participant tells their story a certain way–similar or different from others.

Interviews were audio-recorded with follow-up transcriptions. Six of the interviews were transcribed by the interviewer and five by a transcription company. This decision was based on reasonable use of time by the researcher. For this study, the transcription phase and the interpretation phase were, as much as was possible, not separated (2008). All

76 interview recordings were listened to shortly after the interview, whether transcribed or not.

Following the style of James Gee (Reissman, 2008), each narrative was analyzed by looking at specific sections sorted by the basic flow of the narrative. With this method, the analysis paid careful attention to the spoken word, intonations, and expressions.

Statement on Protecting the Rights of Human Subjects Participants were notified at the beginning of the initial interview that their participation was both voluntary and confidential. The area of confidentiality was even more important where seven participants had another member or members from their family being interviewed. It was made clear that none of the individual interviews would be discussed with anyone. It was also clarified that the participants were able to share what they wished about the interview. Participants were also reminded that they could withdraw from the study at any time.

At the beginning of the interview, time was spent going over the signed consent with resources information if there was an unforeseen emotional reaction to the interview.

Participants were given the names of three options to receive mental health services if needed. The researcher’s phone number was also made available to participants with the understanding that they were able to contact her at any time.

The interviewer clarified that participants did not have to answer any question or focus on any topic they did not wish to discuss. Each participant was screened through a telephone interview. Three callers were unable to participate in this interview; all three voiced reluctance to delve into painful memories. Before the consent form was signed,

77 the researcher went over it with each participant, pointing to each section and highlighting it. Each participant was given as much time as needed to read over the form and ask any questions regarding the consent area. Then, each participant received a copy of the consent form. The researcher’s document was locked with the person’s file for confidentiality; if there was no printer available, two copies of the consent form were made.

Each participant was given a codename on all transcriptions and the study itself. The participants’ identities are known solely to the researcher; this information is stored securely in a locked cabinet. Participants were notified that all tapes/digital recordings and written transcripts were kept in a locked, secure cabinet for at least five years.

Participants were notified that they could request a review of any information received by written transcript or by a verbal conversation with the researcher. One participant asked for a copy of their transcript, and that was sent by email as requested.

Limitations of the Research The strength of this study is in its exploratory focus. This strength allows for limitations to be pursued at a future time. The participants shared what they were able and willing to share according to how they perceived what it meant to be from their family. One limitation of this research plan was that the study is not generalizable to a broader and larger population. The study is based on the belief that truth is found not in the “facts” Riessman (1993) as they occurred but rather through the framework of interpretation. Reisman notes, “Trustworthiness, not truth is a key semantic difference” (p. 65). Therefore, the emphasis on the “interpretation” (p. 22) is sought in this study.

78 Criteria are those listed by Riessman: Persuasion and presentation (2008). This study will have transparency where descriptions are clearly outlined, showing how interpretations were made (Riessman, 1993).

This study allowed collaborative interviews where the narratives were coconstructed. A limitation of this study is the shared heritage of the researcher and participant. This shared heritage offered richness to the study; consideration must also allow for researcher bias and move from a neutral position. There were times when it was clear that the researcher was personally curious about a part of a story. Once the transcripts were reviewed where this occurred, it did not appear to influence the story’s telling. Optional prompt questions at the end of the interview were added to explore this issue of bias. Questions such as: How did you feel during this interview? I shared with you that my heritage is also from Northern Ireland. Have you noticed this influence our conversation today? Was there something I did not give you an opportunity to express that you would like to include?

It is possible that the shared heritage experience influenced the goal of coconstructing in this study. This is a consideration in this researcher’s hesitation to pursue a second interview with a few participants. It may also be that I did not note what was said as unique to this culture because of my shared heritage. However, on the other hand, it may have also influenced the ability to pursue topics where shared experiences may have been presumed.

Each participant was screened through a telephone interview. There were three callers unable to participate this interview, all three voiced reluctance to delve into painful memories.

79 Before the consent form was signed, the researcher went over it with each participant, pointing to each section and highlighting it. Each participant was given as much time as needed to read over the form and ask any questions regarding any area of the consent. Each participant received a copy of the consent form. The researcher’s document was locked with the person’s file for confidentiality; if there was no printer available, two copies of the consent form were made.

Each participant was given a codename on all transcriptions and the study itself. The identities of the participants is known solely to the researcher, this information is stored securely in a locked cabinet. Participants were notified that all tapes/digital recordings and written transcripts were kept in a locked, secure cabinet for at least five years.

Participants were notified they were able to request a review of any information received by written transcript or by verbal conversation with the researcher. One participant asked for a copy of their transcript, and that was sent by email as requested.

80

Chapter IV

Results Participant Demographics Participants are first and second generations of ancestors who spent their formative years in Ireland/Northern Ireland for this study. 14 participants were raised in the United States and 1 in Canada. Participants’ ages ranged from 24 to 95; therefore, it is important to note, some ancestors in this study lived in Ireland before the Irish Free State was created in 1921. After 1921, the island was divided into the Irish Free State and what is now referred to as Northern Ireland. This distinction is referred to for clarification purposes. This study uses the term Gaelic-Irish for Roman Catholics and Anglo-Scot Irish for Protestants, which more adequately describes the roots of culture.

Introduction This study offers four findings for consideration. The first is that all participants noted that they grew up knowing that the Ireland of their parents/grandparents was unsustainable, with four primary repercussions of that reality. The second is the experience of being raised in families where secrets existed. What was left unspoken was a primary factor for many of these participants that necessitated a separate finding. The third finding is the multiple experiences of loss by the ancestors in this study and the impact of losses in the experience of these descendants. The fourth finding highlights the

81 influence of their Irish heritage being connected to a chronic history of having sectarianism be a primary reality in Ireland.

Finding I Participants were impacted by the distress of their ancestor’s experience living in what are considered unsustainable conditions.

For many centuries, the people of Ireland have been emigrating from their homeland (Miller & Miller, 2001). Participants noted that their Gaelic-Irish immigrants’ inability to provide for themselves and their families was a significant factor in emigrating.

Participants focused on the hardships their ancestors faced and how they came to know about this history.

The four aspects of sustainability that participants noted are: economic deprivation, predefined roles based on culture and religion, having a cynical view of the Gaelic-Irish in their homeland as well as abroad, and prolonged ethnonational and sectarian conflict.

Economic deprivation.

Interviewees all agreed that their ancestor’s emigration was because Ireland was a distressed land that could not provide for them. Gaelic-Irish participants explicitly noted that their people came from a place where there was such a deprivation that there was ongoing, chronic poverty. Anglo-Scot ancestors experienced Ireland as a land devoid of opportunities, but they did not report the significant poverty and repercussions of deprivation.

82 Maire, a 70-year-old Gaelic-Irish participant, described their father’s childhood memory of deprivation: He recounted multiple occasions where he was a child, on the hills in the rain, eating wormy oatmeal. Growing up, he had this thing about bacon; Sunday breakfast, bacon, and eggs was a big thing. He would say bacon and eggs will carry your day.

So, he told the story of being alone.

Significant aspects of stress noted by participants.

Gaelic-Irish participants noted multiple layers of stress on the family system because of economic insecurity. They reported the early death of parents, which led to remarriages, blending of families, and farming out of children. In this study, three mothers and one father died. In the mothers’ deaths, remarriages led to families blending, which offered some stability but increased financial insecurity with more mouths to feed.

Though Anglo-Scot participants noted economic stressors, they gave no indicators of stress on the family. Mairie recalled, “His mother was a widow, and she married a widower. So, there ended up being 15 or maybe 20 immediate siblings from one father.”

Another participant reported, At the age of 12, my father began working to support his siblings. Both his parents were dead by the time he was 14, and the smaller children were “farmed out.” The older children stayed in the house and just worked and got money as best they could.

Yet another participant stated, “A couple of siblings were farmed out, so they didn’t starve.”

83 This study’s lack of opportunities for education, skill-building, and employment existed primarily for the Gaelic-Irish. It was found that the inequality in opportunities for earning a living between Gaelic and Anglo-Scot Irish. AngloGaelic Irish participants noted their ancestors had employment.

Anglo-Irish participants did not report any ancestors reporting extreme poverty.

Gaelic-Irish reported their ancestors lived in severe financial insecurity. Only three participants reported their Gaelic-Irish ancestors having economic opportunities.

Cultural and religious predefined roles and rules.

The Gaelic-Irish Catholic participants described cultural and religious predefined roles and rules negatively impacting their ancestors’ lives. The eldest male ancestors sought work outside the family. Girls either worked within the home doing domestic chores or outside the home as hired domestics. Children often went to work by the age of 10.

Predefined expectations were noted of family members depending on their birth order and gender. One participant, Barra, noted that growing up in the early 20th Century in Ireland, “If you were the first or second child, and from a big family, life may have meant little to you beyond drudgery and work and trying to cope.

A negative view of Gaelic Irish in Ireland and abroad.

When considering the economic hardships and the cultural realities, the Gaelic-Irish people were thought of and depicted as backward, lazy in the public sphere. For one participant’s father, his difficulty was that he was Catholic, Irish, and of a lower social class. Barrie’s recalled his father saying to him, “The Irish are like the whores of

84 Babylon.” Though it was primarily native the Gaelic-Irish who had difficulty in Ireland, the negative attitude about just being Irish was found at home and abroad.

Being Gaelic-Irish Catholic in this study significantly influenced the level of poverty and overall deprivation. Participants who had parents died early, siblings farmed out, had remarried, and/or had combined families were all Gaelic-Irish. Most of the Gaelic-Irish ancestors grew up in rural Ireland with little to no land or employment opportunities.

Wealth existed in Ireland but little for the native Gaelic Irish. Anglo-Scot Irish ancestors, though they were noted as having more stable employment and opportunities, still lived in the turmoil that influenced financial stability.

Barrie’s Gaelic Irish father met and married an English Catholic who lived in Belfast. Her family objected to the marriage because Barrie’s father was Gaelic Irish and a laborer. He was told, “If you must marry the working-class Gaelic Irish, there is nothing I can do about it.”

Sectarianism.

Both Gaelic-Irish and Anglo-Scot Irish participants were aware that sectarianism existed in Ireland and was a significant reason for emigrating. Three Gaelic Irish ancestors were said to have emigrated because they feared for their safety. They were found to have been involved directly in the civil turmoil as IRA members.

No Anglo-Scot participant reported having an ancestor involved in any paramilitary group. One participant, Seanand, noted a cousin of hers did serve in the British Army and worked in Northern Ireland during the 1970’s years of the Troubles, “My grandmother was supposed to come to New York to be with her older son. He sent for her but she said,

85 ‘D [her father], take the ticket and go.’” Another participant stated, “The British soldiers would come in the middle of the night and arrest him over because there was a price on his head.” One Gaelic-Irish ancestor reported leaving because of his involvement in civil actions while becoming a seminarian priest. His daughter stated he was caught between loyalties.

Every participant communicated that their ancestors’ lives in Ireland were significantly wrapped up with sectarianism and that the conflict’s reality, left few opportunities. All participants reported that their ancestors did not think that the violence in Ireland would be stopped.

Aspects of resiliency were found in ancestors and participants.

This study found aspects of resilience in the lives of interview participants and their ancestors. Personal resiliency and the reparative process may provide participants with the ability to cope in times of adversity; even more, it enables people to “rising above traumatic and ambiguous losses by not letting them immobilize and living well despite them” (Boss, 2006, p. 27). Much may be unresolved, but where there is resiliency, the ability to tolerate assists in a person to experience and act, as Winnicott states, “good enough” (Winnicott, 1960). There were numerous instances of resilience shown by the participants and the ancestors described in this study. Many were able to provide stable homes for their families, financially and emotionally. Even with the silence and the gaps, many of these participants described having satisfactory childhoods. Even more, telling is that all participants described their adult relationships as satisfactory. There were no reports of participants stating they were incapable of having fulfilling relationships or

86 succeeding in their lives. However, this does not negate the importance of what was missing from their personal experience with their ancestors. It only depicts most ancestors, and all participants were shown to live comparably well.

Mairie noted that even though her father remained in the same job since his early immigration days, he supported the family: “He did not go beyond his family except for his work. He worked steady, and we did not go without.”

Phiala, the eldest participant, noted: “They came to this country with nothing and somehow did more than just eke out a living. They provided for our family and did so with good humor.”

Two families where alcohol was involved also noted that their mothers took on jobs and “kept us out of the poorhouse.” One participant noted that her father Went to work every day and he wanted us in the middle class so bad. At one point he moved us into a bigger house in the suburbs. He was so proud. As the Irish say, we moved above our station, we never fit in, I certainly did not fit in.

Finding II Participants were raised in families where secrets were kept and much left unspoken.

Irish silence.

Most participants stated their ancestors shared little about their lives before emigrating or that it was difficult to get that information from them. Raicheal stated, “One of the reasons I was interested in this study, and why I have been interested in genealogy, was the fact that so little was said in about family’s background. There were

87 never any stories about their background.” Decla responded, “My family never talked about that time. Stories were never really handed down.” Referring to her mother’s silence, Oma stated, “That’s just something the Irish do.” Regarding her father, Mairie responded, He has angry moments . . . I also have that Irish silence. Irish silence means that he didn’t talk to many people. He talked to me, which wasn’t the best thing for me. If we went on walks together, there would be a psychological intimacy that I was too young for. He was very protective, and I would say mistrustful of others.

Religious conversions.

Religious conversions in family members were kept secret and, in some cases, why some were cut-off in relationships. Three participants stated their parents or grandparent changed from Protestant to Catholic and one from Catholic to Protestant. Two participants noted that they think conversion was a reason for cut-off relationships in the family. Raicheal stated, I found out my grandfather was baptized at a Presbyterian Church. I found that out, and we found his birth certificate in Belfast. Little was said in our family about the background of any of them. I talked to my brother, and he felt that maybe not much was said about my grandfather because he became a Catholic. He thought maybe he was disowned by the rest of the family members.

Padric responded, My grandmother had secret Catholic origins. I was present with my extended family when it came out that one of them had possession of her rosary beads. One uncle

88 insisted that it was just a necklace . . . Whether the Catholic side disowned the Protestant side or the other way around, I am not certain. It must have been a real rupture.

Delanie stated, My mother went to the Catholic Church, and I don’t know if they knew in Ireland that you’re supposed to tell the truth, but they just don’t talk about it very much.

They don’t let other people know.

Secrets and ethnopolitical conflict.

Secrets were kept regarding an ancestor who had direct involvement in the ethnopolitical conflict. Three Gaelic-Irish families reported having a parent with direct involvement with the IRA. Two grandmothers were described as assisting the “cause.”

One mother used her pub as a hiding place and warning spots for UIC or British soldiers, I didn’t know this, but he told me he was a captain in the secret branch of the IRA . . . . After her father’s death, a family member said to her, “Your father was an assassinator.” I said, “What?” And he said, “Ya, that’s what they were.” The secret branch took care of the traitors, ashamed to say they had to kill their own people.

Mairie stated, There was a picture that I saw growing up; my father said it was my uncle but it was him in a military uniform. He never talked about it and denied that it was him. Any time I pushed . . . . He had resentment toward the Black and Tans, and he would talk about being tarred and feathered and all that business. He had some pretty violent

89 images, and I didn’t know what they were. Some things would be too painful to speak about.

Ancestors kept their childhood recollections left unspoken.

Even if knowing about their ancestor’s hardship and exposure to trauma, participants had no reference point about the emotional impact they may have had. Details, if given, were often devoid of meaning and emotion. What was unspoken was the emotional connection to the event.

Decla recounted a story her father told her when they visited Ireland: Across the road in his hometown was a statue in honor of a man who was killed during the uprising. The man was gunned down at that spot. My dad was only ten years old at the time, and that’s his memory. He just happened to be there. He was right across the street. That was a memory of a 10-year-old.

Secrets about cut-off relationships.

A participant was going to Ireland to stay with her mother’s family for a few months.

Oma asked her mother about what her aunt’s name was, she stated: My mother said to me, “Why?” And I said, “I’m going there, wouldn’t it be nice if I knew the name of my aunts when I’m there?” I never knew how many aunts I had; she never talked about it. She was a little bitter with them; she wanted to go back to Ireland and take the kids because my dad was a drinker. It was hard during the Depression and not having any help from my dad. She never forgave her one sister

90 for not giving their mother the letter she wrote asking to come home. Her sister said, “You make your bed, you lie in it.”

Not all secrets had a negative impact on participants.

Secrets in their families did not necessarily have a negative impact on all parent/participant relationships in this study. One participant responded, Well, let me put it this way, my father never spoke about that sort of thing. If he ever did experience that kind of pressure, it was something he never spoke about. I’ve often wondered because I’ve read about the time. It’s something he doesn’t want to talk about. I’ve never really asked the question because I thought if there was something he wanted to talk about, he would, but from my perspective, I’ve always wondered what it was like there.

Finding III Participants reported that their ancestors had various losses before and after they emigrated but were unsure of the impact on them.

In many ways, this is a study of loss, a study of absence. This section of the study considers a loss from four different vantage points. The following section considers what Boss refers to as “ambiguous loss - an unclear loss that defies closure” (Boss, 2018, p. xv).

Loss related to death of parents and loved ones.

Six participants noted that their ancestors had one or both parents die as children or

91 teenagers. Decla stated, “My father was an orphan as a young boy. His dad died when he was 12. When he was 14, he found his mother at home in a coma, and she died.” Phiala recounted, “Both my grandmothers died during childbirth.” Seanand responded, “My grandmother would say, ‘I hate to hear the pipes.’ It was a long, long time until I understood why those pipes were playing. I found out it was when someone died.” One participant connects her close relationship with her grandmother with a death. Seanand responded, After my mother passed away, I brought home a suitcase with a lot of old family pictures in it. And I knew these things happened, but I didn’t understand them until I saw the photographs. Stark black and white photographs of cemeteries and women in black clothing. They had lost a sister, a beloved sister, the oldest one who kind of helped grandma raise them. And they had lost a beloved brother within six months.

And that family was just devastated, and you can see that in those pictures. In 1942 I was born and I became grandma’s. My mother liked to work. I think I just breathed new life into my grandmother. So that is how I fit into that. That’s what I understood, not until I brought those pictures home a few years ago. What the family was like. And here comes this baby who doesn’t know anything about this.

Ambiguous loss related to disappointment.

Three participants noted disappointment as an influence on their ancestors. Mairie stated, “My father asked for help and got none. He was refused help as a new immigrant at a Catholic Church. He didn’t go back until years after.”

92 Malachy told a story of watching his parents be dismissed by leaders of their Irish American Association meeting: It was early 1980 and 1981. They’re out there, you know, every day picketing for the hunger strikers, you know. It was a lot of hard work to get people to come to events and support, with the way the media was trying to say so many bad things. I think they feel a little pushed aside mostly. My father watched from a balcony. The people on stage were lawyers and people who donated a lot of money. People who were not involved for twenty or thirty years before that became politicians and kind of pushed the working people out. They’ll come for a fundraiser these days and charge five hundred dollars a plate, and the average working person who supported them all those years can’t afford to be there. My father is a man of few words. He’s not very happy with how everything turned out. You know. He’s probably just disappointed.

Aghna noted: My father was 25. Yeah. He would tell stories about when he’d be home on vacation from the seminary, running messages for the IRA . . . and even my cousin told me about the guns . . . but he was in the seminary doing these things on vacation. So that’s why I think they said he didn’t have a vacation.

Loss related to a dream.

Carriag responded: My father was very proud of being Irish. He’s proud of being from Ireland, and he’s proud of being from Armagh. I think there were times, especially when we were over there in the 80s, and went from checkpoint to checkpoint with machine guns

93 pointed at us, when he wasn’t proud. They would put the scary-looking Johnsons [machine guns] in the window of the car as you stopped. I remember once having the impression that he was embarrassed that I saw all of that. I could tell that he wished it wasn’t the way it was. However, for him, it was just the way it was.

Loss attributed to family stress with abuse of alcohol.

The abuse of alcohol by a parent was referred to by six participants. Three of these six referred to secrecy in connection to this reality. Berra stated, “Uncle James died of alcoholism. No one talked about him.”

The sense of absence was noted in many of the interviews. Oma stated, “I remember sitting by the window waiting for my father to come home after work . . . he was kind and a gentleman, but when he drank, it was painful to see.” Her blood sister, Delanie, states, “I would never let my children go through that.” Raicheal recounted a story about her father, He would stop at the corner pub. By the time he had finished the evening meal and had had the additional beers, he would become unpleasant to be around. We were always happy when dad went to bed early. But I dearly loved my dad. I knew that he was a good man. I knew that he had a quick wit, and when he was sober, he was delightful. When he was drinking . . . it was embarrassing. But it was at a time when people didn’t talk about drinking. Those were years when you just didn’t talk about that, and we kind of put up with it. I knew that both my mother and my grandmother were very unhappy with it, and I knew how it affected our family.

94 Mother’s emotional absence.

Glenna noted, “My mother never went to anything; she never came to my graduations. I think my father went when the kids were baptized, but she never went.”

When asked what she thought the reason for her mother’s relationship with her was, she responded, “All I can think is that she’s jealous of me. That’s the only word I can come up with.” She recalled another time when she was an adult attempting to comfort her mother, When my brother died, my mother almost went crazy. I went to put my arm around her and she jerked away. Ok, but who took care of her? She lived with me until the day my first granddaughter was baptized. She stepped down, out of the house and onto the porch, and when she got to the top of the stairs, she wouldn’t move. I said, “I’ll help you.” I touched her, and she was like stone. A man came down the street and said, “I’ll help you.” All of a sudden my daughter hollered out, “Grandma, why are you doing this to my mother.” Well, my sister was horrified. When we got back, my mother was gone, clothes and all. When I got back, the first thing I did was call her and said, “What’s going on?” My sister said, “She’s going to live with me.”

When asked about her choice to continue doing things for her mother she said, “She was my mother.”

Finding IV Participants understood that sectarianism affected their ancestors but were not aware of how.

95 Our fourth finding, and the most pervasive one because of its primary focus on Gaelic-Irish society and culture for centuries, is sectarianism. Malachy, the youngest participant at 24, was the only participant who did not point to sectarianism as the defining aspect of Ireland’s difficulties during the time of their ancestors. Another participant, Barrie, responded, “I remember my father talking about his real feelings about Catholics and Protestants in England, and one of the powerful terms he used was that the Protestants consider the Catholics the whores of Babylon. I thought, wow, that’s powerful.” The eldest participant, Phiala, whose father worked as a carpenter on the Titanic, recalled, My father was a carpenter, and he worked in shipbuilding in Belfast, so he would go to there, then come back to his small town. He worked on the Titanic. He said that there were Protestants up there in Belfast. When they were building the ship, they would say “Goddamn the pope” as they hammered the nails. He said, “I knew that ship would never sail.”

They were also not aware of how the heritage may have influenced their ancestors’ lives in their new homeland. Sectarianism was significant for ancestors in Ireland but had little influence on them after immigration.

Both Gaelic-Irish and Anglo-Scot Irish participants were aware that sectarianism existed in Ireland and was a significant reason for emigrating. Three Gaelic Irish ancestors were said to have emigrated because they feared for their safety. They were found to have been involved directly in the civil turmoil as IRA members.

No Anglo-Scot participant reported having an ancestor involved in any paramilitary group. One participant, Seanand, noted a cousin of hers did serve in the British Army and

96 worked in Northern Ireland during the 1970’s years of the Troubles, “My grandmother was supposed to come to New York to be with her older son. He sent for her but she said, ‘D [her father], take the ticket and go.’” Another participant stated, “The British soldiers would come in the middle of the night and arrest him over because there was a price on his head.” One Gaelic-Irish ancestor reported leaving because of his involvement in civil actions while becoming a seminarian priest. His daughter stated he was caught between loyalties.

Every participant communicated that their ancestors’ lives in Ireland were significantly wrapped up with sectarianism and that the conflict’s reality, left few opportunities. All participants reported that their ancestors did not think that the violence in Ireland would be stopped.

The cause worth fighting for.

Glenna, the daughter of one of the men stationed in the General Post Office during the 1916 Rebellion stated, There were a thousand men, and they came from all over Ireland, and my dad was in the post office. I think they were in the post office for about a week before they told the men that they had to give up. What’s left of the men against 10,000 British soldiers? There were only a few Irishmen left. This is my attitude [towards her father]. He did everything for God, and he did it for his country. They were trying to take away his religion, and they were trying to take away his country because they wanted to do it their way.

97 Phiala responded about her father, “They never said he was wrong; he was right. He was for Ireland.”

Aghna recalled, “When the Black and Tans would come, my mother would have any IRA sympathizers go out the window in the back.”

Religion and post immigration experience.

There was a definite contrast in this study between the importance of one’s religious affiliation for ancestors’ pre-immigration versus post-migration. Ancestors listed religious conflict as a significant factor for ancestors’ pre-immigration life; there was little reference by participants of their parents/grandparents focusing on religion postimmigration.

No Protestant participant noted that their ancestor intermingled with Roman Catholics. Carriag (Gaelic Irish) stated the following: My father told me that several of the farmers he worked with were Protestants. There were both Protestant and Roman Catholic farmers in the area. Some of the farmers were Protestant, and he would go in and work hard and do the job and get paid.

There were lines, and then there were no lines. It was fuzzy. I think that’s the difference between rural and city.

Post immigration experiences of next generations: Religion, employment.

In this study, participants did not indicate that being Roman Catholic or Protestant was positive or negative in their everyday lives growing up. None attributed religion as an influence on whom to be in a relationship with, what educational, political, and

98 employment opportunities were open to them as their ancestors did in Ireland. With a 65year spread there was little to no difference reported by participants concerning religion; some were children, some grandchildren. None reported being warned not to play with neighbors from a different religion. One relative told a participant, You should not go to Saint Patrick Day parades because the parade was really about Catholics. Most of our neighborhood is Southern Gaelic-Irish. I’m not sure the kids knew the difference that people came from the North. If they did, it did not make a difference.

Sectarianism experienced by next generations.

Seanand, from Anglo-Scot Irish heritage referred to a few experiences regarding religion in her home growing up. One event was when she was a child and went to a parade on July 12, I was looking for my aunts in the parade. They were wearing white dresses, white shoes, and orange sashes. And then my aunt came beating one of the drums. I thought to myself, “Isn’t this great, her pounding the drum, maybe she’ll let me try and play it. It looks like fun.” That is basically what I got out of that. I did not understand it. The reason we were going was to watch my aunt play the drums. My mother said to me, “Be careful, they may throw bricks at us.” I said, “What do you mean throw bricks at us? She said, “The Catholics.” And I said, “Why would they do that.” I never got the real answer. I must have been 9 or 10. I knew she was saying this because they were Catholic, and I was Protestant. And that was the first time I ever saw something like that.

99 I didn’t yet have it in my vocabulary, the word provocative. But I know now that is exactly what it was. Years later, I was in an email conversation with one of my relatives, and she said to me all we want to do is walk to church, and they won’t let us. And that is when I understood what they were exhibiting to me was childlike guile. That was the phrase that came to me. You know damn well you don’t want to walk to church. You’re out there beating that drum. It finally fit together for me. It was an epiphany. A little epiphany, childlike guile. I saw it as evil. There’s an element of evil. It was deliberate, childlike, but it was deliberate. You know it was like, “Who me? We just want to walk to church, and you’re throwing bricks and rocks at us. What’s going on here? We are just trying to walk to church.” I didn’t know this when I met her, and I think if I brought it up towards the end of her life, I think that she would have been ashamed she did that. I think she matured as a Christian to the point where she realized that was something negative. And no good can come from banging some drum in a place where people didn’t care what your religion was. It’s perpetuating hatred and teaching people to hate.

Seanand’s cousin noted the following about this same aunt: When I met this aunt in the 1980s, we had a meal together. She was asked to say grace. Her prayer was so beautiful. I felt like if I opened my eyes, I would see her family there and Jesus Christ . . . and I think if I asked her, she would say, “You know I wish I had never done that, or if the Lord told me it was wrong, I wouldn’t have done it.”

Seanand also shared the following story about a visiting relative from Northern

100 Ireland. This participant shared another story of an event in her teenage years when a relative came from Ireland to visit: My great uncle, my grandfather’s brother, retired from the Belfast shipyards. I was a teenager when he came to visit the United States. There was a piano in the living room with the piano bench and chairs around it. My uncle arrived with a suitcase, and all the relatives gathered around the piano stool. He flipped it open and pulled out a sash, an apron, and the sword and a sheaf of anti-Catholic pamphlets. And then he went to each relative and distributed the sheets. My grandmother was mortified, it was as if she didn’t know what to do. No one knew what to do. It was as if an alien landed right in our living room on our piano bench. I don’t remember how it was resolved, but I think my mother said, “Dinner is ready.” We were speechless. I thought this was unbelievable. I’ve heard about that stuff, but here it was, happening in our own house.

She then completed her story with “Childlike guile is a theme that helps me understand the whole thing.”

Padric, from Anglo-Scot heritage responded, My grandmother’s family were very Orange. And grandfather was not, and I learned he was a pacifist. I imagine he was not because of his pacifism, and you know, his belief in nonviolence. I wish my grandmother were still alive, and I can ask her why they left Ireland. Was there strife between the two branches of the family? I can easily see that having happened.

101 Seanand also reported this recollection of a British soldier relative stationed in Northern Ireland. She began her story with an acknowledgement of her difficulty processing her relationship with this relative and her revulsion of the job he had.

I started processing the whole thing. I thought, “Who is this man? Who are these people?” I got a bit more about the things he does. He was such a nice man, he came to the United States, and I was visiting with him. I remember lying on the grass and reading a book of poetry. I knew that, in other people’s eyes, he was not a very nice man. He was an enigma to me and more an enigma than anyone I’ve ever met. I was sitting outside with him one day, and he looked up from his book and said, “I wish I could write novels like Tom Clancy.” He then went on to say, “I don’t want to do this anymore, I hate my job.” He was traveling to a remote location with a few other officers, and there was an unexplained explosion in the vehicle they were traveling in.

Participants’ personal experience of Ireland.

Most participants reported visiting Ireland. Only three Gaelic-Irish and 1 Scot-Irish participant reported listening to Irish music. The Gaelic-Irish noted most of the music they heard growing up and continue to listen to are rebel songs sung at pubs and notable recording artists. The Scot-Irish participant, Barra, plays a musical instrument herself and plays and listens to more popular Irish music without political overtones. She suggested the song in the Appendix from Eddie Rabbit, Song of Ireland

102 Carriag responds, Yes, you would’ve had the soldiers, you would’ve had the checkpoints, armed personnel carriers parked on the side of the street . . . it could be that religion becomes the shorthand again. My uncle had strong feelings about Catholic versus Protestant, but he was able to put them aside, when needed, for his son-in-law’s (his two daughters married Protestants).

My cousin does proselytize among her sisters, and maybe that’s what’s caused a lot of the conflict because they feel that she’s disloyal to the father now by doing this. I think that’s a source of conflict, though it’s buried most of the time. I think it is almost an embarrassment; she’s supposed to be Catholic. She runs a charity shop selling odds and ends and gets proceeds for children, and she does proselytize among her sisters, and maybe that’s what’s caused a lot of the conflict because they feel that she’s disloyal to her husband by doing this. You know, he would never want her to do this.

As far as any of his employees are concerned, her name is Jane, not Mary. When she calls, she says to tell him it’s Jane. He is fully aware, that in that part of Belfast, if his customers ever find out that he was married to a Catholic, which the name would giveaway, he’d lose half his business on the spot.

When asked to reflect on what his father shared with him regarding sectarianism, Carriag responded, “The Catholics were there, and I understood from some talk that the Catholics were mad because it meant money for them. They were on the dole. Catholics want money.”

103 A participant from Anglo-Scot heritage who went to Northern Ireland to stay with relatives recounted an experience with her Roman Catholic cousin, I got a note from a cousin of mine. She told me she was a relative, but she was unable to come to my relative’s house. “I turned Catholic, and I am not welcome.” I read it to my aunt, and she said, “Oh yes, you know the itty bitty thing.”

My cousin said it is difficult, but she said we have friendships with them, but they aren’t open friendships. She said, “You don’t know who is listening, and you don’t know who you are hurting.” When I heard this, it’s the killing and all that. It was just another Gaelic Irish trait; you never knew, you just didn’t want anyone to know.

Sectarianism: What was told.

Seanand reported her grandmother shared this story: A man was running down the street, and he banged on the back door, and her mother let him in. Before he got to the back door, someone came to the front door and shot him. Now that one, I didn’t even bother to process it was just too bizarre. But my grandmother told me that story more than once. I never, to this day, stop just saying to myself, “What happened?” I just cannot go there. My mother’s reaction to this story is, I think it titillated her.

Sectarianism as a social construct/distraction from the real issue of power.

Most participants considered sectarianism the major issue in Ireland. Though GaelicIrish considered the history of British occupation of Ireland, most decried the sectarian violence. Scot-Irish American participants to a person noted how tragic it was that Ireland

104 had a history of hate and division. Though never stated outright all expressed regret of the power of religion to create such chasms.

Malachy, from Gaelic-Irish heritage, the youngest and most involved participant in Irish American politics was the only participant not to focus on sectarianism. He stated Sectarianism is a way of diverting from the main issue: British control of Northern Ireland. . . . It was clear why bad things were happening because of the British presence in Ireland. The media and a lot of people have tried to portray this trouble as between Catholic and Protestants, and that’s not what the problem in Ireland is.

The source of all Ireland’s problems is the English presence in Ireland. It’s turned the native population against each other, trying to have Catholics and Protestants fight, but that’s not what it’s about. It was the Gaelic-Irish trying to drive the British out, at least from the republican point of view.

Malachy believes the sectarian conflict began with the British and is continued by them for their best interest. He mentions British loyalists, primarily Protestants: “They are motivated by hate of Catholics, you can tell just by looking at their leaders, you know, very clearly.”

When asked about his grandfather and parents’ involvement in Irish affairs post immigration, he stated, Same reason I voted to free Ireland from British rule. There were people, especially in the 1970s, who were being burnt out of their homes or being murdered by the British army. They wanted to stand up against that, raise money for the dependents of people who were suffering during that conflict.

When asked about how these experiences influenced him, he responded,

105 I was free to be involved. I got interested in it when I was 14. I wanted to do something on my own, and that’s when I personally got involved in Republican politics; I would say republicanism, which is the establishment of the 32 counties into the Republic of Ireland. I mean, you have foreign people in Ireland, telling them what to do, murdering people, and torturing people. It was clear, even to me when I was a young kid that it was wrong.

When asked about what attracted him to his involvement in Irish political life Malachy stated, I remember being at a Gaelic-Irish center and hearing a guy from Ireland who was a Bloody Sunday survivor. He was talking about the British attacked and how his neighbor was killed.

Malachy talked about an experience with an uncle he was close to growing up who moved back to Ireland: My uncle moved back there when he was my age. He was just as interested in Republicanism as I was until he moved. He got married and moved over there. Now he gives me a hard time for wanting to be involved. He’s kind of changed his course, I’m against the Good Friday Agreement, and he’s completely of a different opinion.

He doesn’t like that I’m against it. I don’t bring anything up around him because I know we’ll just argue about it. He is against it, he thinks we’re giving money to people to buy guns, and the money is not going to families. He’s thinks we’re helping support the people doing those actions.

Ireland was Britain’s first colony. Ireland is also Britain’s last colony. This struggle isn’t new. It’s been going on for eight hundred years, and it’s going to

106 continue to go on as long as they remain in Ireland. I mean, you can tie it to the global struggle against imperialism, you know? It’s just that. Ireland and Palestine are the same things. Afghanistan, IRA, you know, it’s all anti-imperialist struggles, but for us, it’s the British. You have foreign people in Ireland, telling them what to do, murdering people and torturing people, and things like that.

Role of associations related to sectarianism.

Four participants from Anglo-Scot Irish heritage mentioned the Orange Order. Three stated their fathers belonged to the association. One participant stated her grandfather opposed the Orange Order and to an uncle who supported what it stood for.

Two participants from an Anglo-Scot Irish background stated their ancestor belonged to the Masons. Oma stated, “My father was a big Mason, and my grandfather as well. It was important for the Protestant Gaelic-Irish. Certain dates were important and July 12, Orangemen’s Day was one of the biggies.”

Two Gaelic-Irish noted their parents belonged to Irish Organizations. One family was active in political organizations, and the other social.

107

Chapter V

Discussion Introduction The context of this study is both ancient and modern. As with all societies, political, societal, cultural, and religious influences create a matrix where individuals, families, and groups live and grow each day. This study considers these participants’ individual and familial context and the historical aspects that help inform the relational matrix. The participants came to this study having lived only in their ancestors’ new land, the USA or Canada. As noted previously, this study considers a broad matrix of influence, including political. Layton notes it is a “norm in our culture to unlink the personal from the political” (Walls, 2006, p. 118). This study considers both ancestor’s and participants’ political and religious significance precisely because the Irish people are immersed in these realities. Many political and religious influences blend, so there is an ambiguity about the real issue. These participants drew upon a few facts, conjectured much, and communicated a sense that they missed something in their family story. Some of the gaps are caused by not having the connection of the myriad influences on their ancestors.

This study is about the experience of growing up in families where relational intimacies were often unspoken, secrets tightly guarded, and personal feelings safeguarded. The foundation of this discussion section are the four primary findings:

108 participants were impacted by the distress of their ancestor’s living in what are considered unsustainable conditions; participants were raised in families where secrets were kept, and much left unspoken, participants understood that their ancestors experienced loss before and after they emigrated but were unsure of the impact it had on them. They also understood that sectarianism affected their ancestors but were not aware of how. Finally, they were unaware of how the heritage may have influenced their lives in their new homeland.

Participants were asked to share their experiences of growing up with their heritage and how those experiences affected them. Many participants found it challenging to connect with their Irish heritage since their ancestors shared little. At the same time, participants expressed pride in being Irish American. One participant noted, “I think it is special to be Irish.” Participants had difficulty answering the prompt question, “what about your family seemed uniquely Irish?” Most stated they volunteered for the study because they wanted to know more about their Irish heritage, which was elusive.

What is central to this study is how many links there are to all of these findings.

Though separated by topic for clarity, this discussion, when appropriate, links the results or shows where they do not converge. This discussion includes differences participants noted in their ancestors from pre to post-immigration. There are significant differences found between ancestors and the next generation.

Participant Experience of Their Ancestors Participants’ understanding of the past.

Descendants did not report growing up with parents/grandparents describing a

109 homeland of green fields with farmers gathering their sheep from the hills where they were exposed to the literature of the day or where Irish music was readily available at ceilidh gatherings (Irish musical, social gatherings). Many Irish family homes described in this study were not ones of sitting around a turf fire, gathering for a meal, and sharing stories from the past. Though some of the stereotypical pictures of Irish life may have existed for the ancestors, these participants did not indicate hearing those ancestral experiences in their families. The land described in these interviews was an impoverished land for Gaelic-Irish and Anglo-Scot Irish. We will never know the experience or the depth of these Irish ancestors’ feelings because there was little personal sharing with their descendants about these things.

All participants noted that their ancestors emigrated because Ireland was devoid of opportunity, a land in constant civil and religious distress, an unsustainable land. Though the Anglo-Scot Irish ancestors did not live in destitute conditions as many of the GaelicIrish, they still noted their ancestors could not sustain themselves and their families.

There were no apparent differences between children and grandchildren in speaking of their ancestor history in this study. More pronounced was the general lack of emotional connection to the stories told during the interview. In many cases, few indicators suggest that their ancestors’ experiences meant much to participants. There was more a sense of detachment, more like a history lesson needing recitation. Even though they knew some details, participants had a significant absence of information.

There was a more ambiguous sense of “not knowing,” even though they knew some.

What seemed to be missing was the ancestor sharing what their experiences meant to them, how poverty influenced their lives, the breakup of families, and other stressors.

110 The participants in this study did not mention colonialism and its aftermath. Authors Garrett O’Connor (1995) and Michael O’Loughlin (2013) are two of numerous writers that refer to the Irish people with unique characteristics noted as being directly related to British suppression of the Irish people. O’Loughlin, an Irish immigrant psychoanalyst in a lecture given in 2013, referred to the importance of tending to the Irish people’s historical, psychological underpinnings. O’Loughlin spoke mainly about one manifestation of colonialism and the British decisions surrounding the Famine/Great Hunger. The Gaelic-Irish population often experienced this catastrophic time in history as a form of genocide. O’Loughlin noted the silence of the past costs the Irish people with wounds not healed. This was a human-made catastrophic event that caused millions to die or emigrate in the view of many. In this study, a few ancestors lived in Ireland a mere 50 or so years after the Famine/Great Hunger. Our participants did not refer at all to the loss of life or dreams by their Irish ancestors. They do not know if their ancestors’ family size dwindled during that time and did not refer to that heritage at all. Like O’Loughlin, they too heard nothing or next to nothing from their Irish immigrant family members. The story’s emotion was left to ballads, poetry, and literature, which immortalized the memory without healing. The psychological, emotional, spiritual, and social ramifications were not talked about directly nor referenced.

This study considers both the literature and life experience of first-generation Irish Americans and their relationship with their ancestors.

The participants in this study had little ability to connect their ancestors’ experiences to past events, let alone the historical nexus. Freud recognized that both inter-psychic and intrapsychic dynamics influenced traumatic experiences. (Khan, 1963; Leys, 2000;

111 Mitchell, 1988; Nasio, 1998). The Irish state of mind is essential for understanding the ancestors referred to in this study. If not the stories, then what was passed on to the next generations? The ancestors in this study lived with burdens of cultural memories, community trauma, many unresolved for generations (Kapur & Campbell, 2014). As noted, they grew up in familial, societal, and religious realities steeped in the past. What are these participants’ experiences who grew up in a different environment than their parents/grandparents? How did these participants understand and process what they knew about their heritage and what was kept unspoken?

Stolorow, discussing cultural memories, notes they become “ambiguous associations of disturbance” (2016). These participants did note that their parents/grandparent’s behaviors, such as keeping things secret, did not seem to be based on anything concrete. They were left with ambiguity as to why mom or dad acted the way they did. Much as a stone tossed in the water, the further away there is no recognition that a stone has caused the ripple. There is knowledge of the ripple that something caused, but the source remains unknown. Gaelic-Irish and Anglo-Irish participants are left without the ability to connect the meaning of what has rippled down to them. The passing down of unresolved trauma is like that. Memories may be dissociated from consciousness and disconnected from the actual experiences and then acted upon differently. Defenses noted in another section consider this. Stolorow (2016), notes in his work: “Finding a relational home for the pain of a traumatic loss may be particularly difficult.

Stolorow also refers to not being able to “find a relational home for the experience” (2016, p. 125). In other words, these participants knew there were ripples in their family dynamics, but they had no way of knowing what the cause was or even the meaning. The

112 transgenerational component suggests their parents/grandparents had many of the same gaps. “There is an ‘it’ that is unknown, unprocessed, that may strongly influence how I am in this world but completely hidden. I have to try and guess what has caused the ripple.” As one man is quoted as saying, “We carry the emotions of our families but not the stories” (Burns et al., 2010, p. 58).

Without the ability to organize and make meaning and tell the story of one’s experiences, much is left that is “unassimilated and then becomes unthinkable” (Schutzenberger, 1998, p. 160).

One participant reflected this when exposed to a traumatic experience her father had as a child. She grew up not understanding why he was distant, abused alcohol, was “miserly,” and emotionally absent. Though it helped her understand her father more, finding out about his experience at such a young age, she still felt the lack of not knowing what it meant to him personally. Her question was, “How does a 10-year-old get over that?”

Experience of relationship and intergenerational transmission.

Faimberg (2005) asks an important question concerning intergenerational transmission: “How can a patient be involved in a history that belongs to someone else?” (p. 7). These participants wanted to have a sense of belonging to their family history. It is essential to look at conflict as a historical reality and a human experience from the psychodynamic perspective. From a relational interpersonal perspective, societal turmoil causes a group of people to coalesce around the trauma. These participants came to the study with little to no sense of the roots that helped the previous generation withstand

113 hardships and build resiliency. It is difficult for these participants to connect to a common heritage as “links in a chain of generations” (Schutzenberger, 1998, p. 73) Are those who share the common heritage carrying both the memory and identity of a previous generation? Silverman (2015) asks a question quite relevant to this study, “What happens when a child’s mind is not reflected but taken over by a parent or caretaker” (p. 52). Most participants said little about their parents/grandparents creating conditions where their emotional needs were considered. Parents kept themselves to themselves and communicated that their children were to do likewise. However, this is not to say that most participants found their parents/grandparents not providing for their needs. On the contrary, the parents in this study modeled a strong work ethic and encouraged their children to provide. The absence is more in the emotional realm. There were very few instances where participants described their parents focusing on what they emotionally needed; many stories highlighted experiences where their parent’s avoidance of self-revealing was of primary importance. Whatever way a parent could communicate, a brick wall was often erected. In a few families, this was a chronic condition, and in others more related to issues or topics that appeared to make their parents/grandparents uncomfortable.

A few characteristics were noted by all participants concerning their parents/grandparents. All described their ancestors as hard-working and determined to put food on the table. They also stated that their parents/grandparents were reserved, secretive about what they considered personal, not demonstrative, and reluctant to speak about the family with other people. Sharing was not part of their household, with parents or participants.

114 Participants who had children stated that, unlike their ancestors, they were open with their children and at times shared personal material. There was general agreement by participant parents that they were close to their children and physically demonstrative with them. All agreed they were not uncomfortable with displaying affection in their family. They also agreed that they value the “American work ethic” just as their parents did.

Overall, the participants fell into three categories of relationship with their parents: ● Those who experienced their parents as providing for the family and letting their children live without much oversight. Children were sent to school in these families and the ‘nuns’ or other teachers were expected to do the training, discipline, and teaching. In these families, there were few, if any, signs of physical affection. They knew their parents cared for them because they had a roof over their heads, and it was more “I just knew.” These participants came to this study curious about their family, wishing they knew more and were puzzled by how little they did know. They did not communicate a deep hurt in the relationship. ● A few participants described their ancestors as more generally unavailable and found this in the households where there was alcohol abuse. These parents presented as distracted and, at times, avoidant. These participants stated there were little to no signs of affection in their household. The difference from those who just knew they were loved is the emotional distance noted between parent and child with little bonding in the relationship. These participants described being alone in their households. In these families, it was also stated that their

115 ancestors did not have relationships with other family members or have friends either. There was little talked about in these families except the basics of household living. There were no reported discussions of troubles or dreams with the ancestor. In the families where alcohol abuse was present, a few of the participants stated that the parent who struggled with alcoholism was, in fact, the most available when sober. The sober parent was described as chronically unavailable. ● Two participants described more distressed relationships with their parents. One participant noted both of her parents were chronically emotionally absent from the children. Her parents had early parental deaths, poverty, separation of family members in their childhoods. Her parents both abused alcohol for periods of the participant’s childhood, yet she also noted whether drunk or sober, they remained distant and unresponsive, Another participant, the eldest of 10, experienced her mother as dismissive of her personally. This participant could not recall any kindness shown to her, “not a kind word was said.” Her father is described as a hero who had been an officer in the IRA. However, he was not described as a “father” to her as much as a hero.

His presence in the interview was noted only for his past role as a soldier and a provider for the family. In her 80s at the time of the interview, she still did not understand why her mother treated her as she did.

As noted previously, attachment is considered a behavior of relatedness. Though there was little reporting by participants that their parents shared intimacies or were demonstrative, the parents in the above two categories communicated connection to their

116 children. Though the ancestors described as experiencing significant stressors in their early years, most t created a sense of safety for their children. On the other hand, the participants in the third category had childhoods where there did not seem to have natural connectors with one or both parents. These participants considered early trauma in their parent’s lives as an important factor in this regard.

Participants’ accounts further the thinking of Silverman (2015), noting that caregivers with unresolved issues do what they can to shape the child’s reality to be seen as necessary even though contrary to what the child thinks or feels. In this study, participants did not note that their reality was “reflected” back to them. In the second and third categories, participants reported being left to “destabilizing feelings of uncertainty, shame, and anxiety” (p. 54).

The literature suggests that there was often a disavowal of the importance of personal experience for the Irish people and an emphasis on the communal experience.

The child in this scenario learns quickly that their parent (country) requires loyalty and uniformity of thought and with little to no tolerance for the difference. The child for generations has been taught the message.

It cannot be underestimated what Sandra Silverman (2015) is stating here.

Silverman connects her findings to the need for safety for the parent and can supersede the child’s needs. Their Irish heritage reinforced the need for safety, physical and emotional. Silverman states that her client “knew better than to ask any questions” (p.

54). As noted in the findings, several participants just “knew better” than to pose specific topics to their immigrant parents.

117 Silverman (2015) then makes a connection, as this study does with loss: “Loss is disavowed, the past is not acknowledged, and generational differences are blurred. If the past is not granted meaning, then losses, including the loss of what one may never have . . . cannot be mourned” (p. 54).

Silverman also notes that when a parent has unresolved, unprocessed issues, it is hard to be open and responsive to a child’s emotional content. This is true, especially “when the child is experiencing states of fear or despair” (p. 52). For example, consider one participants mother’s response when she wanted to tell her mother about a significant aspect of her marriage; the mother walked out of the room. She was shut down.

Relational injuries.

For ancestors, the study clearly showed multiple stressors on their parent/child relationship. For the Gaelic Irish families, extreme poverty, the inability to provide for their families, the loss of parents, or the gaining of stepparents described as “cruel” in this study significantly impacted attachment. Many of these ancestors from an early age focused on survival. A focus on survival combined with parents who could not tend to their children’s emotional needs compounded what was passed down through the generations.

The immigrant people changed much about their lives. They disconnected from the hold that religion played in their lives. All ancestors built a life in the new land, and most rose to middle-class status. What many could not change, however, was the inability to share intimacies. The literature considers that a focus was on communal need in Irish culture, not the individual, which meant less self-reflection. Even when the stress of being a new immigrant was over, most stated their ancestor remained emotionally distant.

118 The next generation had to go it alone to understand their emotional lives since their parents could not transcend the divide between their own lives, let alone their children’s lives.

Klein and Positions Related to This Study Kapur & Cambell (2019) use Klein’s two positions of paranoid-schizoid and defensive position to help inform the impact on attachment from a society based on “us against them.” For Klein, when one is in the paranoid-schizoid position, there is a particular aversion to the other. In an extreme case, the aversion is absolute, and the other becomes the bad object.

One participant just knew her mother did not like her. She grew up knowing her mother did not feel connected to her. The mother was either dismissive of her eldest daughter or openly hostile. This participant was the eldest of 10 children, but she was convinced that she was the one rebuffed.

During the interview, this participant reported that she had nine children. Though she grieved the lack of a relationship with her mother, she reported a very close relationship with her husband, children, and grandchildren.

There is nothing to state why the mother’s actions were as they were. Her daughter summarized it by saying, “She was jealous.” Though that explanation was not satisfying, it offered her something. This may be a situation where the mother indeed has a paranoidschizoid frame of mind, and her eldest daughter, for some reason, was the one most targeted by her mother’s intolerance. Her parents were recent immigrants when she was

119 born. The combination of childhood experiences, the stress of immigration and growing a new family may have been too much for her.

This daughter may have been right, suggesting her mother was “jealous” of her.

Klein considers that rigid belief can lead to envy which is the most destructive because it eventually can lead to “pleasure” (Kapur & Campbell, 2014) in destroying what is bad.

She may have been seen as a danger to her, and her only available response was to “destroy” her daughter’s relationship with her in some ways. Though there is no evidence suggesting that this parent felt pleasure in “destroying” whatever it was in her daughter that was so difficult, it was powerful enough for her daughter that the mother never varied from it. Whether or not intentional, this relationship puts both mother and daughter in a pursuer/distancer dynamic throughout their lives. There may also have been a fear that her eldest was in some way out to get her. It is a question of why or if the mother was different with her other children. One of the participants’ sisters was interviewed, and she gave no reference to her mother dismissing her or any of the children. It may also be that the younger sister, who spoke less of many family issues during the interview, may also be an example of Irish silence and secrecy.

There were a few examples of the more paranoid-schizoid position referred to by Klein. In this study however there were only two where parental relationship were described as chronic. Most were more within the “depressive” position where relationships ebbed and flowed between ‘good object and bad object’ and did not remain in a rigid closed position. As noted, Klein believed the human person utilized both positions depending on the need. Four parents appeared to operate with a “take no prisoners” frame of mind when confronted with issues they did not want to or could not

120 talk about. For these participants, they communicated something in the relationship that was satisfying to them. As Kapur & Campbell (2019) noted, the Irish lean toward distancing from relationships they find stressful. However, a few of the participants, though noting their parents shared little with them about their personal lives, did not mention this harmed their relationship as a whole. Though there was regret, it was not of the same kind as an unhealed wound. The most vocal participants about the lack of emotional connection were those where one or more parents abused alcohol. The participant most affected reported that both her parents used alcohol significantly in her growing-up years. Some, however, were puzzled about their parents’ reluctance to be close and disappointed they did not have more. Still, what their parents provided appeared to be “good enough” (Winnicott, 1973). Though parents showed little “demonstrative” affection, these children could accept their parents as they were.

Emotional rigid boundaries.

In consideration of the relationship with caregivers, the work of Kapur & Campbell (2019) helps in seeing the connection between historical roots and these immigrants’ experiences. They found that one characteristic of the Irish is generations of rigid political, religious, and relational boundaries. Interestingly, their clinical experience connects the rigidity of boundaries in different aspects of the relational matrix.

Our thesis is that Northern Ireland society has been so damaged by its violent history that everyday relationships are inevitably contaminated by mistrust, and new experiences are not welcomed as opportunities to achieve richer human relationships but are perceived rather as the possible erosion and decline of the individual in society. (2014)

121 I noticed every time my third-generation Irish American father tried to hug my thirdgeneration Irish American mother in the kitchen in front of my sister and me; she pushed him away. This repression of emotions and physical contact is deeply encoded in the Irish American psyche. (Murdock, 2008, p. 234)

The unspoken and secrets.

What remains unspoken and the secrets kept are integral to the intergenerational relationships in this study. This area is also connected to the ancestors’ early life in Ireland. Both Gaelic-Irish and Anglo-Irish described hopelessness that the Irish situation would change, There is an emotional power of this generational, cultural injury. For Michael O’Loughlin (2013), who grew up in Ireland, describes a wound not healed in the Irish individually and the people in general. O’Loughlin noted in this study that there is a silence guarded carefully to stop going into any place that seeks to explore emotional injury. O’Loughlin said that even in more recent times, in his writing of the Great Hunger and its influence on him and his family, he was shunned by some family members. He broke the silence. He says that the absence of processing important historical events leaves “trauma trails that trickle down from archaic ancestral, familial, and historical events” (2013). Silence in this study pertains to general, historical, significant events and the personal history of the ancestors. Whether the silence is about keeping a secret or remaining unspoken because there are no words to describe it may not be known, but what was found in the older generations’ pervasiveness for most of these participants.

122 In this study, these ancestors relating to the next generation reflected patterned ways of managing relationships in the old world. For example, in the words of Bion (2019) regarding links in emotional experience, one of the critical emotions is: “K or knowledge corresponds to a subject that seeks to know an object and an object that lends itself to being known” (Kapur & Campbell, 2014).

These ancestors clearly described hiding from the next generation in many ways, with the goal of not becoming known. Participants were keenly aware that, indeed, their caregivers did not want to be “known,” and barriers were built to protect them from intrusions. However, they also experienced that their caregivers did not want to “know” them either.

Kapur & Campbell note this when they state, “The fundamental blueprint of these forms of human relations is a violent intercourse between two objects. This relationship becomes dangerous and can only be dealt with by distance and paranoia” (2014, Chapter 3).

The clearest example was when one participant stated that her mother refused to answer any personal question, including the name of her sisters. As an elder moving into a senior living situation, the mother refused to give her religion, “Why do you want to know?” was her general response.

It is a consideration that the secrets and unspoken are a patterned response reinforced through the generations, as Kapur & Campbell (2019) note. Initially, a skill to keep hidden from the colonial powers seeped into the general relational field where the emotional boundaries were retained. As noted in the case above, secrecy was more pronounced; all of the Irish ancestors held secrets.

123 There was an undercurrent of suspicion to the secrecy found in this study most pronounced surrounding four areas in particular: religious conversions, involvement in the ethnopolitical cause, alcohol abuse in the family, and cutoff relationships. The influence on participants ranged from puzzlement and curiosity to painful memories of emotional abandonment. All, however, related a general feeling of having missed something. Their roots needed to be gained by the public culture’s understanding of what the Irish meant.

One surprise in this study is that these first and second-generation participants stated that they do not need to keep secrets from their children. Having grown up with parents who were very circumspect in sharing personal information with their children, there was such a radical shift in the first generation. These participants were more puzzled over why their parents were so reluctant to share, not that they were unduly influenced by it in their relationships. Another surprise was participants indicating that they were affectionate and emotionally available to their children even though their parents showed little demonstrative affection. All noted they were very close to their children, including those who noted insecure attachment with their parents. These are significant shifts in just one generation. When asked what they were most handing down to the next generations, they often said what was seen as most often handed down to them: a strong work ethic and a focus on family. Much as their parents showed them.

Though the study literature noted the lack of toleration of difference for many Irish, these participants did not report any cut-off relationships.

Participants who described the lack of sharing with their parents like an open wound also depicted troubled relationships with their parents. Overall, these parents were

124 described as cold, distant, unavailable, and, as one person stated, “distracted whenever something personal came up.” These participants had difficulty connecting to their parent’s experiences. Telling the few stories they did have was done more as one would tell about a historical figure. There was little to no attachment to the stories.

The need for protection.

It is suggested that the experience of colonialism fostered an intolerance for what was not in the best interest of authority, thereby creating various communication styles in the Gaelic Irish community that was developed to manage uncomfortable topics and hide true thoughts and feelings. As noted in the literature, generationally, the Irish are known for “doublespeak,” a form of communication to placate the authority while at the same time internally disavowing whatever was said. The task of the communication was to keep hidden what was thought and only give the answer required. In this study, many Irish ancestors exhibited avoidance by talking around, attacking the questioner, or settling for sayings such as “keep your head down and do not talk,” as one father told his son.

Kapur & Campbell state: If social constraints are erected, such that people feel inhibited about a meaningful personal upheaval, the disparity between talking and thinking should increase. That is, people will think about the crisis much more than they talk about it. During this period of social inhibition, we should see increased health problems, signs of interpersonal conflict, and higher rates of depression, anxiety, and sleep problems. . .

Traumatization occurs when both internal and external resources are inadequate to cope with the external threat. (2019)

125 Not having the words, not being able to talk about trauma is not a uniquely Irish problem. As Kapur & Campbell (2014) note, trauma is often an isolating experience where a person does not feel that anyone could understand the level of their pain combined with concern; they will go crazy if they think about intrusive thoughts. This study again suggests that some ancestors could not create a coherent narrative of their experiences even if they wanted to. For these ancestors then, though there was the ability to immigrate and create a new life, whole parts of their lives remained hidden.

Though there may be elements of Bar-On’s findings that immigrants often withhold their traumatic experiences from the next generations in some regard to protect them from the past, for this study, the inability to share seemed to be most prevalent (1995).

Why the difference? Could it be that it was not a specific war or traumatic event for these Irish immigrants but rather centuries of the effects of intergenerational experiences of withholding more than giving to relationships? Secrecy was not only a coping mechanism for a specific time and place but also a way of being in the world. Here, there is a convergence of the Irish state of mind with intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships.

“Unresolved issues are similar to leftover issues, but they are more extreme, involving a more disorganizing influence on both our internal lives and our interpersonal relationships” (Siegel & Hartzell, 2003, p. 16). The combination of traumatic/stressful situations with the cultural inhibitions of working through these unresolved issues profoundly impair the parent-child relationship. “The Irish are great talkers and storytellers, but they prefer silence to speech when it comes to the realm of emotions (O’Brien, 2004, p. 34).

126 What did these participants experience then? They did not live in Ireland in the same circumstances as their parents/grandparents. However, this study found significant stress within parent/child relationships in some families. The participants attributed to stress in these families as alcohol abuse or some unknown, puzzling, mysterious cause. Overall, these participants described being raised in households where their parents were distant, emotionally absent, sometimes angry, and defensive.

In these interviews, what was not found was a “double-wall” with these participants and their children (Bar-On, 1995, p. 341). None of the participants who had children stated that they kept whatever they gleaned about their parents’/grandparents’ secret from their children.

Denigration of a people.

Though only mentioned by two participants, all Gaelic-Irish inferred their ancestor was denigrated because they were Irish and Roman Catholic. Participants, however, did not note that their ancestors communicated they were discriminated against after immigration. Though we do not know if these participants were privy to the information, Gaelic-Irish and Anglo-Scot Irish immigrants could provide for their families in the new land. All participants grew up acknowledging there were lean times but considering themselves middle class.

Characteristics of ancestors noted by participants.

With sectarianism being the central coalescing reality, chronic divides in Ireland are at the core of boundaries. Participants mentioned a few of the intrapersonal and interpersonal characteristics referred to in the literature.

127

Self-Esteem/Self-Confidence.

One aspect referred to several times by participants was that their ancestors appeared to lack self-esteem or self-confidence. This was reported especially by GaelicIrish ancestors when referring to their parents. Examples used were nervousness talking with teachers and employers, and in a few cases, there were no significant relationships outside their home or family. One participant, for example, experienced her father as bright and informed while at the same time noting that he avoided interacting with teachers at her school or even with other Irish immigrants. Instead, he worked in a service position at a local hotel for his whole career, never seeking a promotion.

It is unknown how this perceived lack of self-confidence played into the ancestors abusing alcohol. However, this area may be considered in part related to their early years of poverty, lack of educational opportunities, and the Gaelic-Irish and working class’s negative image.

Miller (2010) suggests that the characteristic of Irish immigrants is, in fact, low selfesteem, “self-image” (p. 6), especially if there has been a forced leave from their homeland. Miller points out that those who consider their emigration an involuntary exile are further burdened with the immigration experience. Miller considers that the belief that a person has been exiled from one’s home country can focus on the relational field. Stuart Twemlow agrees and states, “The trauma [immigration] is, of course, more likely and more severe in cases of forced emigration than involuntary emigration” (Sklarew et al., 2014, p. 78).

128 In this study, the Gaelic-Irish described their immigrant ancestors as having more difficulty adjusting to their new homeland. On the other hand, the Anglo-Scot Irish descendent did not refer to their ancestor having difficulty navigating socially in the new land. Both, however, were able to settle down as immigrants.

O’Connor (2012), in an article on the Irish, “Problem of alcohol abuse and dependence in Ireland” notes the influence on the past mainly on the Gaelic-Irish people The net effect of religious persecution, land rape, extreme poverty, and intermittent abuse of military power by English colonists in Ireland during 700 years of continuous occupation was to produce a national inferiority complex in Irish Catholics, which I identify as malignant cultural shame characterized by chronic fear, suppression of rage, self-loathing, procrastination, low self-esteem, false pride, and vulnerability to use alcohol as remission for suffering - past and present. (O’Connor, 2012, p. 1).

Self-Esteem/Self-Confidence, in psychodynamic thought, is connected to mental functioning: “The capacity for self-esteem regulation and quality of internal experience captures the level of confidence and self-regard that characterizes an individual’s relationship to self, others, and the larger world” (Lingiardi & McWilliams, 2017) Self-esteem is considered in this study relating to Irishness itself (Burns et al., 2010, p. 28). O’Connor (1995), in his article “Recognizing and healing malignant shame,” noted: “In my early teens, I came to believe that everything Irish (including myself) was in some way defective or second-rate in comparison to England (O’Connor, 1995, p. 3); Irish Catholics were at least partly responsible for the catastrophe that had befallen them [Great Famine} Their laziness, stupidity and superstitious religious beliefs

129 were said to have brought on the Famine, which some politicians and churchmen conceptualized as a just punishment. (p. 5) Historically there have been 800 years of bigotry against the Irish and, in particular, Gaelic-Irish. Charles Trevelyan, Treasury Secretary of the British Government, in 1848 states: “The great evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the famine but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people” (O’Connor, 1995, p. 5).

The participants in this study did not suggest nor appear to have issues in this regard.

All reported having stable relationships, confidence in how they lived, and not being burdened by the often unnamed burden that many saw in their parents. However, there was a difference between participants who noted attachment issues with their ancestors.

These participants reported relational divides with their ancestors that were quite impactful.

The use of defenses: Avoidance/disavowal/anger in caregiver parenting.

While Irish Americans are celebrated for being willing to display their emotions through fictional characters in poetry, drama, literature, and song, they are not skilled in revealing their true feelings in intimate relationships (Murdock, 2008, Burns et al. (2010).

“The Irish are great talkers and storytellers, but they prefer silence to speech when it comes to the realm of emotions (Murdock, 2008 p. 236).

This study was evident in the multiple ways parents avoided anything that had to do with emotional content and meaning. Disavowal was one of the major defenses.

Numerous participants were left wondering how their parent’s stories could be true when

130 there was evidence to the contrary. This occurred in multiple topics, from conversions from one religion to another, active involvement in the civil conflict, or simply about relatives, which no one discussed. Another defense was the use of anger to stop the next generation from asking any more questions. This defense was a clear signal; do not go any further. Another defense was distraction and deflection. For these participants, there was confusion at the end rather than clarity. What was consistent, however, was the result. The ancestor remained protected from the emotional content of whatever was kept from consciousness.

“To keep oneself to oneself” was not only shared in words but modeled to many of these participants. In this study, interviewees had numerous ways of describing how their caregivers avoided, disavowed, and or expressed anger when confronted with uncomfortable issues. These are emotional boundaries with what appears to be the goal of self-protection. We will not know whether these ancestors did not have the right words or were unable to share the emotional unformulated material of their lives. Though these participants grew up in a very different environment than their parents, what remained the same in some regard were interpersonal dynamics modeled by their ancestors. These participants grew up knowing that there were significant issues that their parents/grandparents could not /would not discuss.

Disavowal of facts was used in a few specific situations to discount what appeared to be so. Disavowal remained even where there was evidence. One example was when a participant saw a picture of her father in an IRA uniform she assumed to be her father.

Her father denied it and said it was her uncle. The denial was done in a way “I knew not to ask anymore.” Another example was an aunt who denied that her grandmother was a

131 Catholic even though she had rosary beads buried in a Catholic cemetery. For these participants, disavowal left puzzlement and confusion at the end rather than clarity.

Whatever means were used, the result was consistent. The ancestor remained protected from the emotional content of whatever was being kept from consciousness.

The protective elements of “Whatever you say, say nothing” (Heaney,1966) are considered part of the Irish way and included in the appendix. “‘Whatever you say, say nothing’ is a phrase coined by Seamus Heaney and used by some commentators to describe an aspect of the troubled mind we have talked about in this book Klein’s concept of paranoid-schizoid” (Kapur & Campbell, 2014).

Related to loss.

“Loss is disavowed, the past is not acknowledged, and generational differences are blurred. If the past is not granted meaning, then losses, including the loss of what one may never have . . . cannot be mourned” (Silverman, 2015, 2015, P. 54).

For a person with unresolved grief, it is dangerous territory to ponder the meaning of things. Silverman reiterates the interpersonal theory that parents’ consequences not connecting with their past losses influence their parenting. When a parent has unresolved, unprocessed issues, it is hard to be open and responsive to the emotional content, i.e., the child. Silverman notes this is true, especially “when the child is experiencing states of fear or despair” (2015, p. 52).

Coming to a new land causes an inherent disjointedness as one becomes familiar with the new ground. The song “Isle of hope, the isle of tears” depicts the story of newly arrived immigrants, “it is not the isle I left behind” (Graham, 2001). Ellis Island and other

132 ports may have been a welcome sight for many, but there may have been complex emotions with the leaving and the coming. These immigrants brought their disappointments and losses with them to the new world as well as their hopes.

One participant was raised mainly by her maternal grandmother. Her mother divorced her father before her birth, and she had no contact with him. She was the only child in the household and the eldest of many grandchildren. Her grandmother worked in the home, and her grandfather and mother went out to work. Though she was always close to her grandmother, it was only as a young adult that she came to realize the reasons why her grandmother was so emotionally connected to her. She learned that her aunt, the eldest girl in the family, died not long after immigrating. She was never told about this aunt and only found out about her after her grandmother’s death. Her aunt was considered the “rock” of the siblings and helped raise the youngest children. One participant who grew up with her grandmother knew a strong attachment between her and her grandmother existed, different from the other grandchildren. It was only finding a photo of her family at a gravesite that she found out her aunt’s death less than two years before their birth. It was after this that she realized how important she was to her grandmother. This also explained how her mother was more distant and not emotionally connected as much as the grandmother. Her grandmother is losing her eldest daughter, and her mother is losing a beloved sibling not long after they immigrated. This participant began to understand her grandmother’s bond to her was connected to a profound loss. She stated she never felt resentment toward her mother; she could rely on her grandmother. She spoke little about her mother in the interview and always in the context of her grandmother. She was her grandmother’s little girl.

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Mourning.

Grinberg, et al., in their 1989 work on immigration, note how the immigration experience is one of mourning. They state, The concept of mourning implies a complex, dynamic process involving the entire personality and including all the functions, conscious and unconscious, of the ego, its attitudes, defenses and in particular it is related to others. (1989, p. 67) Authors such as Miller (2010), Bar-On (1995), and Grinberg et al. (1989) to name a few, discuss various phases of adjustments necessary for those leaving their country of birth and creating a new home.

Immigrants are said to reminisce about the old country and often focus on positive memories of what was left behind, i.e., the good object. As noted earlier, there were little to no positive experiences shared with the participants in this study. Only a few participants even mentioned the general Irish culture shared in their home growing up.

What then does this study suggest is the mourning experience that these participants experienced from their ancestors? Most participants were hard-pressed to locate what the experience of immigrating was for their ancestors. However, they were able to state that their ancestors immigrated and created a life here in their new homeland.

They knew their ancestors had a general sense of hopelessness regarding Ireland ever being sustainable. Boss refers to this as an ambiguous loss when there is no expectation of an end in sight (Boss, 2015). This is true in the case of Ireland., where the occupation and turmoil persisted for centuries. Grinberg et al. (1989) connect the suffering of immigrants not so much to depression where there is “concern and

134 responsibility for object loss” (p. 65) but rather a “more primitive and less conscious character because it is a throwback to the more regressive mechanisms of the paranoidschizoid phase” (p. 65).

Grinberg et al., (1989) note the “tremendous psychic strength it takes to regain one’s connection to reality and to combat being waged to rid oneself of the persecutory aspects of the lost object and assimilate its positive kind aspects” (p. 68).

The Irish state of mind leans toward disavowal of what seems unmanageable. Early stressors would be expected to influence the ability to tolerate the significant disjointedness of being an immigrant. As in the case above, disavowal, distancing, and other defense characteristics can be situational and not overall.

Related to emigration/immigration.

Isle of hope, isle of tears.

Isle of Hope, Isle of tears, Isle of freedom, isle of fears But it is not the Isle I left behind That Isle of hunger, isle of pain, Isle, you will never see again But the Isle of home is always on your mind. (Graham, 2001) Gaelic-Irish and Anglo-Scot Irish descendants stated that they lived mainly middleclass lives growing up. Like many Irish immigrants, these ancestors came with little when they first arrived. A few were married, but most came single. There did not appear to be a significant difference with ancestors even though the youngest was 19 and the

135 oldest in their 30s at the time of emigration. It may be that participants did not think it was necessary to discuss or, even more likely, that most did not have much beyond the basics. The four participants who had parents abusing alcohol did not become financially insecure for any significant length of time. None stated they sought outside assistance in difficult times; these ancestors did what they needed to provide. None of the ancestors had broken marriages, with only one participant reporting a divorce. The question is, then, what helped these immigrants who came from distressed land and some from very dire circumstances create a new life for themselves? Are there “good objects” in the past that helped buffer? What were the links for these ancestors that helped them transition to the new life as an American? This study, in many ways, is left as the participants are, with questions as to what gave them the resilience they did have. When one participant was asked how her mother survived the bad times said, “She just didn’t want to talk about it.”

As noted, a few did not necessarily describe a close relationship with their parent/s but did have a significant relational attachment to them. One participant described it this way: “I just figured it was too hard for him to talk about.” Moreover, for these participants, that was the end of it though they wanted to know more. The bond between parent/child was strong enough in real-time and appeared more regret than a wound.

The existence of sectarianism.

Sectarianism in Ireland creates clear boundaries between Roman Catholic/Gaelic Irish and Protestant/Anglo-Scot Irish. This study considers what participants understood

136 about their ancestors and religious faith implications and their own experiences growing up with these immigrant parents/grandparents.

For these ancestors post immigration, religion seems to have lost power as a central factor in the cultural milieu. In their new land, religion was not ground zero when considering where to live, where to get a job, who is a threat. It was as if a pinpricked a balloon and took the air out of it. It is puzzling in some ways how quickly its importance decreased. It only took one generation, where religious denomination was not the marker of social identity. With centuries of focus in Ireland and one generation, a significant shift. Tajfel (1978), in his writing Built on Social Identity Theory, had information in this regard when he noted that loyalty to the cause was identified by markers such as school attended, church attended, and place of origin. Those markers were not as prevalent for these immigrants and certainly not for their children or grandchildren. However, if not a religion and other markers, one would wonder are there other aspects of ‘otherness’ that have seeped into the consciousness of the next generations. Have the markers been replaced.

Religion as a social construct.

One’s faith can be a compelling component to offer legitimacy—religion has a focus on values and ideals. Many Christian faiths are clear that God is on their side and have ample proof within their most sacred objects, such as Scripture. There are stories of God choosing one group over another within the Bible pages, reinforced through the centuries.

The thinking is: God is on our side, not on their side; God protects our group, not theirs.

We are the chosen ones preferred and supported by God. It is not a far leap for groups to

137 consider their protecting what is God’s will as fighting for the will of God. Layer upon layer of binary thinking, reinforced by religion and society through the generations. This view is codified in the Sunday pulpits, around the kitchen table, and decisions made at all levels of society and government structures. Those who are not of our clan are dangerous and need to be fought. Power needs to be on our side, or we lose. Steven (1988) notes that for the individual mind, it is the “product of as well as an interactive participant in the cultural, linguistic matrix within which it comes into being. Meaning is not provided a priori but derives from the relational matrix” (Mitchell, 1988, p. 19).

Meaning in the case of Ireland is formed in the relational matrix. In their homeland, religion influenced all facets of their lives and influenced interpersonal dynamics.

In Ireland, mixed marriages in Ireland have the potential to tear at the seams of certainty of who belongs and who does not. Clear boundaries were thought to keep groups safe from the “other.” However, this safety was jeopardized by mixed marriages and the frequency of informers and collaborators working with the British authorities.

Interestingly, these participants did not suggest that their parents/grandparents had significant political or religious boundaries as immigrants. Where there was secrecy was about religious conversions in three families. Interestingly, religion, though important in their homes growing up, gave no significance to friends, etc., religious preference. Upon immigration, the boundaries that were so much of the Irish culture were not reinforced.

Though there were divisions between Protestants and Catholics in the US culture, surrounding employment, i.e., Irish need not apply. No participant in this study stated their ancestor faced discrimination upon arrival in the United States.

138 So then, what was the experience of these participants growing up in a family where barriers were so prevalent in the past? All participants reported their parents/grandparents placed no obstacles to them having Protestant and or Catholic friends. In addition, participants noted that their immigrant ancestors interacted socially and in work situations without concern about the other person’s religion.

Another participant, quoted in the Findings section, noted she was exposed to sectarianism through visiting her Anglo-Irish relatives and, on one occasion, having a relative come to their home who lived in Northern Ireland. The participant knew by her immigrant family that what was said and done was “just not right,” so she grew up with the understanding that prejudice about religion was “just stupid.”

One participant converted to Catholicism and informed her Protestant parents that her marriage would be held in a Catholic Church. The date she and her fiancé chose was July 12, Orangemen’s Day. A special day for Anglo-Scot Irish celebrating the day Protestant King William of Orange defeated King James, a Catholic. Though her father did not refer to Catholic vs. Protestant in the family, he quickly stated, “I will go to your wedding, but I cannot go into a Catholic Church on July 12.” So, the couple changed the date, and the father went to the wedding. It was something he held onto and surprised his daughter that it meant something to him.

This study’s most apparent post-immigration religious boundary was not Catholic/Protestant but rather Protestant/Protestant. In one family, the boundary was surrounding Protestant denominations—Anglican, Presbyterian, or Universalist. The older generation firmly held to their particular denominations because the patriarchal grandfather was an itinerant preacher with very strong religious views. Even though there

139 was evidence, one family member refused to admit that a favorite relative was an Anglican and buried in an Anglican cemetery.

Participant religious conversions.

All participants stated that their parents/grandparents identified with a particular religion, though few were regular churchgoers. What was not handed down in their home or in society was sectarianism. Religion didn’t have the same multilevel importance that it did in Ireland. One participant converted to Catholicism and was told to leave the house, but her father went and got her the next day to come home. It was not talked about since, and she did not experience any animosity from her parents. Her younger sister converted to Catholicism a few years later. Her mother attended Catholic Church for many years and became Catholic in her elder years.

There may, however, be subtle influences found in the study. The combination of colonialism and restrictive, authoritarian religious institutional doctrine and practice for Roman Catholics, in particular, is thought to have influenced not only a sense of inferiority (Murdock, 2008, p. 235) but also a constricted sense of individual agency. In particular, the Gaelic Irish population was connected to the British “yoke” and went to what some believed was the papal yoke. The Irish people were in a relationship with what was considered the “other” for centuries. Individual agency, or needs, were not tended.

Attention was instead on the communal agency. The church became the external driving influence for the RC population in contrast to the British authority. The issue is, however, that it was external.

140 The British control is one, but these immigrants seemingly changed regarding religion upon immigration. Is it possible that the Irish Catholics left Ireland wanting to cut off the societal “yoke” of sectarianism itself as well as the church?

Religion and next generation.

Often highlighted in the literature is the importance of religion in helping to define the Irish psyche; for this study, religion had little to no references beyond what was given by participants about religious conversions and the impact of sectarianism on their ancestors.

Participants did not describe themselves as focused on Protestant or Catholic at all.

Though all participants noted their religion, it was more personal than a family or societal expectation. The Protestant participants mentioned belonging to different Protestant denominations, not necessarily their Irish ancestors. All participants who had experiences of religion noted their disagreement with that bias and communicated a puzzlement as to why it would exist. This first-generation shook their heads about how religion ever became such a divisive element in Ireland. In their experience, one religion or another made no difference.

For ancestors who came to this land from a country so immersed in religious differences, it is interesting that they did not pass this on to their children. Even those involved with the IRA, little was mentioned about religion post immigration.

Relationship confusion.

There is another aspect noted in the literature surrounding the sensitivities of caregivers and the next generation. Moss, in his account, described growing up with a

141 father who had a significant trauma history during his involvement in the war (2010).

Moss came to realize how connected his relationship with his dad was with that war history. There was, in a sense, an attachment to the trauma. Moss knew that the closeness he felt with his father was in part built on the pleasure he felt as his father recounted instances where he was the perpetrator. Schwab (2010) notes where a child hears distressing information but feels “both danger and excitement.” (Miller, 1987, p. 54).

This was most profoundly found in an interview with two sisters whose father had a leadership position in the IRA. Their father told them that he had a direct role in the IRA but did not say what that role was. After his death, they found out their father’s direct role was primarily capturing, torturing, or killing Roman Catholic informants. When asked what she thought of this, the eldest daughter paused and stated, “God and country.” This participant held her father in high esteem, as one would do a hero. Though she did not describe a close relationship with her father, this is one case where there was a clear attachment to her father, an attachment-based more on the pride she had for him. Though her father was disabled as a young man with a large family and supported them despite the disability, the participant connected more to the “hero.” She held on to this. During the interview, the interview was sustained by the memories.

Generations of Irish grew in a society where there was a celebration of violence over one’s cause. The pleasure was found in the winning. It was in this atmosphere that one could live with participating in acts of violence while at the same time disavowing that comes from a deep place of vengeance, self-righteousness, and what Seanand described as “childlike guile.” The violence comes because they are heroes and done because of God and country or Queen and country.

142 Disavowal referred to earlier is found throughout this study, and for these participants, they are puzzled by it and, in many ways, captivated by it.

People react to and interact with not only an actual other but also an internal other, a psychic representation of a person which in itself has the power to influence both the individual’s affective states and his overt behavioral reactions. (Greenberg & Mitchell, 1983, p. 10).

There is a dynamic interplay between the individual and the object of attachment.

Though in part intrapsychic structures, they are lived out in the real world, in the interpersonal realities. In this study, there are both realistic and distorted representations.

Loyalty to a group is significant for survival when there are dangers. People are safer being able to trust those in their family and group. Distortions come when the representations become absolutes separating good and bad into opposites. Paranoidschizoid thinking is where all bad is found in the enemy, and all good belongs to one’s own group. Representations become part of the fabric of life and are not easily challenged. We are on the right side; they are on the wrong side. God is right; king or queen is wrong. Loyalty, for example, becomes an object of attachment, one created out of necessity and passed down transgenerationally.

Cost of colonialism.

Colonization requires training and reinforcement. Bandura (1977), a learning theorist, states that violence often follows for cultures where there is continued conflict and those actively engaged in the conflict gain a sense of importance. In Ireland, those fighting for the cause are heroes, and if they have lost their lives, they are often

143 considered martyrs. This attachment to the “cause’ is also significant in telling others and oneself the truth of participation. There are numerous instances of disavowal of participants’ reality; some already noted the finding surrounding secrecy. The one participant’s example where she reflected on the Orangemen’s Day parade as a child and realized this parade appears to be celebratory has at its base prejudice against Roman Catholics. When reflecting on this experience she noted she could not process the information at the time. It did not make sense to her; it was not what she was familiar with within her family. A few of her relatives, on the other hand, justified their activity as standing up for what was right; they paraded to remind themselves and others of their legitimacy to exist and to hold their heads high. This participant, however, was not born into a society that pitted Catholics against Protestants. She did not experience “prestige” at the experience; she felt more puzzled at what was going on. Earlier generations would have experienced the event very differently than she. Her recollection of a conversation with her cousin is an example of immersion into the justification narrative. Her cousin justified the anti-Catholic bias by saying that they [Protestants] just want to walk to church and not let us. Her cousin in Ireland continued to reinforce what she received in her family and her community, that their acts were justified because of the “other.” On the other hand, this first-generation Irish American did not grow up in a household placing prestige and pride on being defined by what they were against. She was not exposed continuously to reinforce bigotry.

It is here that Kapur & Campbell (2019) provide links for this study. The experience of colonialism fostered an intolerance for what was not in the best interest of authority.

Various communication styles were developed to manage uncomfortable topics and fine-

144 tune the use of ambiguity and doublespeak to keep hidden what was honestly thought.

But, again, thinking did not necessarily translate into talking about issues. Many Irish ancestors in this study exhibited attributes of avoidance by talking around, attacking the questioner, or settling for sayings; Carriag, for example, responded, “Keep your head down and do not talk.”

“Not having the words, not being able to talk about trauma is not a uniquely Irish problem.” (Kapur & Campbell 2014, p. 268) As Kapur notes, trauma is often an isolating experience where a person does not feel that anyone could understand their pain level combined with concern; they will go crazy if they think about intrusive thoughts. However, the issue for this study goes beyond that to suggest many of the ancestors could not create a coherent narrative of their experiences. For these ancestors then, though there was the ability to immigrate and create a new life for many, there remained whole parts of their lives that remained hidden.

Though there may be elements of Bar-On’s findings that immigrants often withhold their traumatic experiences from the next generations in some regard to protect them from the past, for this study, the inability to share seemed to be most prevalent. Why the difference? Could it be that it was not a specific war or traumatic event for these Irish immigrants but rather centuries of intergenerational experiences of poverty, sectarian violence, and colonial occupation? Secrecy was not only a coping mechanism for a specific time and place; it was a way of being in the world in this study. Here, there is a convergence of the Irish state of mind with intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships.

“Unresolved issues are similar to leftover issues, but they are more extreme, involving a

145 more disorganizing influence on both our internal lives and our interpersonal relationships” (Siegel & Hartzell, 2003, p. 16). The combination of traumatic/stressful situations with the cultural inhibitions of working through. These unresolved issues can profoundly impair the parent-child relationship.

Implications of Injury to the Relational Field The Irish mind.

Much in Irish literature discussing Irish and Irish American relational matrix implications consider what is referred to as the “Irish/Irish American psyche” or “Irish/Irish American State of Mind” (O’Connor, 1995; O’Loughlin, 2013; Murdock, 2008) As noted previously, Dr. Anthony Clare states that “the Irish mind as being “enveloped, and to an extent suffocated, in an English mental embrace” (O’Connor, 1995, p. 3). Once again, we look at traumatic cultural memories of a people. He goes on to ask what happens when “healthy shame” becomes malignant: Healthy shame becomes malignant when it ceases to motivate behavior that is consistent with normal growth and development but instead used as a weapon by individuals or groups in authority to control or manipulate the actions and attitudes of those under their power. For example, insecure parents may shame and punish their children into submission for the same behaviors or inadequacies they cannot tolerate. (p. 9) This study showed a noticeable difference between the Gaelic-Irish and the AngloScots describing ancestor family relationships. As noted earlier, early life experiences

146 were not described as distressed in the Anglo-Scot ancestors as possibly one factor for this. Instead, ancestors described the Gaelic Irish ancestors as having low self-esteem, restrictive emotions, rage, abuse of alcohol, secretive, adverse, and defensive as to selfrevelation. No characteristics noted in this study only belonged to the Anglo-Scot ancestors. There were a few characteristics pointed out by both Gaelic-Irish and AngloScot participants: Not being demonstrative, restrictive emotions, keeping secrets, and leaving things unspoken.

The characteristics most important for this study are rage, low self-esteem, silence, and hopelessness (Kapur & Campbell, 2014). What was found in the literature may also help inform as to why for so many of these Irish families, creating relational space did not seem to occur. Colonialism had split the population into two to their advantage. The Gaelic-Irish and the Anglo-Scot Irish pitted against one another distracted from British control. Such conflict created a situation where the attachment was not focused on individual well-being rather than belonging to the “group” or clan. Damage to intimacy was a result of the focus on group survival. Intimacy appears to have been more about dedication to the cause than to parents.

O’Connor (1995), O’Loughlin, (2013), and Murdock (2008) refer to the Great Hunger as central to the discussion on the Gaelic-Irish psyche. The literature acknowledges transgenerational aspects of growing up and maturing in the relational matrix. For the Gaelic-Irish population, what Volkan (2007) refers to as a “chosen trauma” such as the Great Hunger represents a national injury (Volcan & Greer, 2007).

This study suggests that although the Anglo/Scot ancestors did not live in dire conditions as the Gaelic-Irish, they were not left unaffected since they also described

147 Ireland as an impoverished land. Though colonialism’s history began generations before, the Famine/Great Hunger influenced life for all. It means so much that so many lived in extreme poverty, unable to eke out the basics for survival, that families were split apart, that religions became the marker for who was in and who was out. The atmosphere of animosity through the generations against the “other” became the focus relationally. It is in this story of stories that conscious and unconscious energy has been placed. For this study, the Great Hunger permeates what is both present and absent for ancestors and participants. Tom Hayden (2001), a first-generation Irish American, wrote about his experience growing up with this heritage and wrote that only romanticized notions of Ireland were given in his Irish American heritage (2001). These notions were divorced from the power of such events as the Great Hunger. The scope of the blessings and the curses was never revealed.

In this study, participants did not refer to replantation or the Famine or Great Hunger at all. There were no indications that their ancestors recognized the importance of either of their Irish experiences. Participants were not allowed to explore intergenerational connections within their families, and it is unknown whether their ancestors ever saw a link. This is a space left open and has, as a result, furthered the sense of absence for these participants. Participants were left wondering why their parents/grandparents kept secrets, did not talk about their early years, displayed signs such as anger, resistance to intimacy, lack of intimacy, aversion to sharing personal information.

There are significant differences from the immigrant experience to the next generations represented in this study. It is a question of this difference. All participants who reported having children noted that they share stories of their past in their families.

148 They also stated that they share not only the facts but what the experience meant to them.

None of the children reported that they thought their children were left in the dark as they were.

Cultural inheritance is always present in families. As Bar-On (1995) suggests, sharing that heritage happens by telling stories, sharing life’s meanings, and experiencing growing up with caregivers and getting to know them. The first generation was mainly able to assist the next generation by telling the stories and connecting to the meaning.

The Clan.

It is difficult for these participants to connect to their ancestors’ losses since most were left unspoken. Immigration is a stressful event, and when there is so much left unprocessed, it remains even in a new land. This disconnection from the experience of loss has the potential for what Bar-On (1995) noted “suspicion, fear, anger” Not being able to access the emotional content can lead to what has been discussed as a paranoidschizoid view of life. Anxiety is left that the world is not safe when so much is left internalized and unprocessed. The way to solve this dilemma is to use defenses such as disavowal, dissociation, and others. The Clan assists members in removing the unwanted thoughts and feelings from their lives. A few of our participants describe that their parents were highly protective of their family. Outsiders were seen with suspicion. One participant noted; it was as if those coming into the family through marriage needed to be accepted by the “clan.” In Ireland, the “clan” included all those included in the family.

The clan provided safety, identity, clarity of purpose, and dominant ideology. Absolute

149 loyalty to the clan was expected and demanded. Disloyalty could mean being cut off from the family and, in Ireland, possible assassination.

In her book, Ambiguous Loss, Boss (2015) notes that many immigrant families left their homeland, sometimes taking their families with them and sometimes leaving them behind. The purpose was to find employment to provide for their families or to satisfy their “itch for adventure” (p. 359). For this study, one Anglo-Scot participant noted that their grandfather left Ireland with a few of his sons to work in the mines to provide for their family and possibly have an adventure. This family finally immigrated to the United States, traveled by covered wagon over the mountains to the west coast, and eventually settled in the prairies and raised nine children. Boss, in her book, refers to the 19thcentury woman on the plains, moving to the cities as “the uprooting and repeated goodbyes took a high toll on immigrant women on the plains whose family connections had already been broken” (p 359).

Participants described little to no connection to Irish relatives either remaining in Ireland or immigrants themselves in this study. Most did not appear to be “cut off” relationships by choice but rather because of emigrating itself. There were, however, a few instances of family cutoffs related to pre-immigration conversions. One participant noted that his grandmother was disconnected from her family when she converted from Catholicism to Protestantism. The result was a closely-knit family, with one part of their family excluded with no information about them. Another interviewee also pondered if her family was cut off from relatives because of her grandmother’s possible conversion— loss of family, especially when so many were gone after the Famine. She did not know this for a fact but thought it may have been the case.

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Resilience.

These participants, however, also noted that their parents/grandparents were able to support their family. Though alcohol use certainly influenced the family’s financial security, the spouse became the breadwinner in all cases. This was true for both GaelicIrish and Anglo-Scot Irish in the new land. As immigrants, these ancestors had what it took to gain employment and become middle class. This speaks to the change that immigration can have - given the opportunity to provide, they could do so. (Bar-On, 1995) Even with distressed family and social backgrounds, these immigrants are described as taking steps necessary for their family’s financial security. Rachael states she is surprised her grandparent “did as well as they did consider where they came from.”

In two cases where the family’s father was abusing alcohol, their wife became the breadwinner and kept them together. There was no real discrepancy in how the GaelicIrish or the Anglo-Scot Irish ancestors described their ancestor’s financial ability.

Implications for Clinical Treatment The necessity to explore secrecy and the unspoken in family lore.

This study considers the importance of secrecy and what is left unspoken. Bar-On (1995) suggests that immigrants can remain silent about their lives before immigration as a protective device, not to burden the next generation with their trauma. O’Connor (1995) suggests the secrecy is related to a malignant shame. This study also indicates that remaining speechless and defensive about “personal” matters could be related to their ancestors’ inability to process and consider the meaning of their experiences, so they

151 were unable to communicate. Without the ability to process, the ancestors may have felt overwhelmed with what remained unknown of their lives and utilized defenses to fend off what was not tolerable. To this end, then in the clinical situation, the work with the next generation may be having the client process their own experiences differently than the previous generation. The client may have learned how to deal with uncomfortable aspects of their lives by halting before becoming overwhelming. It is important to note the tolerance level of clients. The therapeutic encounter can offer a safe way of exploring even uncomfortable aspects. Naming how the distancing behaviors of the caregiver impacted the client may be a significant part of the work. Bar-On notes that the modeling of day-by-day living also does transmission. This was reflected in this study, where a number of participants noted that they incorporated their parents’ focus on having a strong work ethic. The clinical work does need to acknowledge what was indeed passed on even though much was left unspoken. The distance, in most cases, did not mean that there was not a relational matrix that was significant.

Importance of ambiguous loss, no expectation of closure.

This study considered the impact of ancestors coming from a society with little to no hope that the future would significantly improve. Ambiguous loss, in this study, was also found in participants’ sadness of relational loss where their caregiver was distant and defensive. Whether the ancestor was still living or not, there was a general sadness that they would not or did not have an opportunity to know their parents and, more importantly, feel connected emotionally.

152 Disappointment.

This study noted the importance of disappointment in the relational matrix. Our youngest participant reported his involvement in Irish affairs not only because of being exposed to stories of death and destruction in Ireland but also because he witnessed his parents’ profound disappointment in the “cause” when they appeared to be dismissed at a very public event. He was a teenager at the time and remained involved in the cause himself but did so differently than his parents. Disappointment can fuel a direction, but it can often be an unspoken injury.

Communication styles may be built on protecting rather than revealing.

As clinicians, it is important to understand, as this study noted, that communication styles can be more about protecting than revealing. Defenses are needed to protect from being overwhelmed. Still, the research suggests that in Ireland and other countries where the population was subjugated, a style of communication could develop that’s purpose was to keep hidden rather than expose. Generations of relating in this manner could lead to types of communication that are not conducive to developing intimacy.

McGoldrick states, The inexpressiveness of the Irish in therapy may not reflect active resistance, but rather a blocking off of their emotions even from themselves. They may also fear being “pinned down” and may use mystifying language to avoid it—what the English call “talking Irish”—through verbal innuendo, ambiguity, and metaphor.

(2005, p. 598)

153 Pleasure and relationships.

Clients often come to clinicians with complex relationships with caregivers. This study suggests what Moss (2010) noted that clients could incorporate violent acts by their parents with their desire for intimacy in the relational field. The clinical work can address this complexity and explore how this isn’t an either/or situation. Both can exist— deploring the acts of the person while also loving them.

Impact of prolonged trauma through the generations.

The research for this study noted what Kapur & Campbell (2015) highlighted t that trauma has a significant impact on the “core of the self” (p. 271). The impact on the relational matrix in areas such as attachment is significant. For this study, one aspect of attachment is highlighted—attachment to a cause. Next generations raised by parents who have withstood prolonged and intergenerational trauma can indeed find their attachment as Freud suggested: “We love one another dearly . . . if we have someone to hate” (p.

268). Ireland has been in a mindset where the cause is a primary attachment. As noted in the discussion of states of mind, close interpersonal relationships require toleration of vulnerability and ambiguity.

Kapur & Campbell note that the rigidity so pervasive in the current Northern Ireland population leads to more “aggressive object relations” (p. 270). This study considered the paranoid-schizoid aspects of object relations when hatred of vulnerability focused on the “strong man” transgenerationally.

Freud noted the split when love is for one’s own group balanced by a hatred of anyone considered the “other.” Object Relations then is suggested as a treatment for

154 individuals and groups, focusing on attachment on what goals lead to one having a better life and not on relationships that divide. Thus, the chosen trauma of a group can be healed one person at a time by working toward a more internal change of heart with increasingly less focus on who is seen as the enemy.

Recommendations for Future Research 1. What was most notable in this study was the immigrant not having religion take on the same role in their new land as it did in Ireland. Sectarianism was part of the Irish identity for generations, yet there was little to no impact on the next generation after immigration in this study. Was this because these immigrant ancestors were not as impacted as much of the research notes? Or was it rather because these immigrants focused on assimilation, and sectarianism wasn’t a significant focus in the United States and Canada? Possibly explore if this can happen on other issues as well.

2. Kapur & Campbell (2019) explore the impact of generations of civil, political, and religious turmoil on the relational matrix. Their focus on object relations as an avenue to assist in healing the relational field may offer insight into work with immigrants from other war-torn countries as they seek to begin a new life. The impact of defending oneself from those deemed the “other” could influence relationships in general.

3. This study suggests that the most affected by the ravages of poverty were the Roman Catholics. Though Protestants also reported their ancestors lived in poverty, they did not report the profound impact of the breaking up of families, the early

155 death of parents, and the lack of opportunities that the Gaelic Irish did. Studies that show the impact of disinvestment on parts of the population can lead to more effective policies that provide for the needs of all people.

4. It may be helpful to have studies considering the role of religious authority, such as the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, and the transfer of authority from the colonizer to religious leaders. A subjugated people may be more vulnerable to giving authority to another leader, institution. Thus, exploring the impact of subjugation. McGoldrick suggests clinicians have been successful in treatment by using Irish history: Furthermore, they use the political metaphors of colonization as the framework for their whole therapy, scrutinizing the potential role of therapy itself carefully to “colonize” or oppress clients, as the Irish themselves had been colonized. (2005, p.

609).

5. In Ireland, it was suggested that the Gaelic-Irish population mainly focused more on satisfying the group than developing an awareness of individual authority. Thus, it may be useful to explore the influence of subjugation, developing homogeneous groups, and the development of the self.

6. In the United States, where we have a history of enslavement and colonization, studies of transgenerational damage done to the relational matrix would benefit. Kapur & Campbell (2019) and others noted in this study are offered as examples for further study of transgenerational effects of power over others. It is also important in everyday clinical practice and our participation in societal affairs to acknowledge the pervasiveness of the pulls toward scarcity thinking rather than

156 abundance thinking. As long as we have believed that another’s growth and ability to thrive jeopardize individuals, families, and culture, progress will remain vulnerable to negative forces.

Conclusion This study began to explore the effects of having parents and grandparents from a war-torn country on the next generation. In particular, the Roman Catholic participants described an Ireland devoid of needed resources, opportunities, and self-efficacy. The ravages of colonialism permeated this study without having been mentioned once. Many countries in the world have practices that disenfranchise major parts of their populations.

This study highlights the results of policies that promote one group over another.

Mental health practitioners have an obligation to witness what they are exposed to in their individual, group, and family treatment. Where lawyers, doctors, and teachers profess the impact of negative policies on the population, Mental health practitioners are often silent. We know well the cost of discrimination, disengagement, and disenfranchisement, yet little is stated in the public sphere. Society needs to hear the voices of those witnesses to the impact of social stressors that negatively impact the relational matrix in all forms. The silence is deafening when there isn’t public information to assist society in understanding the vulnerability of being attracted to the message of authoritarians, bigots, and usurpers of power.

The last few years reminds me of O’Loughlin (2013) when he stated his family was upset that he revealed “secrets” that were to remain unspoken. Mental Health practitioners who have spoken out on the disorders that have plagued us have received

157 consternation from their peers for revealing the underbelly of the dangerous. What is fueling the lack of professional accountability to our profession? There is a need for community mental health where practitioners assist the population in understanding healthy and disorder relationship dynamics. We talk about domestic violence now but remain silent as millions are captivated by a cultish, dangerous, social tearing at the basic fabric of human decency: the most recent assault on democracy in the United States.

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Appendix A Press Release

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October 1, 2013 DISSERTATION STUDY SEEKING IRISH-AMERICANS WITH HERITAGE FROM NORTHERN Ireland Looking for participants for a study entitled: INTERGENERATIONAL LEGACY OF POLITICAL TURMOIL IN NORTHERN IRELAND. Participants will consist of adults who have a heritage with parent(s) who were raised in Northern Ireland. The study will ask you to commit to completing one simple questionnaire, and one interview lasting 1 - 1 ½ hrs. Location and time of meeting will be chosen according to your convenience

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Appendix B Questionnaires

161

Intergenerational Legacy of Political Turmoil Researcher: Marie McKenna, LCSW Instructions: Please fill out this questionnaire before our interview. Any location where you are not sure of exact dates, information fill in with approximate or ‘you think so’.

PARTICIPANT DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION: Name: ________________________ Male: _____ Female: _______ Address: ______________________ Phone:________________________ Year of Birth: __________________ Country of Birth: ________________ If born outside of USA at what age did you immigrate: _______________________ Marital Status: __________ If Married /Committed Relationship what is (was) ethnic heritage of partner: ___________________ Employed? Yes___ No___

If yes: Job title/type: ___________________

Retired? Yes ____ No____ If yes: Most prominent activity: __________________ Level of Education: ______________________ Religion you were raised in if any: ___________________________________ Religion you are currently practicing if any: ___________________________

Questionnaire (2) Demographics for Family: Person First Name Country of Birth Self Mother Father

Age of Immigration

Religious Affiliation

162 Maternal Grand Mother Maternal GrandFather Paternal GrandMother Paternal GrandFather Other Significant Relationship Other Significant Relationship Other

Of these people put a star ** beside the name of those who you most see as identifying with their Irish heritage.

163 Questionnaire (3) Do you identify yourself as Irish-American? __________ American? __________ Other? __________________ Are you involved in any Irish –American organizations/agencies/causes? Yes__________ No__________ If yes which one(s): ________________________________________________________________________ __ Do you frequent foods/stores/entertainment that is considered from Irish culture?

Yes______ No_____ ________________________________________________________________________ __________________

Do tend to listen to Irish Music? Yes______________ No___________ Have you been or currently pursuing information regarding family history?

Yes____________ No__________________ . If yes what kind of information: ________________________________________________________________________ _____________________ Have you travelled to Ireland? Yes: ______________ No: ________________ If yes did you visit in the North: _____________________ If yes what year(approximate) __________ Do you have close relatives still in Northern Ireland? Yes___________ No_______________ If yes, do you keep in contact with them? ___________________________________________________

164

Appendix C Individual Consent for Participation in Research

165 INSTITUTE FOR CLINICAL SOCIAL WORK

I,______________________________________, acting for myself (or for my child _________________________________), agree to take part in the research entitled: Intergenerational Legacy of Political Turmoil (use a title that can be understood exactly by the participants).

This work will be carried out by Marie McKenna, LCSW(Principal Researcher) under the supervision of Joan DiLeonardi, Ph.D.(Dissertation Chair or Sponsoring Faculty) This work is conducted under the auspices of the Institute for Clinical Social Work; 200 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 407; Chicago, IL 60601; (312) 726-8480).

Purpose The purpose of this study is to explore the experiences of Irish-Americans with a heritage from Northern Ireland. This study will explore if and how ethnopolitical turmoil of the past influences next generations. Consideration will be on personal/family world views, relationships, personal identity and beliefs. This is a research study for the purposes of completion of requirements for a Ph.D. Results of this study will be documented in dissertation report. This report will be in public domain and could be used by scholars as they pursue issues raised in this study.

PROCEDURES USED IN THE STUDY AND THE DURATION This study will require participants to complete one demographic questionnaire, meet for one interview (1-1 1/2 hr. duration). This study relies on personal reflection and sharing about growing up Irish-American. The interview will be digital-audio recorded in order for the researcher to consider the importance of the material presented. This study revolves around stories, personal, family, cultural. This is a study that keeps individual experiences intact rather than melding together to come to a general summary.

Benefits There are no direct benefits to participants in this study. This study may benefit society by increasing understanding of the effects of ethnopolitical turmoil on future generations. War is costly not only to those who are directly impacted but down the family system.

Costs Describe any monetary costs to the participants (for travel, tests, etc.). If the costs are being covered by a sponsor or by the researcher, state that. If there are no costs associated with participation, state that explicitly.

Participants are asked to acquire their own transportation for interviews. There is no payment for time spent in interview.

166 Possible Risks and/or Side Effects Though there are no inherent risks anticipated from this study it is recognized that reflection on personal material may raise a negative emotional response. During the interview participants will be reminded that they are not required to answer any question they do not want to answer, stop the interview at any time, and withdraw from the study. They will also be reminded that the researcher is a mandated reporter and when required by law confidentiality will be broken. No identifying information will be used when the results of the study are presented or published. At the completion of the interview information will be given as to signs to watch out for and resources to assist if needed. The researcher is available after the interview to speak with if there is a need to do so. Participants will also be given the names of (3) clinicians who are able/willing to meet for a consultation session.

Privacy and Confidentiality Participants names will be known only to the researcher, Marie McKenna, LCSW. Data that is shared with transcriptionist and Faculty Sponsor will use code instead of names. All material collected is stored in a locked cabinet and a password protected computer. All materials will be disposed of at the end of 5 years after the study completion. Written materials will be shredded and digital/audio recordings will be erased.

Subject Assurances: By signing this consent form, I agree to take part in this study. I have not given up any of my rights (my child’s rights) or released this institution from responsibility for carelessness.

I may cancel my consent and refuse to continue in this study (or take my child out of this study) at any time without penalty or loss of benefits. My relationship with the staff of the ICSW will not be affected in any way, now or in the future, if I (or my child) refuse to take part, or if I begin the study and then withdraw.

If I (or my child) have any questions about the research methods, I can contact Marie McKenna, LCSW(Principal Researcher) or Dr. Joan DiLeonardi(Dissertation Chair/Sponsoring Faculty), at this phone number (Marie McKenna: 708-446-7276 (day/evening), If I have any questions about my rights – or my child’s rights – as a research subject, I may contact Theresa Vidalon Chair of Institutional Review Board; The Institute for Clinical Social Work at Robert Morris Center, 401 South State Street, Suite 822, Chicago, IL, 60605 at (773) 319-9587 or Theresa.vidalon@gmail.com.

167 Signatures [All consent forms must be signed and dated. They must be explained to the participants and witnessed by the person who is explaining the procedure.]

I have read this consent form and I agree to take part (or, to have my child take part) in this study as it is explained in this consent form. _________________________________ Signature of Participant

_____________ Date

_________________________________ Signature of child (if over 10 years)

_______________ Date

I certify that I have explained the research to _____________________ (Name of subject or child) and believe that they understand and that they have agreed to participate freely.

I agree to answer any additional questions when they arise during the research or afterward. ________________________________ Signature of Researcher Revised 6 Sep 2006

______________ Date

168

Appendix D Open-Ended Questions/Probes

169 Open-Ended Questions/Probes •

What is it like to grow up with a family with your heritage?

•

What does it mean to you (if anything) that the country of your heritage has been in ethnopolitical turmoil for so many years?

•

How did (or do) your parents communicate their heritage to you?

•

When you think of” family” what comes to mind as most important from your Irish heritage? Closeness? How would you define what is important in family? Is this different than your parents?

•

Did your parents communicate their Irish heritage through stories, life lessons, music… If so can you talk about some that you remember.

•

What did you hear as most important passed down to you about being a good person?

170

Appendix E End of Interview: Questions pertaining to researcher participation.

171 •

How did you feel during this interview?

•

Are you aware of any ways that my approach has affected your ability to share your thoughts or feelings with me.

•

What stood out for you as you did your reflection?

•

Is there something I didn’t give you an opportunity to express?

•

How does my sharing of personal experience (if I do) influence your reflection? Or: what thoughts, experiences came to you with me sharing my personal experiences?

•

What did you gather intuitively that I thought about our time together?

•

How is it you find what you say here today persuasive?

172

Appendix F Researcher’s Family Letter

173

County Cork, Ireland November 18/48 Dear Cousin: Your welcome letter received to me and your Aunt Bridget.

Thank you for the money you sent. We had seen Masses said for your Grandfather and Grandmother. God rest their souls.

Your cousin Hughy O’Toole was hung in Londonderry last week for killing a policeman.

May God rest his soul and may God’s curse on Jimmie Rogers the informer, and may he burn in hell. God forgive me.

Times are not as bad as they might be. The herring is back and nearly everyone has a heart in making ends meet and the prices of fish are good. Thanks be to God. We had a grand time at Paul Muldoon’s wake, he was an old blatherskite and it looked good to see him stretched out with his big mouth closed. He is better off dead and he will burn till the dam place freezes over. He had too many friends among the Orangemen.

God curse the lot of them.

Bless your heart I almost forgot to tell you about your Uncle Danny. He took a pot shot at a turncoat from the back of a hedge but he had too much to drink and missed. God curse on the dirty drink.

I hope this letter finds you in good health and may God keep reminding you to keep sending the money.

The Brennans are 100% strong since they stopped going to America. They have kids running all over the place.

174 Fr. O’Flaherty who baptized you is feeble minded and sends you his blessing. Nellie O’Brien the brat you used to go to school with has married an Englishman. She’ll have no luck.

May God take care of the lot of you and keep you from sudden death.

Your devoted cousin, Timothy.

PS: Things look bright again – every police barracks and every Protestant church has been burned to the ground in County Cork. Thanks be to God. The priest called on Mrs. O’Leary to give a donation to Church and she says: “My son sent me $10.00 for a permanent and I’m not giving it to the Church”. “Well”, he says “the Blessed Virgin never had one” – “no” she says “nor Jesus Christ never had a car.

175

Appendix G Poems/Songs

176

Song of Ireland I remember daddy playing on the violin, jigs and reels that he brought from Ireland.

And I’m the first born in America, my friend.

I have never been there but someday I’ll take a trip.

I’ll cross the ocean on a big long silver ship.

Hear them sing those songs I learned from Mama’s knee; I just close my eyes and I can almost see, those shamrock hills and those forty shades of green.

And the roots that tie me to a land I’ve never known... are calling me home, are calling me home. https://youtu.be/hsSVVlFCgR4

177 Isle of Hope, Isle of Tears On the first day of January 1892 They opened Ellis Island and they let the people through And the first to cross the threshold of that isle of hope and tears Was Annie Moore from Ireland who was all of 15 years Isle of hope, isle of tears Isle of freedom, isle of fears But it’s not the isle you left behind That isle of hunger, isle of pain Isle you’ll never see again But the isle of home is always on your mind In a little bag, she carried all her past and history And her dreams for the future in the land of liberty And courage is the passport when your old world disappears But there’s no future in the past when you’re 15 years Isle of hope, isle of tears Isle of freedom, isle of fears But it’s not the isle you left behind That isle of hunger, isle of pain Isle you’ll never see again But the isle of home is always on your mind When they closed down Ellis Island in 1943 17 million people had come there for sanctuary

178 And in springtime when I came here and I stepped onto its piers I thought of how it must have been when you’re 15 years Isle of hope, isle of tears Isle of freedom, isle of fears But it’s not the isle you left behind That isle of hunger, isle of pain Isle you’ll never see again But the isle of home is always on your mind But the isle of home is always on your mind (Graham, B.) https://youtu.be/10Pb2ia28QM

179 Long Journey Home If on every ocean the ship is a throne And for each mast cut down another sapling is grown Then I could believe that I’m bound to find A better life than I left behind But as you ascend the ladder Look out below where you tread For the colors bled as they overflowed Red, white and blue Green, white and gold So I had to leave from my country of birth As for each child grown tall Another lies in the earth And for every rail we laid in the loam There’s a thousand miles of the long journey home But as you ascend the ladder Look out below where you tread For the colors bled as they overflowed Red, white and blue Green, white and gold (Costello, E. & Moloney, P.) https://youtu.be/zOF6zC5Bpr4

180 Whatever You Say, Say Nothing I’m writing this just after an encounter With an English journalist in search of ‘views On the Irish thing’. I’m back in winter Quarters where bad news is no longer news, Where media-men and stringers sniff and point, Where zoom lenses, recorders and coiled leads Litter the hotels. The times are out of joint But I incline as much to rosary beads As to the jottings and analyses Of politicians and newspapermen Who’ve scribbled down the long campaign from gas And protest to gelignite and Sten, Who proved upon their pulses ‘escalate’, ‘Backlash’ and ‘crack down’, ‘the provisional wing’, ‘Polarization’ and ‘long-standing hate’. Yet I live here, I live here too, I sing, Expertly civil-tongued with civil neighbours On the high wires of first wireless reports, Sucking the fake taste, the stony flavours Of those sanctioned, old, elaborate retorts: ‘Oh, it’s disgraceful, surely, I agree.’ ‘Where’s it going to end?’

‘It’s getting worse.’ ‘They’re murderers.’ ‘Internment, understandably …’ The ‘voice of sanity’ is getting hoarse. III ‘Religion’s never mentioned here,’ of course.

‘You know them by their eyes,’ and hold your tongue. ‘One side’s as bad as the other,’ never worse. Christ, it’s near time that some small leak was sprung In the great dykes the Dutchman made To dam the dangerous tide that followed Seamus.

Yet for all this art and sedentary trade I am incapable. The famous Northern reticence, the tight gag of place And times: yes, yes. Of the ‘wee six’ I sing Where to be saved you only must save face And whatever you say, you say nothing. Smokesignals are loud-mouthed compared with us: Manoeuvrings to find out name and school, Subtle discrimination by addresses With hardly an exception to the rule That Norman, Ken and Sidney signalled Prod And Seamus (call me Sean) was sure-fire

181 Pape. O land of password, handgrip, wink and nod, Of open minds as open as a trap, Where tongues lie coiled, as under flames lie wicks, Where half of us, as in a wooden horse, Were cabin’d and confined like wily Greeks, Besieged within the siege, whispering morse. IV This morning from a dewy motorway I saw the new camp for the internees: A bomb had left a crater of fresh clay In the roadside, and over in the trees Machine-gun posts defined a real stockade. There was that white mist you get on a low ground And it was déjà-vu, some film made Of Stalag 17, a bad dream with no sound. Is there a life before death? That’s chalked up In Ballymurphy. Competence with pain, Coherent miseries, a bite and sup: We hug our little destiny again (Heaney, S., p. 123). https://youtu.be/OpDw5n_rb5I

182 Easter, 1916 I have met them at close of day Coming with vivid faces From counter or desk among grey Eighteenth-century houses.

I have passed with a nod of the head Or polite meaningless words, Or have lingered awhile and said Polite meaningless words, And thought before I had done Of a mocking tale or a gibe To please a companion Around the fire at the club, Being certain that they and I But lived where motley is worn: All changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born.

That woman’s days were spent In ignorant good-will, Her nights in argument Until her voice grew shrill.

What voice more sweet than hers When, young and beautiful,

183 She rode to harriers?

This man had kept a school And rode our wingèd horse; This other his helper and friend Was coming into his force; He might have won fame in the end, So sensitive his nature seemed, So daring and sweet his thought.

This other man I had dreamed A drunken, vainglorious lout.

He had done most bitter wrong To some who are near my heart, Yet I number him in the song; He, too, has resigned his part In the casual comedy; He, too, has been changed in his turn, Transformed utterly: A terrible beauty is born.

Hearts with one purpose alone Through summer and winter seem Enchanted to a stone To trouble the living stream.

The horse that comes from the road,

184 The rider, the birds that range From cloud to tumbling cloud, Minute by minute they change; A shadow of cloud on the stream Changes minute by minute; A horse-hoof slides on the brim, And a horse plashes within it; The long-legged moor-hens dive, And hens to moor-cocks call; Minute to minute they live; The stone’s in the midst of all.

Too long a sacrifice Can make a stone of the heart.

O when may it suffice?

That is Heaven’s part, our part To murmur name upon name, As a mother names her child When sleep at last has come On limbs that had run wild.

What is it but nightfall?

No, no, not night but death; Was it needless death after all?

For England may keep faith

185 For all that is done and said.

We know their dream; enough To know they dreamed and are dead; And what if excess of love Bewildered them till they died?

I write it out in a verse— MacDonagh and MacBride And Connolly and Pearse Now and in time to be, Wherever green is worn, Are changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born. (W. D. Yeats)

186

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