I grew up in an Irish Catholic home in San Francisco across the street from Dolores Park, and though it was technically a “broken home” since my parents were divorced, it was a crowded broken home with my Irish immigrant grandparents, Thomas and Agnes Corrigan, an eccentric aunt named Vee for Veronica, and my single father, Thomas, Jr., a foreman at the Post Office. I should add, the church was not pleased that my father was divorced and raising a child, which was rare in a Catholic home at that time.
One evening after I had gone to bed, my grandfather and father, “having had a drop taken,” as the Irish quaintly say, woke me up.
“It’s time,” Grandfather said.
“Yes,” Father said. “It is time.”
“Time for what?” I asked, trying to wake up.
“Time for the oath,” Father said
“Oath?”
I knew the age of reason was seven, also the age when a person could knowingly commit mortal sins.
“Oath to what?”
Grandfather put a huge bible on the nearby table, told me to place my left hand on it, and raise my right hand. Still sleepy, I did so.
“Repeat after me,” he said. “I promise to follow the one holy apostolic Catholic Church to the end of my days.”
I swore to do so.
“There’s more,” Father said. “We are born Democrats and baptized a few days later. Swear to never vote Republican.”
“I swear to never vote Republican,” I repeated.
“Good,” Grandfather said. “It’s done.”
At that moment, I smelled alcohol on their breath. It had to be Jameson whiskey since Irish Protestants drank Bushmills. I had heard that ordering Bushmills in an Irish Catholic-run tavern could result in a deadly confrontation. This was true for Jameson Whiskey ordered in a Protestant tavern.
“Off to bed,” Father finally said.
“Wait,” Grandfather said. “Should we not seal this ceremony with a drink?”
“He is a bit young to have a drink,” Father said. “That’s also an Irish cliche our enemies often use.”
“True,” Grandfather said, “but it is a good man’s failing.”
“Maybe he could have a little sip, then.”
They poured Jameson whiskey into a shot glass. I took a sip. It had a sharp taste that I would one day learn to savor, becoming another Irish cliche. I blinked, hearing a streetcar rolling by on the tracks above the house. By then, I had grown fond of the train sounds of streetcars in the night.
I went to sleep hearing their voices as they argued in the adjacent kitchen about the politics of the day, including a united Ireland. For all its beauty, Ireland was a country ravaged by civil war. The so-called “Irish troubles” ended with the signing of the Good Friday Agreement on April 10, 1998.
As I grew into my teens, Veronica left the house. I came home one afternoon and found Agnes lying in bed, unable to speak. She died shortly after, of what was diagnosed as a stroke. Thomas, Sr., a hard-working, no-nonsense man, was grief-stricken and cried every day, dying on a Sunday morning a year later. Father called a priest who arrived before the ambulance.
I left the house after turning 21, and by then, my parents had remarried. I was never convinced it was a good idea, but that is another story. As for the “oath,” I have kept one part of it to this day: to never vote Republican.
(1) comment
Great article. In the South before it became the racist haven that it is now. The old saying was, "I would vote for a yellow dog as long as he was a Democrat as opposed to a Repugnant." I am a yellow dog democrat.
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