The Greatest Irish Quote of All Damnation

Where silence becomes inheritance, and a movie line becomes revelation

Colin Sullivan turns to his lover, Madolyn, in Scorsese's film, The Departed.

They are naked in bed.

He's in very big trouble, and the trouble is closing in. She's the only decent thing in his life— yet they know very little of each other.

"If we're not gonna make it," Colin says to her, "it's gotta be you that gets out, 'cause I'm not capable.

"I'm fuckin' Irish, so I'll deal with something being wrong the rest of my life."

That's the line where I fell off the couch.

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I scrambled for the remote control in the dark. I made the lovers go backward, and then I listened to the man say it again:

I'm Irish. I'll deal with something being wrong the rest of my life.

I cried. What did this screenwriter know, that no one in my family had ever told me?

His delivery explained generations of my Irish-American family's inexplicable dissolution.

I looked up The Departed's screenwriter, Bill Monahan, and found out that I was not the only one to be so affected. It's his original phrase, although I keep expecting him to confess that his grandmother put it in his bottle.

Other writers have dug into Monahan's motto. Brendan Kelly, a psychiatry professor at University College Dublin, said:

"The Irish have an unrivaled history of failed revolutions, which are now interpreted as covert victories of one sort or another . . . This comes from generations of putting the best possible spin on generations of defeats."

Perhaps other ethnic groups resonate with similar feelings; I don't know. But not everyone. The classic WASP mentality is that if you buckle down and work hard, you can beat the devil. You expect to solve your battles with discipline and elbow grease. Striving pays off, and so does entitlement.

That is a huge laugh to Papists and fatalists.

My First Communion Rosary

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None of us start out that way. Children have a great deal of hope— and find it appealing. They believe that if they're "good" and "try hard," that things ought to work out. It is painful to get that stuffing knocked out of you.

"The Irish caricature is outgoing," I read on, from psychoanalyst Dr. Paul Lynch:

"When it comes to serious emotions that aren't a ballad or a joke or a story, the [Irish] will try to deflect attention to themselves out of fear of being ashamed of what would be seen. It's a part of the culture, the shame and embarrassment about sexuality, the role of the church and being dominated by the English for so long."

I always wanted my Irish family to be themselves, yet be able to allow a little light in. I wasn't asking for a complete strip.

My favorite aunt, Molly, wouldn't tolerate my questions about our family tragedies. She liked to pick fights, though.

She'd say, "Do you think I'm a fucking idiot?" when I suggested talking about a sudden family death or disappearance. Her sister’s suicide so young. "There is no point to talking about anything." She gripped the table like she was going to split it in two.

One time I argued."Yeah, this whole family is crazy to think that if we die young and beat each other bloody and hang ourselves and drink ourselves to death and no one says a SINGLE WORD about it, then that would be a fitting end to the whole family line."

I can dish it out, too.

But Molly didn't budge.

And now she's gone.

My mother, oldest girl, with brother and sisters. They have all passed now.

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Whatever usefulness the "silent treatment" lent to my Irish family's early years, it outlived its benefits. The survivors— my contemporaries— are almost entirely estranged from each other. I wouldn't recognize more than one of my thirteen cousins if I ran into them on the street.

As much as I tried to change that—and perhaps they've made their attempts too— the doors are nailed down pretty tight. When we get disconnected, self-destructive, or when things get brutal, no one grasps that this isn't a coincidence. . . it's an inheritance.

I did a lecture ten years ago in a big city where an adult cousin of mine, PJ, came to meet me. We'd never met because our parents had a 45-year-old silent feud that, to this day, is a mystery.

"Did your dad ever mention my mom?" I asked.

"Nope, never."

"I have pictures of them when they were young where they look like best friends, rowing a boat."

"I know." PJ scratched his ear like the scrapbook was inside.

"Well, she cries when I ask,” I said, “and then she gets mad, so I've given up. But I found an old family notebook that says my mom's first word as a baby was calling out for her brother. —Before she said 'Ma' or 'Da'."

PJ shook his head and went to back outside the auditorium to smoke. He'd just gotten off from work, still in his dungarees.

One of the stage managers came up to me. "Do you want me to call security and get that man out of here? He looks a little sketchy."

"You're kidding," I said. "He looks just like me. He's my cousin; he's probably just a little uptight. He won't hurt anyone."

What did she see?

I exchanged Xmas cards with my cousin for a few years. Then both our parents died and his address dried up. No forwarding anything.

I am going to deal with some things being wrong the rest of my life.

The last family elder who called me up, loaded, to insinuate dark secrets and accusations— which she had no intention of spelling out— I stopped her in her tracks. I said, "If there's a body stuffed up a chimney, call the police, but don't call me anymore. I have stepped out of the game."

I have cleared away the brush. I wrote a memoir, and inside it is everything I wish I could have shared with my elder family. Maybe I should have called it: "Silent Treatment."

There is another memorable piece of blarney on mental health in The Departed. Actor Matt Damon gets to spread the myth:

"What Freud said about the Irish is: We're the only people who are impervious to psychoanalysis."

My now-departed aunts and uncles would have roared to hear it. We don’t care that it’s not what the Doctor said.

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MORE

• A St. Paddy's Day Message to Mother - memoir excerpt about the O’Halloran side of my family.

• Friend Hunter Thompson was Irish Catholic too, from Kentucky. Here’s a story about his prayers:

One day Hunter held out a jar. “Here’s where I keep my prayer and dreams,” he said. He took the lid off the jar.

“I have to keep the top on,’ he said, “or my dreams and my prayers will escape.”

There was a long pause while he stood there, holding the lid in one hand and the jar in the other.

“I’m waiting,” Hunter said, “for the jar to fill back up.”

Then he got impatient, and slammed the lid right back on.

“Well,” he said, “for now, prayers and dreams don’t respect the simple laws of physics. They go right through.”

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Bibliography

Here’s some books about Irish family and secrets that seemed to be speaking to me from the grave:

• "Angela's Ashes" by Frank McCourt
  Yes, I know, legendary. McCourt’s story meant so much to me personally, it was as if the man had discovered the hidden scrolls.

• "The Tender Bar" by J.R. Moehringer
  Many of you know Moehringer because of his uncanny ghostwriting for Prince Harry, and Andre Agassi. But his own memoir, growing up in an Irish pub family, is the very best of all.

• "The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls
  Talk about, "putting the best possible spin on generations of defeats.” Jeannette nails it on Irish legacies and the silent treatment that just won’t quit.

• "Hungry Hill" by Eileen O'Faolain
  Midwestern family like my mother’s. That fierce loyalty alongside the inability to speak of what matters most.

• "The Ginger Man" by J.P. Donleavy
  Its publication history—banned in Ireland and the U.S.—just goes to show how absolutely imperative it was to say it out loud.

• "How the Irish Became White" by Noel Ignatiev
  Examines the complex history of Irish assimilation in America and the social and psychological costs of that transformation—context that enriches understanding of the silences that developed within Irish-American families.

Not Irish— But so identifiable:

• "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy
  Roy's story of "love laws" that dictate what can and cannot be spoken mirrors the unwritten rules in Irish-American families.

• "White Oleander" by Janet Fitch

  When Janet and I first met each other at a LA Book Fest tent, we both found a kindred spirit. The mother-who-tries-to-kill-you club, a special survivalist match made in heaven.

• "The Liars' Club" by Mary Karr
  I think I read this in one hour, and then started at the beginning all over again. And the title, for so many families, says everything.

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