There’re Two Kinds of People: The Irish and Those Who Want to Be Irish

A childhood friend recently posted the title of this column on her Facebook page as a meme. It made me smile as I thought about the upcoming St. Patrick’s Day celebration. Even those who don’t have a drop of old  Ireland in them enjoy celebrating with corned beef and cabbage, soda bread, green beer, Irish parades, shamrocks, or leprechaun tales. This adoption of Irish customs, even temporarily, is a recent occurrence. In the mid to late 1800s, those of Irish heritage found more heartache than ready acceptance.

Many such immigrants came to this country under harsh conditions. They’d been starved out of Ireland during the potato famine or landowners had evicted croppers from tenant farms that couldn’t feed or clothe a family. According to emerging history, some arrived in the new world as slaves to work Caribbean sugar cane plantations. Examining old military rolls reveals that a number of those fresh-to-the- continent kept their bellies full by joining the U.S. Army, where they ended up as Indian fighters in the West.

For those who find little interest in history, it’s hard to understand that not so many generations ago, newcomers with strong brogues weren’t welcome. Those who wanted to work found it difficult to find employment, even if they had special skills. Walking up a street in developing communities that obviously needed hard workers, fresh arrivals would see signs in windows that said, “No Irish Need Apply.” Discrimination continued after death. Those who visit old cemeteries in mining communities will see graves segregated into sections for different ethnic groups.

Interestingly, a good number of Irish arrived in Kansas during this settlement period. Today, schoolchildren studying American history scan chapters filled with names such as Kennedy, Moynihan, and Keogh. According to one source, over 70 million people living outside Ireland, many of them in the United States, claim roots to that Emerald Isle. For those of Irish ancestry, it’s hard to imagine our forebears not only suffered hunger, poverty, and exploitation in the old country, but the struggle continued after they landed ashore in New York. Fortunately, for those who kept moving west and ended up in Kansas, life got easier.

We find towns like McCracken, named after a railroad employee. These hardy emigrants constructed a Catholic Church almost immediately. In Kansas Memory, we read Irish priest Thomas Butler’s report that Kansas churches of his denomination multiplied from three in 1854 to forty-five by 1871. He attributes this expansion to immigration. In Marshall County, visitors can explore the Irish community of St. Bridget established in 1862. Once there, they can tour a lovely chapel erected by settlers. Visit any old cemetery in the area, particularly a Catholic graveyard, to spot tombstones engraved Donnelly, Connelly, McKee, Keaghy, O’Brien, Sullivan, and so on. These aren’t foreign names here.

This state is a great example of what can happen when people work hard and adapt to a new culture. Most likely, you won’t hear locals speaking with an Irish brogue, but you might see several tipping back a Guinness to celebrate St. Paddy’s Day, even if they don’t have a drop of the blarney in them.

If Walls Could Talk

Some mornings I wake up to imagine I hear car and camera calling me to join them for another Kansas road trip. Coffee mug in its holder and hands at 10 and 2 on the wheel, I’m ready to explore dusty roads and fading communities along rural highways designed to knit together regions of our state. These journeys   help me appreciate hardy souls who built homes, businesses, churches, and schools with their hard-earned cash. Early pioneers had no access to federal or state-funding modern residents take for granted. As a retired teacher, I’m drawn to aged academic buildings like iron filings to a magnet.

Lately, I’ve visited a number of dilapidated towns to photograph deteriorating schools before they vanish from the landscape. Local historical societies have pictures of these brick wonders in their glory days, but I want to record the moments before they return to dust. Something about a once elegant structure in crumbling ruins captures my imagination more completely than reading old yearbook essays does.

Certainly, I feel nostalgic as I ramble around foundations to sense the layout of classrooms, auditoriums, and gymnasiums. Even more than a longing for a less complicated, slower-paced existence, I ache for that time when people incorporated handcrafted details to beautify a simple public building. Almost every one of these deteriorating edifices is exactly that—an edifice.  In a region distant from specialty guilds and artisans, who would complain about city leaders assembling unassuming structures with no embellishments? Visit these ruins, and it’s clear that is not what happened.

Many of the red brick establishments that remain were the community’s second or third school. Oftentimes, initial coursework took place in either a local home or dugout. As soon as a settlement developed sufficiently to afford new construction, workers erected out of wood or native stone two or three stories that each contained only one or two classrooms. Photos reveal modest playgrounds and necessary houses either to the side or behind these schools. What you see in these black and white photographs is pure function. Ornament is missing.

By the late teens through the thirties, communities along the Union Pacific and Missouri Pacific Railroads optimistic about continued growth and financial success raised new schools. Many featured then-popular Art Deco details. Those characteristics included angular brick walls with inlaid bands of vertical brick and a flat roof. They often display decorative geometric panels, vertical towers, stepped piers, and casement windows. A few regal antiques have beautiful arched, multi-paned windows above hand-carved entrance doors. One regional building still displays distinctive scroll-shaped lights on either side of its double doors. Just walking through such an entryway to reach class would add intent to a youngster’s studies.

Over decades, trucks and highways replaced railroads, resulting in a declining rural population. Decades later in the 60s, school consolidation forced closure of too many architectural masterpieces. In a few locations, individuals bought old buildings and turned them into homes or businesses. Unfortunately, too often, time and lack of maintenance resulted in unsalvageable eyesores. As bricks crumble , I hope families and museums publish their old school’s stories.