When Irish Eyes Are Lying.

Originally published in 2024--True Story

I’ve always thought of myself as mostly Irish, a direct line from my blue-eyed mother Mary Murphy, and back to my distinctly Irish grandfather Oscar Murphy. I saw him only once or twice, but even then I knew he was someone I should remember. Perhaps it was mother’s awkward introduction, “He’s your grandpa,” she said, practically willing us to smile. 

Even if he weren’t my grandfather, he’d still have seemed larger than life. He was a talker, and loud, what some would call “forward.” He had a big Irish face, anchored by a bulbous nose, and topped with an unruly mop of hair, all of which fit his outsized personality. He was quick to laugh, and possessed a make-myself-at-home ease that was one part confidence and two parts charm. Later I would recognize my grandfather’s lion-like features in Rep. Tip O’Neill, the outspoken champion of the poor. My grandfather, though, worked the oil fields from Kansas to Oklahoma and Texas.

My grandfather’s boisterous charm, combined with his quick, profane temper, meant trouble for every one of his three, possibly four, wives. (He once took an ax to a telephone pole behind the house after my grandmother answered a phone call from his “girlfriend.”) 

Mother adored him. She claimed his intelligence for herself, citing his practice of reading the dictionary for pleasure. Her eyes were the same watery blue, a pale trait he passed on to every child and grandchild to come after him.

Surprise!

Imagine how startled Mother must have been to see her newborn daughter blinking at the world from pitch-black button eyes and sporting an impressive pair of dark eyebrows. By genetic chance, my dark eyes mirrored those of my other grandfather, Rolo Marvel. His black eyes, like his mood, smoldered with resentment, pain or just plain exhaustion. He was slight for a farmer, and a dairy farmer at that.

As a young man he had worked for the railroad until an accident nearly cut off his hand. He was working between two rail cars when one car lurched forward, smashing four fingers off at the palm of his left hand. 

My only memory of him is watching him roll a cigarette with that mangled hand.  He was an old man, his hair still black and skin the color of tobacco.  He’d sit hunched over the furnace grate between the dining room and living room, oddly dressed in a black leather jacket. I watched from the living room, safely scrunched in my grandmother’s overstuffed chair.  He’d place a thin paper rectangle in his good hand, and with the thumb of his left hand shovel tobacco into the paper trough. He’d then roll the paper into shape, lick the long edge of the paper to make it stick, spit phooey into the furnace, seemingly to show me he could.

Dance the DNA

When I think back on that time and the old farmer with the beady black eyes—my eyes—I’ve often wondered if I’m Irish at all. To find out, it only required my credit card and a quick spit into a tube. Soon my DNA results popped up online in a colorfully illustrated pie chart. Turns out I’m but a thin slice Irish, not even ten percent.  I’m a good chunk Scots, plus bits and pieces of northern Europe and west Africa. I can still celebrate St. Patrick’s Day (I named my dog Murphy after my Irish grandfather.) but also Bastille Day, Cinco de Mayo, and the Fourth of July—like a true American.