Names

 
Bringing people together. Names. Politics. Religion.
Whom you were related to: For the Irish, it still seemed all about relationships.

The dialect was always heard from those far away. Family and friends never heard it. Unless you moved to a place far away. But others heard the dialect. Every day.

Faith, belief, religion was some kind of inner voice, unnoticed in daily life, silent to me, like some kind dialect. But apparent to others.

Religion.

Ireland was one of the first European countries in which a system of fixed hereditary surnames developed. Up to the tenth century, surnames in Ireland were not hereditary. Or so I read over the weekend. The church was the origin of a lot of those names. If you ever studied Gaelic, the influence of the church can still be seen in many common modern Irish family names, dating from the eleventh century. In the Irish language, the morning greeting, “Dia duit ar maidin,” is literally “God be with you.”

Brian Boru, possessing no surname at the start of the eleventh century, was simply “Brian, High-King of the Irish.” His grandson Teigue called himself Ua Briain in memory of his illustrious grandfather. And so the name became hereditary thereafter. The church is the origin of all of those names starting with “Mul–” a version of the Irish Maol, meaning bald (applied to the monks because of their distinctive tonsure). Thus Mulrennan (Ó Maoilbhreanainn) means “descendant of a follower of St. Brendan.” Names beginning with “Gil–” or “Kil–” (the anglicized version of the Irish Giolla) mean follower or devotee, and thus Kilkenny means “son of a follower of Cainneach (Saint Kenny).” Though common in English, place names among Irish names, in the toponymic category of a name derived from a locality name, are extremely rare. For the Gaels, whom you were related to has always been much more important than the place from where you came. Such was life on an island. The island.

Cainneach. Kilkenny, the capital of the Irish Confederacy. The Irish Confederate Wars. The conflict in Ireland which essentially pitted the native Irish Roman Catholics against the Protestant British settlers and their supporters in England and Scotland, over who would govern Ireland.

Pilgrimage. Looking for roots. Connected to the past. The descendants. In cemeteries. At Ellis Island. In Irish churchyards. Connected to a family. Connected to a city. Connected to an institution.

In 1994, I visited Rathdowney. In southwest County Laois. It is near Kilkenny. It was quite small. To get out of town I needed to catch a morning bus. I found myself on a Saturday killing an hour at a pub. Mrs. O’Malley’s. With Irish coffee. But no booze. There were 3 area farmers in the pub. And in came a 40-year-old man from Philadelphia. He had been in here before, he said. He asked the barkeep if Mrs. O’Malley was around. She came out. She had no recollection of the Yank who had been here once before. His family once lived around these parts. Those American dialects all sounded a like. The Yank brought in his mother from the car. And then they were gone. The Irish farmers then reacted. “Ah, Mrs. O’Malley! It is great to see you again!” It was about feigned friendship. “Ah! Looking for roots.” Doing the mock-erania. Then they realized I was there.

It was the end of the season. Ireland becomes like Disneyland all summer long. It was October. And these guys were happy the never-ending tourists were gone, and the season was at an end. O’Malley’s Pub was once again theirs. So many long-lost cousins. Too many.

Names. It is interesting to note that with the use of names since the 11th century in Ireland, only women were not for life tagged, in memory of an illustrious grandfather or grandmother. So while men vied for power based upon names, women seemed to concentrate on religion. They married and got new names. Throughout the world. Until the present age.

Now we live in the first era of western civilization where women were keeping their names. It was a sign of power. The governor of New York announced yesterday that Caroline Kennedy was willing to enter public life and public service, to vie for power.

Tonight there was a show on PBS about archaeology. Archaeologists were always looking. In excavation. Looking always for the past. In this case in Jerusalem. Jerusalem was a city defined by the power of religion. The digging. In excavation, archaeologists looking for the historic Jesus.

Historic Jesus. It sounded like going through just another museum. Like a remnant from the dinosaur. For me anyway, those dinosaurs seemed so hard to believe in.

Never was there mention of the mundane. Just another museum. After a while, if you have seen one, you have seen them all. Oh, the sweat involved in the digging! For the past. In the real meaning from the past.

In the search for the answers, there seemed something missing. Sterile. With gloves on. Maybe the realness of the times, the stress, the conflict, the worry, the excitement, was missing in their search. Or the fear. They were looking to find a miracle. And there was something painful in the search. As painful to see as in the search I witnessed in the guy from Philadelphia, looking for something in O’Malley’s. As much as I enjoy history, places like Constitution Hall in Philadelphia leave me cold, unless I had read something and knew something about the place. I was not attracted long to this PBS show.

Historic Jesus. In Bethlehem? Hot in the desert. Cold in the night. How was the study by secular historians of Historic Jesus relevant? To the real Jesus. Human. Divine. Sharing and overcoming human suffering. His human relationships with other humans. How was he relevant to my life? Museums, artifacts, and European cathedrals. There was an mostly emptiness in the latter. Too many empty European cathedrals.

To find a place. Archaeology was looking for a place that people might be moved by their discovery. Looking for something missing? Looking in layers below, if not within, to be changed by their work place. Looking for the historic Jesus, to help find a modern miracle, for those who had missed the story, or missed a true relationship?

In the historic. To find a miracle? The annual revolutions always found me in a very different place. Searching for God. Now. This year. Listening for an inner voice. In search to whom you were related. Christian heritage. In Judaism. In Ireland. Or here. The constant digging. Or at O’Malley’s Pub.

It was the season about connections. Connections to family and friends. To come back each year. Like the seasons revolve. Changed by the mundane, in the annual revolutions of the sun. Of the food that was grown with sunlight. Sold in the food markets. By the power of the sun? The annual revolutions.

It was the season about connections. On December 24th, the reading which comes from Matthew, Chapter 1, is about the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. And so it goes…..Abraham became the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers. Judah became the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar. Perez became the father of Hezron, Hezron the father of Ram, Ram the father of Amminadab. Amminadab became the father of Nahshon, Nahshon the father of Salmon, Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab. Boaz became the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth. Obed became the father of Jesse, Jesse the father of David the king.

The Christmas lights. The mystery behind Christmas. This focus on the House of David. Keeping a name, taking a name, as a sign of power. The connection of the past to the present. The genealogy of.

Yet it was the humanity not of the male, but of Mary where God suddenly focused. God was like a guy falling in love. Suddenly. And changing all of His plans.