My Old Shillelagh

My Old Shillelagh

         I am not Irish but I have a shillelagh.  It was given to me many years ago by a Mr. O’Flaherty.  I was eleven and ran the newsstand every Sunday at our parish church.  Mr. O’Flaherty had recently come over from Ireland.  The first thing I noticed about him was his derby hat.  I had never seen anyone wear a derby except in the movies.
         
      He came to church every Sunday but did not go to mass.  He preferred to sit out by my stand, read the papers and tell me stories.  “The Blarney,” as he called it.  He explained to me what the Blarney was.

         “Something that is true but never happened.”

        I enjoyed listening.  He talked about Ireland and his people and I told him how we were studying a chapter on Irish history for that year’s school show.  The show’s theme was Nations of the World.  All of the grades were to portray different nations.  I was in the fifth grade and we were going to be the Irish.  We didn’t have any dialog.  We just got up on stage and did a song and dance number.  My group was the “Donegal Boys” and we did the shillelagh song complete with appropriate dance steps and shillelagh twirling.  The school provided the outfits but we were on our own for the shillelagh.  I got a stick from the yard and practiced the dance routine.  Besides that we studied the history and geography of the country.
         
        He laughed when I told him I was doing the shillelagh dance.
         “But Vinnie lad, you’re Eye-talian,” as he pronounced it.
         “That doesn’t matter.  Anybody can do anything here.  On St. Patrick’s day everybody in Chicago is Irish.”
         “So an Eye-talian lad is going to be a Donegal Boy.  That would never happen in Donegal, I tell you.”  He laughed and I laughed with him.  I could see he was amused by this odd American way.
         
        His eyes widened when I mentioned the Sixteen and the Post Office, important parts of the Irish struggle for freedom.

         “I knew the lads,” he said.  “I was not much older than you.  Everyone supported them and some of my older brothers were with them.  I was their messenger boy.  I would scoot through the alleys and back ways of Dublin to deliver messages to their posts.  Those British were terrible, they hung our lads.  We will never forget them.  They died for our freedom. They were poets and authors, the best we had.”

         During the week I went to school, studied more about the Irish and practiced my shillelagh twirling.
         
        I saw Mr. O’Flaherty the next Sunday.  He was marching towards me as only a short man in a derby hat could march and he had a shillelagh in his hand.  He did not use it as a cane but as a walking stick, never letting it tap the ground.  He slung it back and forth in time to his pace.  He belonged to that stick and it belonged to him.  He came up to me, paused for a moment, and held it out.

         “Vinnie, if you’re going to do the shillelagh dance you have to have a proper shillelagh.”  I accepted it with both hands, eyes wide and mouth agape.  It was beautiful and old with cracked bark and the sheen of years on the handle.

         “Take this shillelagh and do the dance right.  I got it out of the rubble of the Post Office after the rising was put down.  It belonged to one of the Sixteen.  It is a piece of Ireland and has a soul of its own.”  I took it home and practiced.  It was much better than a stick.

         Saturday was the big night.  I had the best shillelagh in the group and the biggest smile in the house.  Most of the other kids had sticks with a rubber ball on the end to imitate the handle.  I didn’t make a single mistake or drop it like some of the others did.  I twirled it higher and faster than anyone else.  My “twirling it round me wrist,” as the song went, was perfect.

         I brought it back to the stand next Sunday to return it to Mr. O’Flaherty but he didn’t come by.  He didn’t come by the next Sunday either.  I never saw him again.

         Every St. Patrick’s Day I get the old shillelagh out, lay it on the table, pour myself a Irish whiskey and stare at it.  I think about Mr. O’Flaherty and I get that smile on my face.  He taught me an important lesson about being Irish: The value of the Blarney.  Happy St. Patrick’s Day.