An Irish Herpetologist in Hawaii?!
Oh, really!? There is a wonderful book titled 'Eats Shoots and Leaves', by Lynn Truss. It is a humorous analysis of the importance of proper grammar (such as the critical role the lowly comma has in helping readers of English make good sense out of what they are reading). There is also a great (and hoary old) Australian joke about a horny Koala Bear, who 'eats, roots, shoots and leaves (departs)...' Snicker. This blog is about neither of those two subjects.
As I have many times lamented, my attenuated attention span (thanks to undiagnosed ADD as a child) has necessitated a formidably energy-intensive effort to stay on focus for most of my life. However that may be, it is likely also the primary reason (not without a heavy dose of irony) why I tend to be a sort of self-constructed renaissance person, an autodidact, possessed of a broad array of ever-changing quotidian interests, fascinations, enthusiasms and passions (albeit most of them somewhat superficial, admittedly). The proverbial ‘jack of all trades, master of none’. Poor Jack! In these days when the basic admissions ticket to just about everything is a graduate degree in something or other, those who lack such bonafides are usually, as we used to delicately put it in the US Air Force, SOL.
Fortunately, I have one or two of those fancy sheepskins (reading history, a subject that has scant regard these days) on my wall as evidence of my bona fides, but I will be the first among my peers to admit that my fancy-schmancy academic credentials had little, if anything, to do with what I today count among my more learned awarenesses. In fact, most of what I prize among my life-accomplishments were the result of my habit of ferocious reading. Although, truth be told, I have more half-read books among the contents of my library (and it is rather large) than completed works. My ADD again…
Sometimes, regarding the uncorralled stacks of books that are not fortunate enough to find a shelf to rest upon in my reading room, I get the same, profoundly lost feeling I once experienced, gazing upon the vast trove of ancient wisdom that is the library at Dublin’s Trinity College. It is a feeling I imagine a sinner would experience, were he to unexpectedly discover that perdition is actually paradise!
But this is a digression (such as I am so prone to make), since what I am directing these thoughts and opinions towards today is what is fully half of my genetic inheritance. According to both my family’s recorded history and a recent DNA assessment, fully half of me is rooted in Ireland. With a father whose name was Peadar Thaddeus Carey, one would already be inclined to accept that fact without further proof, but there it was on the readout of my personal genome, staring me in the face like some shadowy accuser sitting on the bench of ethnic proclaiment and silently pointing me out to the equally shadowy jury filling the imaginary courtroom. Not surprisingly, I have a healthy dollop of Norwegian coursing through my veins, attributable to all those fierce Norsemen who invaded the Irish coast, back in the mists of antiquity, but there is also the expected quotient of Celt blood, and even, so the haploid genotype postulates, a smattering of ancient Phoenician (since the original settlers of much of Scandinavia were actually of that far-ranging race of seafaring traders). Nevertheless, and disregarding the rest of my DNA map, I choose here to focus on my Irish ancestry.
This awareness of my father’s Irish origins has resulted in periodic spurts of intense pro-Irish activity throughout my life, ranging from immersion in Irish home-style traditional music to frustrating attempts to plough my way by blunt force through James Joyce’s Ulysses, and other hopeless tasks.
Back in my formative Berkeley radical days (70s), I would quite often work up the other residents of the boarding house I resided within into an absolute fury by playing endless recorded renditions of the Clancy Brothers, the Chieftains and other ‘Irish bands’ at excruciatingly high volume. On the odd night, my mates and I (most of whom were equally radical but not Irish-ancestried) would frequent the local Starry Plough Pub on Berkeley’s Shattuck Avenue.
All of this characterises what one might expect from a recent post-adolescent whose awareness of just about everything in the world of human experience is still markedly limited, naturally enough. In regards to Irish culture, trying to get a grip on the full history and complexity of Ireland and its peoples is surely a Sisyphean task at best, even for a mature, fully grown adult with an academic background. In fact, any attempt whatsoever to fully fathom or comprehend the least, tiny smidgen of knowledge about Irish history and culture is not unlike taking a leisurely amble though a deadly minefield with eyes firmly shut and wearing one’s own funeral wreath in advance of the inevitable denouement. I assure you, the subject of Ireland and its indigenous peoples is that complex!
The Irish, if one may collectively speak of that Heinz-57 mongrelised mix of cultural admixtures that the Irish contain, could conceivably require decades of determined study to even begin to understand. Irish politics, given the turbulent emotional and sentimental traits most Irish possess, are among the most unimaginably difficult aspects of Irish heritage to get one’s mind around. As a result, the most one typically encounters in terms of understanding of the culture by average Americans is that on March 17th it is mandatory to present one’s self at any tavern that advertises itself as an ‘Irish bar’ and drink green beer. Fortunately, any half-way savvy person of Irish descent knows instinctively that green beer is usually just absolutely terrible American beer (Budweiser, Coors, etc.) with food coloring added, remaining just as wretched as it was, without the FDA disapproved greenish tinge.
As has been pointed out so many times by those who have studied or written about the Irish (or Irish-Americans), most people under the age of 50 these days have almost no understanding at all of the least particulars concerning their Irish heritage. Whereas in America of the early 1900s Irish-Americans were generally reasonably well-advised about most things Irish, in succeeding decades (notably in the present) a state of abysmal ignorance exists about the culture. Accents still exist in the spoken language, but for the most part even today’s Irish person knows little about his nation’s truculent history.
While certainly true in America, even in Ireland itself the history of Ireland’s stormy struggles and political strife is almost entirely forgotten and lost to the young. Despite the lengthy pitched battle waged between the Irish and the English (themselves mightily mongrelized over the centuries), today's Irishman has today been subsumed unremarkably within a sort of blenderised Anglo-Saxon mix, to the point where Ireland’s ancient Gaelic heritage has been diluted almost to nothing in a prolonged dilution with English influences.
This is not remarkable in that it is typical of human history everywhere on earth, wherein one culture is conquered and internalised within another to the point where acculturisation is virtually a fait accompli.
But of course, it is difficult for the cultural student (neophyte that he or she may be) to wholly understand why there is so little real present-day interest in Irish history, in Ireland or anywhere else outside the ivied halls. That certainly has been my situation from time to time, as my interest in Irish culture waxes and wanes.
To cite an example whereof I speak, I very recently scanned the internet in an attempt to find Irish-connected associations in this area (Sacramento, CA). Despite the fact that, according to several sources a great many people claiming Irish ancestry live in this state, there were hardly any businesses, organisations, clubs or fraternities claiming to be ‘Irish’. The only one that even came close is a group that calls itself the almost unimaginably original and clever 'Shamrock Club’ and as I might have guessed, they are established in the east side of this sprawling metropolis that is Greater Sacramento (I reside on the west side, a distance of about 20 miles). The Shamrock Club informs the internet that it is purely a social club and that it is strictly (emphasis, emphasis) ‘apolitical’ in its sentiments. An ‘apolitical’ Irish club? That’s almost an Irish oxymoron, by bloody Saint Bridgid’s beard!
Aside from the Shamrock Club, and after winnowing through my findings a bit more carefully, there are only a scant few (three or four) public houses in the Sacramento area that ostensibly state themselves to be what one might loosely call an ‘Irish Pub’. In reality, they are more conventionalized drinking hangouts with very little attempt to emulate anything that one might construe as having any uniquely Irish flavor. The patrons of such places are a mix of ordinary people with no particular claim to Irish heritage, who vary as much among themselves as do those who frequent any American drinking hole.
Interestingly, there are a few of what I would call slightly more traditional English pubs in the city, although with one or two exceptions, they also tend to reflect a contemporary décor rather than a traditional one. To me and considering that there are probably more Irish-descended Americans in this area than purely ‘English’ descended, this is a bit surprising, except perhaps the fact that most Americans don’t know the difference between an English public house and an Irish counterpart is a likely explanation. To most Americans, just about any ‘pub’ is likely anything the owner cares to make it, without qualification or fuss.
My own concept of a worthwhile (and comfortable) pub hails back to the typical rural Irish ‘local’, with its rough-hewn wood & plaster walls, dark & rustically illuminated interiors and quaint, battered old furniture. ‘Atmosphere’ is the applicable term, but it is not something today’s younger crowd seems to be interested in, seeking out far more modern establishments furnished with plastic, steel & wi-fi.
I suppose this definitely singles me out as one of those ‘old guys’ that younger people so much seem to loathe and avoid in our slavishly youth-oriented (thanks almost completely to commercial marketing media efforts) culture. Ah well, so be it, O'Flaherty!
But to return to my quest for a better understanding of exactly who and what was my father’s side of the genome, I have in the past tried sporadically and half-heartedly to uncover the Irish lineage that links me more directly to Ireland. Unfortunately, the best I’ve been able to come up with is the fact that I bear my paternal grandfather’s Christian name, that my father was the youngest of 8 brothers and a sister, and that my grandfather emigrated from Ireland sometime during the Great Famine of 1845-1949 to settle in Trenton, NJ. There he met and married an Irish-born woman named Anna (Annie?) Flannagan. Thus, the American Carey brood (for that is the Anglo interpretation of ‘Kalei’, which is my adopted Hawaiian surname) began in a heavily Irish-settled part of New Jersey (perhaps unsurprisingly, since so many Irish established their initial American roots there).
I was also told that my father’s (grandfather’s) family hailed from County Meath in Ireland, more specifically from the part of Meath that is known as ‘Upper Navan’. When looking at a map of Ireland, it is curious for most to note that what has been known for centuries as ‘Upper Navan’ is actually down and slightly southwest of the large township of Navan. Most people are oriented in cartographic terms of north/south and therefore reflectively expect ‘upper’ to be north, rather than south, of Navan. The reason why Upper Navan is known as ‘upper’, is because it sits slightly higher on the landscape than does ‘Lower Navan’. There are in fact small hills of modest prominance to be found there, although they still largely comprise rolling, rural pastures and farmlands. Upper Navan was originally a barony, as were most of the areas in Meath many centuries ago.
And that is about as far as I have been able to proceed in my perfunctory efforts to learn more about my Irish side of the family. The maternal side of the family is comprised largely of French-Huguenot/Austrian roots in the overall sense. The sad fact is that Da (my father) passed on when I was only 4 years old. He was born in 1878, so by 1950 (when that event occurred) he was in his early 70s. And of course, being the youngest of his brothers, he was only survived by his sister, Agnes (Walsh, nee Carey).
This made it quite a challenge to learn much about any paternal relatives I may have, as may well be understood. I do recall I had a cousin living in Los Angeles, also named Christopher Carey, one’s of Da’s brother’s sons, since ‘Christopher’ seems to have been a favorite family Christian name, but I have no awareness of any children he may have had (sadly).
Today, checking things over on the internet, the name ‘Christopher Carey’ seems to be quite popular. In fact, there are several apparently well-known and reputable physicians with that name (back east) and even a few ‘Christopher T. Careys’, but insofar as learning more about any direct familial links beyond that, I have largely met a dead-end, despite attempts to raise some sort of response on the usual genealogical venues.
And since I likely have only a few more years on this planet left in my personal sidereal sojourn through space, it’s greatly unlikely that I shall ever learn much more than this before I kick the proverbial bucket (or is it really a bouquet?).
As with many frustrated pseudo-Irishmen, I have endeavored to capture as much of the Irish flavor in my life as I reasonably may (without being hauled in to the station as a complete recidivist whacko, although there are many such eccentrics indigneous to Ireland). I am quite fond of rough Irish wool tweed clothing, an affectation I’ve come into only in the past decade or so. In my wardrobe are to be found at least a dozen or so Irish flatcaps (so-called ‘newsboy’ paneled caps, snapbrims and such), along with an assortment of vintage herringbone patterned tweed jackets (Donnegal Tweed and Harris Tweed, etc., usually in shooting jacket and semi-Norfolk styles…with action backs, elbow patches, flapped pockets and ‘Revere’, or rolled collars) and as many Irish tweed vests and waistcoats. So-called Irish ‘grandfather’ shirts (collarless, buttoned at the throat) complete the effort to be sartorially correct in this expression of traditional rural Irish ethnicity.
Since I rarely have any occasion to use such garments, most of the time they sit carefully moth-protected in my closets, but every now and then, when I’m feeling particularly feisty, I’ll break out a particularly good vintage tweed jacket, don a green herringbone patterned flatcap and revel in a bit of temporary and superficially transitory Irishness. This usually occurs on Saint Patrick’s Day, but unlike so many others who are perhaps frustrated by their uncertain Irishness, I do NOT head for the local bar, drink green beer and indulge in a fake brogue. A quiet pint of Guinness, a wee small dram of good Irish whiskey and then back into the closet all these relics of a bygone past vanish once again.
Fortunately, I count among my closer confreres, a small number of equally peculiar friends who indulge me with as much equanimity as I do them. Most of them tend to be poetically inclined, writers or ‘hobby’ journalists, but all share that unique urge towards creativity that all Irishmen seem to share in one way or another. It is part of the Irish gift, I’ve been told by countless others: a thirst not just for strong spirits, but for kindred company, spirited comaraderie and good (preferably at times challenging) conversation with others who share the Irish affliction.
I do wear my Irish Republican buttons now and then, the ‘Starry Plough’ symbol of the Irish Worker’s Party being a traditional favorite that I’ve worn since being a patron of the Berkeley IRA hangout known as ‘The Starry Plough Pub’, and there is a Michael Collins button that I hold in high regard (along with a Padraigh Pearse pin). The Starry Plough Pub is still going strong in contemporary Berkeley, by the way, being something of an institution for the past 46 years, although it now tends to be frequented by mainstream leftist liberal progressive young people than by us old school, fiery-eyed Sinn Fein fanatics.
If case anyone is wondering what exactly the ‘starry plough’ actually alludes to, it is most famously part of a quote by Irish patriot James Connolly, which went: “The Irish people will only be free, when they own everything from the plough to the stars!” Connolly was a particularly quotable Irish patriot and a number of his pithy declarations remain to remind us of what it is to be a ‘true’ son of the old sod.
Consider the following, for example: "No revolutionary movement is complete without its poetical expression. if such a movement has caught hold of the imagination of the masses they will seek a vent in song for the aspirations, the fears and the hopes, the loves and the hatreds engendered by the struggle. Until the movement is marked by the joyous, defiant, singing of revolutionary songs, it lacks one of the most distinctive marks of a popular revolutionary movement, it is the dogma of a few, and not the faith of the multitude."
This sentiment ties in perfectly with the traditional Irish love for music and especially song that expresses yearning for an eventually reunified Ireland, a future time when the north and south have finally been restored to the wholly intact and integrally whole nation it should have been so many years ago.
The actual symbol of the starry plough was originally adopted by Irish republicans back in the mid-1850s for use as a flag and depicts a stylized Irish plough superimposed upon the Big Dipper star cluster on a blue or green background.
Here’s another Connolly quote worth hearkening to: "The Irishman frees himself from slavery when he realizes the truth that the capitalist system is the most foreign thing in Ireland. The Irish question is a social question. The whole age-long fight of the Irish people against their oppressors resolves itself in the last analysis into a fight for the mastery of the means of life, the sources of production, in Ireland. Who would own and control the land? The people, or the invaders, and if the invaders, which set of them - the most recent swarm of land thieves, or the sons of the thieves of a former generation?”
This last bit is a not-so-veiled reference to the Anglo-English Protestant Ascendancy, the English upper class who initially comprised the erstwhile bureaucratic rulers and administrators in post-Great Britain Ireland.
The essence of the Irish movement was, of course, socialist in nature and that doctrinal concept persists today, despite the confusion that besets naïve Americans who still confuse ‘socialism’ with ‘Communism’.
Connolly was only one of many dozens of equally articulate Irish patriots, rising to prominence over the past hundred or more years, whose messages still resound with a bell-like clarity today.
But as I said much earlier, though the history of Ireland’s culture may be at times quixotic and always complicated, Irish politics are a hundred times more frustrating to fully grasp and understand. Stirring speeches and calls to violent action do not extract for scrutiny the full scope of economic and social pressures that effect ordinary individuals, but they do provoke highly emotional reactivity in almost every application, since as we all know, emotions will invariably trump rational thought and measured consideration in any given circumstance.
The post 1916 Easter-Rising inspired Irish civil war was a good example of how difficult it was (and still is) to be a fully reconciled Irishman, given typical Irish political volatility and extant emotional proclivities. With political definitions changing on a regular basis, causes being split down the middle and concepts of what doctrinally defined Irish patriotism constantly being modified throughout the volatile 1920s, it was never easy being Irish back then. Frankly, it is no easier today, as long as Ireland remains a nation divided against itself (i.e. the 26 counties that comprise the Irish Republic versus the 6 northern-most counties that still belong to Great Britain).
Religion played, as one might expect, a quintessential role in creating the vast complexities of what many snidely refer to as ‘the Irish problem’, beginning with the conversion of the ancient Gaels and Norsemen to Christianity. When that pattern was irrevocably altered by the intrusion of England’s Protestant heritage, with the invasion of Ireland by England and its separatist religious stance, the seeds were set for several centuries of subsequent violence that even today have not been even fractionally resolved.
The same gaping (should I say ‘aping’?) arguments rage today over the nature of ‘God’ as they did back then, in an age wherein those who are truly aware, intelligent rationalists should be expected to recognise the utter, hollow futility of belief in a mythical, fictious ‘supreme deity’ (e.g. the Christian, Jewish and/or Islamic ‘God’) and reject such fantasies as exactly that: pure, projected human fantasy not worth a bucket of turgid cow exhaust. Sadly enough, although youthful non-belief is gaining a foothold among the younger generations, if anything, schismatic divisions among established religious believers seem to be getting more polar. In the case of Ireland, very recent unearthing of all the Roman Catholic 'church sanctioned' cases of clergical pederasty have merely poured fuel on the raging fires that consume the faithful.
Of course, in a larger sense, we have human lustfulness in all its undisguised excesses to thank for much of the Irish mess, given that the Church of England began as a direct challenge to the Roman Catholic Papacy by King Henry (VIII), simply because he wanted to get into as many sets of knickers as he could without running the risk of excommunication by the Italian Pimp (er, make that Pope).
Reflect on that a moment and see if you don’t find it absolutely ludicrous (breathtakingly so), as do I, that base, banal human sexuality was one of the root causes of so much bloodshed, violence and brutal inhumanity that took place over the post-Henry centuries. That so many thousands of innocent human beings died unspeakably violent deaths owing to a king’s sexual excesses, staggers the rational mind! And yet we persist in characterising our species as 'Sapiens'!
For all that, Ireland has been ripped apart several times over in just about every manner conceivable and it makes me ashamed sometimes to reflect on the simple-mindedness of so many of my Irish and English ancestors that would permit such an astounding series of consequences that had such an unimaginably horrible impact on so many lives!
My father, God rest his soul (I say that with dripping irony as a lifelong non-believer, but is the proper courtesy in Ireland, nonetheless), was a good Irish Catholic, of course, but back in those days the ancient tribal patterns of behavior and thought were far more difficult to resist than they are nowadays. One simply subscribed to one's ancestor's beliefs without question. Anything else would be considered heresy in Catholic Ireland.
Regrettably, things are now heading in the diametrically opposite direction at exponential rates, with the last vestiges of traditional religious morality dissipating, leaving millions of younger people confused about what values life mandates. After all, when you don’t have some sort of primordial, patriarchal authority figure threatening you with eternal damnation for deviating from the paths of behavioral and moral rectitude, things tend, among human beings, to get a bit, um…shall we say, chaotic? I’m not sure that that’s as good an idea as it may at first seem, since as Marx rightfully observed, ‘Religion is the (chief) opiate of the (simple-minded) masses.’ [My quotes.] Viewed in that light, sometimes (all other things being equal) religion does have its usefulness as a tool in the right hands.
But with the lack of any reasonable substitute for an alternative behavioral pattern to follow (other than the application of sheer intellectual reasoning and secular wisdom to the process of living), in the absence of traditional religious control over the steaming, stinking masses, one is left wondering when, in fact, the species will finally spontaneously combust and terminally destroy itself. Thankfully, by the time that distant eventuality finally occurs, I’ll be long gone. Neener-neener-neener!
Meanwhile that thought serves to redirect my attention to the main subject under discussion here: my recent efforts to re-immerse myself in my ancestral paternal roots.
One interesting thing I discovered, whilst researching my ostensibly Irish roots in the old country is that a goodly number of genealogists have been taking sad advantage of many trusting ‘Carey’ surnamed individuals who are, like me, taking an interest in their Irish heritage. A good example of this can be found in the markedly superficial level of interest manifested by so many who pursue their quest for an Irish identity. I refer to the search for an Irish coat of arms to hang on the wall.
As a ‘CAREY’, I also wanted to discover the proper arms for my family, so I began investigating the ancient subject of medieval heraldry. Right away, I found that almost all commercial genealogical firms specializing in selling surname-related kitsch and knickknacks (read: coffee cups emblazoned with heraldic coats of arms, et al) were steering seekers after Carey family arms to an entirely false set of heraldic devices. In fact, a superficial search of ‘coats of arms for family Carey’ will quick point to a heraldic shield depicting a diagonal band with three sybolised roses arrayed upon it. These coats of arms for the surname ‘Carey’ will be suitably put on a plaque, or set upon a coffee cup, sweatshirt or cap for a fixed amount and…presto, bingo!...one can display these artifacts proudly to one’s friends as proof that one is a card-carrying Irishman.
In reality, 99% of the time, the Carey surname thus rendered is incorrect, as the diagonal band device with three roses upon it is only correct for Carey surnames descended from (English) Devon. True Irish-derived Carey surnames have an entirely different coat of arms (there are two, actually) that have not even the most remote resemblance to the English Devon Carey device one so often sees displayed.
In fact, if one does one’s due diligence homework, one further discovers that according to the world’s most singularly regarded honorable institute of heraldry, there are NO coats of arms associated with an Irish-derived Carey surname. Fancy that! This means that if your name is Carey and you hailed originally from Ireland (and not English Devon), you have no ancient knightly forebears at all!
This unhappy fact shouldn’t prevent people from ‘adopting’ one of the two designs mentioned earlier, simply because it won’t do anyone any harm to perpetuate a mild and entirely innocuous scam by claiming to have knightly forebears.
But the fact is, unless you can actually prove that you are (as most Irishmen commonly claim, not without the benefit of a goodly number of quaffs of 4.8% Guinness Stout) directly descended from the Great King Brian Boru, your Irish ancestor was just a common villein (“…in medieval England a feudal tenant entirely subject to a lord or manor to whom he paid dues and services in return for land.”), and probably a typically impoverished, smelly, ignorant and roughly turned out one at that. Possibly even a bastard, as well. Ah well!
For myself, I have no untoward pretensions. Smell, ill-kempt, dirty and ignorant or not, I personally turned out quite well, as so many Irish did once they got out from under the imperial oppressiveness of Colonial England and regained their basic freedoms in the United States.
I should mention that I have an English brother-in-law who is one of the most insufferable bores of all time. Ostensibly educated at Oxford and now in his mid-80s, no matter what you’ve done with your life, no matter how many Nobel or Pulitzer Prizes you may have been awarded, he’s been there first or already done that, and he will never fail to remind you of this. It’s simply another excellent reason why the Irish corpuscles that circulate in my veins strongly dislike and resent most things English to this day.
One last observation here. Given the complexities of the Gaelic language, translations into English (ewww! There’s that WORD again!) are sometimes tricky. ‘Carey’, for example, is derived from the Gaelic ‘au Ciardha’, which generally means ‘dark or swarthy’. Those named Kerry (as in the case of ex-Secretary of State John Kerry) often changed their names in Ireland from Carey to Kerry for political reasons (there’s some more irony for you), and there are other permutations such as Cary and Cairigh to help complicate matters even more. Today, most of these variations have settled on plain old Anglicised ‘Carey’, but as you can see, it certainly doesn’t help simplify researches into Irish ancestral lineages.
Later this year, after having contemplated a visit to Ireland for many years, I’ll probably finally set my plan in motion. My thought is to fly into Dublin and spend about a week exploring the Upper Naven area of the western part of County Meath (this is not ‘West Meath’, which is another separate barony in itself), dropping into whatever local pubs there are to buy the residents some rounds of Guinness while making discrete inquiries about possible relatives. That and visiting the Catholic Parishes to check their records in an effort to track down Great-Grand-Da’s particulars. The other idea, if that doesn’t pan out, is to take the typical tourist bus tour through the whole of Ireland, since there’s so much beautiful countryside to see in the east, as well as in the west.
I can reassure you that once I get over there, I shall NOT ask the Irish about leprechauns, I won't fake a broque, I will NOT try to kiss the blarney stone, and I absolutely will NOT go on at length about why America is so great (not hard to do, since it is increasingly not).
I am well aware that strangers in rural areas of Ireland are typically looked upon with some typically subdued Irish disapprobation in rural local pubs, so I expect to have to buy everyone several rounds of Guinness before they grudgingly accept that I might be ‘a good Yank’, after all. Fortunately, authentic Guinness, pulled from a tap in Ireland (and totally unlike the drab imported Guinness we find here in the States), is an excellent attitude changer, Lol!
Until then, as they say in Irish Republican circles, “Tiocfaidh ár lá!” (‘Our day will come’). And hopefully so shall I (said himself with a positively lewd leer!), since even Jesus came again...
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