I was at a house party in the now vanished Irishtown of San Francisco. I'm sitting next to a fella named liam playing pipes and sharing Players Navycut cigarettes and Jamesons. All these lace curtain matrons were subtly inspecting me, dropping loaded questions like ' ah you're in the Coast Guard' so you go to mass with father Brannigan. I have a blank look and Liam with a devilish eye informs them 'Chris isn't catholic' and they recoil half crossing themselves. Liam laughed and told them ' but his family are good republicans' and they began breathing again. This white haired, pink skinned man in Donegal tweed smelling of tobacco sat down and asked about my background. I start reciting the heroic lineage like Kunte Kinte in ROOTS and he puts a hand on mine. " Ah I knew your people. I served with your great grand da. I real scrapper he was got himself excommunicated for membership in our proscribed organization .' Liam later told me he fled Ireland during the civil war when a comrade betrayed his column to the free staters and became a big longshoreman union rep.
Back in the fifties the traitor showed up in SF and didn't recognize his old adversary. This fey looking man playing with children across the room made a visit over union affairs, gave him a minute to pray and shot him dead, left an old card SPYS AND TRAITERS BEWARE IRA in his hand and walked home for tea. there were two famous pubs in SF and Oakland; IRELAND 32 and The STARRY PLOW, One was stickie ( Marxist) and the other provisional. Somebody sent a dummy practice grenade from one to the other and that thing was exchanged for decades in empty threat and foolish hostility. I walked home from all this shaking my head and recalling an irish poet of my name who wrote about the same scenes unchanged by time or distance.
Back in the fifties the traitor showed up in SF and didn't recognize his old adversary. This fey looking man playing with children across the room made a visit over union affairs, gave him a minute to pray and shot him dead, left an old card SPYS AND TRAITERS BEWARE IRA in his hand and walked home for tea. there were two famous pubs in SF and Oakland; IRELAND 32 and The STARRY PLOW, One was stickie ( Marxist) and the other provisional. Somebody sent a dummy practice grenade from one to the other and that thing was exchanged for decades in empty threat and foolish hostility. I walked home from all this shaking my head and recalling an irish poet of my name who wrote about the same scenes unchanged by time or distance.