Bit of Levity in these Toxic Times By Robert F. Lyons

St. Patrick’s Day in Chicago and globally showcases the overflowing cornucopia of Irish stories and songs. A 12th century Irish letter celebrates the sharing of these treasures:
Be sure of this, keen-witted friend,
Rich in the holy wealth of story & song,
Be you long time or short away,
I always for your coming long.
Verbal talent has been one of the greatest of Irish natural resources. Ireland’s chief literary mission has been to minister not so much to our reason as to our imagination.
Abbot Áed Ua Crimthainn of Co. Tipperary appraised an early Irish fable: “I place no credence in this story or fable, for in part it contains the deceptions of demons, in part the inventions of poetry, in part the appearance of truth and in part not, and in part delectation for fools.” (Book of Leinster, 1160).
Brendan Behan, Irish satirist once remarked: “Others have a nationality. The Irish and the Jews have a psychosis.” These two ancient peoples are destined to wander the world as outsider-aliens in their own lands, experiencing suspicion and derision wherever they went.
Rory Fitzgerald, journalist/lawyer frames Irish and Jewish identity thusly: “Scratch the surface and they begin to look like twins separated at birth. The stories of these two wandering tribes share many extraordinary parallels. Both have homelands that are small, sacred and contested and very ancient. Ireland and Israel both boast monuments far older than the pyramids of Egypt. Some even dare to speculate that the Irish may be connected to one of the ‘lost tribes’ of Israel.” (Jerusalem Post, St. Patrick’s Day, 2010).
An Irish origin myth recorded in Lebor Gabála Érenn recounts: “None of the seed of Adam took Ireland before the Flood but those” who were led by Caesara, granddaughter of Noah who had refused her entry onto the ark at the time of the Great Flood. (Book of Invasions, 11th century).
Historian Gerald of Wales incorporated this medieval pseudo-history myth into his report on the Conquest of Ireland to King Henry II who invaded Ireland in 1169: “According to the most ancient histories of the Irish, Caesara, the grand-daughter of Noah, hearing that the Flood was about to take place, decided to flee in a boat with her companions to the farthest islands of the West, where no man had yet ever lived. She hoped that the vengeance of the Flood would not reach to a place where sin had never been committed. All the ships of her company were wrecked. Her ship alone, carrying three men and fifty women, survived. It put in at the Irish coast, by chance, one year before the Flood.” (Topographia Hiberniae, 1185 A.D.)
However, an alternative account of Caesara’s pre-Flood flight to a point of landing on Bantry Bay, County Cork, Ireland has been unearthed. A vellum scroll made from cowhide was discovered tucked inside a giant oak mead tankard in a cave beneath the jaw-droppingly picturesque Cliffs of Moher, County Clare. It described an apocryphal medieval account of Irish origins, compiled by monk-scribe Roibeárd Ó Liatháin of Clonmacnoise Abbey.
The Book of Genesis records that Sarah who could bear no children gave her Egyptian slave girl Hagar to her husband Abraham as his wife. God had promised Abraham he would be father of many nations. Hagar gave birth to a robust son named Ishmael. Afterwards, as often happens in surrogate mother cases, Sarah “looked with contempt” on Hagar so Abraham expelled both mother and son into the desert of Beersheba where Ishmael made his home as “a wild-ass of a man in the wilderness” (Gen. 16.12).
Ishmael later became a stowaway on Caesara’s ship. After docking at Dún na mBárc on Bantry Bay, he sprang forth from the ship’s hold and fell instantly in love with ship captain Caesara, a formidable lady of great beauty and wisdom.
Love-smitten, Ishmael and Caesara married without delay as music floated down and the tender sound of song and merry dancing stole softly over Bantry Bay. Thus, they became the Adam and Eve of the Irish people. And, that is why it is said, many Irish are a people of great beauty and wisdom, and some are wild-asses!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Robert F. Lyons has taught Irish studies at the OSHER Lifelong Learning Institute University of Southern Maine, Dartmouth College, Tufts and while living in Ireland at University College Cork. The Caesara origin myth is sourced in Ireland’s medieval manuscripts - a product of Irish scribes. The alternative Ishmael account is the product of the author’s imagination. He resides in a senior living community near Chicago.