The notion that St. Patrick wasn’t Irish may sound sacrilegious, but Ireland’s most famous patron saint was, in fact, born abroad.
Captured from mainland Britain — which was at the time under Roman rule — he arrived in his adopted land against his wishes. Eventually escaping Ireland, he later returned there on his own volition, leaving his mark as the religious figure we celebrate.
Today, crowds gather — as they do every year — on account of a saint who lived 16 centuries ago. It isn’t simply that everybody becomes Irish for a day. It’s rather that the Irish experience, like the experience of St. Patrick, resonates so broadly. Theirs is a story of departure as well as arrival, a reminder of leaving home, of those left behind.
My mom’s parents lived their entire lives outside a small village in the southwest of Ireland. My grandmother visited England once, but my grandfather never left his country. He insisted that if the Lord had meant for him to be anywhere else, He would have put him there.
Over the course of 24 years, my grandparents had 16 children: 8 daughters, 8 sons, no twins. My mom was the 15th. Of the 16, 14 lived into adulthood. Thirteen left home, 12 for the United Kingdom or the United States. Though five returned to Ireland later in life, only one stayed behind.
For my grandparents — and for my grandmother especially — each departure delivered its own heartache.
Sixty-two years ago today, the family assembled outside their farmhouse, speaking few words as they watched the two oldest sisters set off to pursue vocations at a convent in Wales.
The young women got into a car that carried them up their lane and out of sight. My mom was an infant. Her sisters were 18 and 20. Ten years passed before they saw each other again.
When another sister, Eileen, became the first to leave for America, to work in Sacramento, my mom was 5 by then — old enough to remember. She stood out at the front gate beside her mother after Eileen left for Shannon Airport. For a long while, she stared up at the sky, wondering whether she might be able to see her sister’s airplane passing overhead.
The family only learned of Eileen’s safe arrival weeks later, when a letter arrived in the mail.
With so much of the world now at our fingertips, how easy it is for us to deny distance. As we share moments instantly with our loved ones, wherever they may be, it’s difficult to appreciate the significance so often carried in an envelope from abroad.
For years, a single term applied to both emigration and immigration: exile. Not somebody living in exile or being exiled, but the person herself or himself branded an exile. Today, this word certainly relates to political dissidents and the tens of millions who are displaced, refugee or stateless. Rarely is it applied with respect to the emigrant at home or the immigrant abroad.
Thankfully for many, the act of leaving one place for another is less likely to involve the permanence of departures of ages past. Still, the pain of distance remains, and is especially stark during moments involving love or loss.
My mom’s sister Eileen moved more than 40 years ago from Sacramento to Tucson, Ariz. I remember sitting with her there on the patio in her backyard under the desert sun, a long distance from her childhood in the green fields of Ireland. She recalled a short verse from a poem, its attribution long since forgotten, but its words nevertheless remaining with her for many years:
An exile ne’er forgets the place where he was born.
‘Tis every night he goes to bed
And wakes there in the morn’.
On St. Patrick’s Day of all days, may we remember the exile in every immigrant, from every land. It’s an Irish story, sure, but it’s also all our stories.
Carlson was formerly a manager of global communications and public affairs at Google. He is currently completing a book about emigration through the lens of his mother’s experiences from Ireland to London and New York.