The Children of Easter 1916- A Moment In History…

At the corner of Varner Street and East Main Street, forming a wedge in front of Phil Larkin’s old beige-bricked high school, ancient Carver High School now of blessed memory stands against all weathers a poled plaque, sometimes, perhaps, garlanded with a flower or flag. From that vantage point, upon a recent walk-by, he had noticed that it gave the old building a majestic “mighty fortress is our home” look. The plaque atop the pole, as you have probably already figured since such plaques are not uncommon in our casualty-filled, war-weary world, commemorated a fallen soldier, here of World War I, and is officially known as Frank O’Brien Square. The corners and squares of most cities and towns in most countries of the world have such memorials to their war dead, needless to say far too many.



That plaque furthermore now competes, unsuccessfully, with a huge Raider red billboard telling one and all of the latest doings; a football game here, a soccer game there, or upcoming events; a Ms. Something pageant, a cheer-leading contest, a locally produced play; or honoring somebody who gathered some grand academic achievement, won some accolade for a well-performed act and so forth. In due course that billboard too will be relegated to the “vaults" of the history of the town as well. This comment , however, is not about that possible scenario or about the follies of war, or even about why it is that young men (and now women) wind up doing the dangerous work of war that is decided by old men (and now increasingly old women), although that would be a worthy subject. No, the focus here is the name of the soldier, or rather the last name, O’Brien, and the Irish-ness of it.



A quick run through of the names of the students listed in Phil’s high school yearbook would illustrate his point. If Irish surnames were not in the majority, then they were predominant, and that did not even take into consideration the half or quarter Irish heritage that was hidden behind other names. His own family history was representative of that social mixing with a set of Irish and English-derived grandparents.  



If Carver in the old days was not exactly “Little Dublin”, the heritage of the Irish diaspora certainly was nevertheless apparent for all to see, and to hear. More than one brogue-dripped man or woman, reflecting newness to the country and to the town, could be heard by an attentive listener at Harry’s Variety Store on Sagamore Street making that bet with Harry’s book on the sure-fire winner in the sixth at Aqueduct but we will keep that hush since, who knows, the statute of limitations may still not have run out yet on that “crime,” although the horse certainly did, run out that is. Or at Doc Andrews’ Drugstore, yah, good old Doc over on the corner of Young Street and Newberry seeking, holy grail-seeking that vagrant bottle of whiskey, strictly for medicinal purposes of course.



And one did not have to be the slightest bit attentive but only within a couple of blocks of the locally famous, or infamous as the case may be, Dublin Grille to know through the mixes of brogue and rough-hewn strange language English that the newcomers had “assimilated.” To be fair, those same mixes could be heard coming piously out of Sunday morning Mass at Sacred Heart or at any hour on those gas-guzzling, smoked-fumed buses that got one hither and fro in the old town. That Carver was merely a way-station away from the self-contained Irish ghettos of Dorchester and South Boston to the Irish Rivieras, like Marshfield and heathen Cohasset and Duxbury, of the area was, or rather is, also apparent as anyone who has been in the old town of late will note.



Today Asian-Americans, particularly Chinese and Vietnamese, and other minorities have followed that well-trodden path to Carver from way-station Boston. They have made, and will make, their mark on the ethos of this hard-working working-class part of town. So while the faint aroma of corn beef and cabbage has been replaced by the pungent smells of moo shi and poi and the bucolic brogue by some sweet sing-song Mandarin dialect the life of the town moves on.



Yet, Phil could still feel, when he haphazardly walked certain streets, the Irish-ness of the diaspora “old sod” deep in his bones. To be sure, as a broken amber liquor bottle spotted on the ground reminded him, there were many, too many, father whiskey-sodden nights that many a man spent his pay on to keep his “demons” from the door. And to be sure, as well, the grandmother, Grandmother Riley in his case, passed-down ubiquitous, much dented, one-size-fits all pot on the old iron stove for the potato-laden boiled dinner (that’s the corn beef and cabbage mentioned above for the unknowing heathens) that stretched an already tight food budget just a little longer when the ever present hard times cast their shadow at that same door.



And, of course, there was the great secret cultural relic; the relentless, never-ending struggle to keep the family “dirty linen” from the public eye, from those “shawlie” eyes ready to pounce at the mere hint of some secret scandal. But also this: the passed down heroic tales of our forebears, the sons and daughters of Roisin, in their heart-rending eight hundred year struggle against the crushing of the “harp beneath the crown” (and even heathens know whose crown that was); of the whispered homages to the ghosts of the Fenian dead; of great General Post Office uprisings, large and small; and, of the continuing struggle in the North. Yes, as that soldier’s plaque symbolizes, an Irish presence will never completely leave the old town, nor will the willingness to sacrifice.



Oh, by the way, that Frank O'Brien for whom the square in front of the old school was named, would have been Phil’s grand uncle, the brother of his Grandmother Riley (nee O'Brien) from over on Young Street, over by the cranberry bogs.