Brian Lehrer: 2020 River Dance instead of the usual Brian Lehrer Show theme, bringing us back for now and happy St. Patrick's Day to all you Irish folk out there. The bad news is it will, apparently, be raining on your parade, which kicks off on Fifth Avenue at the top of the hour, but the weather forecast buries the lead which is that there is a parade at all in person for St. Patrick's Day on Fifth Avenue in New York City today for the first time since 2019. There, COVID 19.

Wait, we're also going to rain on your I can ignore COVID protocols now parade, because guess who tested positive yesterday after being in close contact with President Biden. The prime minister of Ireland Michael Martin. Did you hear that yet? They were together at the Ireland Funds Gala in Washington and then, boom, the test came up plus. More reasons to think about St. Patrick's Day in the context of world events today, the story of Irish immigration to this country as one of fleeing hardship in Europe, obviously, with today's story of refugees from Ukraine fleeing into Europe and being welcomed with open arms, unlike other refugees entering Europe and unlike how the Irish were originally received here.

There's that little irony of Ukraine asking desperately to join the EU, which Britain and Northern Ireland couldn't wait to leave. Remember that little thing called Brexit? Happy St. Patrick Day despite all the contradictions of history. It is great that the parade is back. It's also great that Maeve Higgins is back with us. The Ireland-born New York-living comedian and serious person. You know her from, wait, wait, don't tell me, the movie Extra Ordinary, from the play Autumn Royal, from her writings in the New York Times and elsewhere, and me maybe even from her new book called Tell Everyone On This Train I Love Them. Maeve, it's always great to have you on. Our listeners are lucky you didn't already have a date for St. Patrick's Day before we called.

Maeve Higgins: [laughs] I know and I haven't had a drink yet either. I am delighted to talk to you and, Brian, top of the morning to you.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Listeners, our phones are open for anyone from Ireland or of Irish descent. Listeners, what does it mean to you to be Irish on St. Patrick's Day, 2022? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692 or anything you always wanted to ask Maeve Higgins but Peter Segal wouldn't take your call, 212-433-9692. Maeve, seriously, so much of your work is about migration. I'm curious if you were making connections between the flood of Ukrainian refugees and anything from the history of the Irish people.

Maeve Higgins: Yes, I suppose like so many refugees and those of us from countries with a refugee history and a migration history, I am making the connections. They're fleeing from a would-be empire builder and they're fleeing from all of the violence and chaos that comes with a madman who wants to control other people in other countries. I do see it. I suppose I see this interconnectedness with every person really, Brian, who's looking for asylum, looking for safe harbor because so many Irish left Ireland when we were a colony of Britain and all the dark history that Ireland went through that we share with so many countries and with so many, I suppose, New Yorkers. One in three New Yorkers weren't even born in America. I'd say there's a lot of us here today who can look at Ukraine and feel some blood memory of it.

Brian Lehrer: Indeed, and one of the essays in your book I know is about a border security expo. Dare we say admit the central Americans and admit the Ukrainians in the same breath and make people deal with whether they feel differently about people in similar circumstances?

Maeve Higgins: Absolutely. It's really at the gates, isn't it? I don't know if you saw the story of the poor Ukrainian mother who showed up at the border in San Diego and with her two children just said, "Look, I don't want anything. I just want to be let in. I have family in America. It's the only safe place I can come to." Because of the Title 42 that allows border agents to expel asylum seekers without any legal process that was put in under Trump on the pretense of COVID 19, this obscure public health act, and Title 42 is still pretty much in place under Biden, and she was turned away.

The interesting thing is if there was a public outcry, this poor lady and her children we have to let them in. She was allowed in a few days later, but I suppose it's very important to point out there's plenty mothers down there from Venezuela, from Haiti, with their children and men too and men on their own. Everybody, of course, is entitled to seek asylum. It's it's a human right.

Brian Lehrer: By the time you came to this country, Irish immigrants were considered non-threatening, I guess, because you're mostly white and Catholic, but I think most of our [unintelligible 00:05:40]

Maeve Higgins: Little did they know about me.

[laughter]

Brian Lehrer: Are you not white [unintelligible 00:05:45]

Maeve Higgins: No, [unintelligible 00:05:47] I'm fine, I promise. [laughs] Lock up your sons. No, you're absolutely right. I arrived here 10 years ago and very lucky, very privileged and certainly because being a European, being an Irish person, being white, all of those things worked in my favor and allowed me to get a visa here. Certainly in the past things haven't been as easy. I think Irish Americans really do love to remember that and keep it in their hearts that their ancestors who arrived here were not met with such a welcome. I think it does shape the Irish American identity.

Brian Lehrer: I saw the article you wrote in the New York Times just after president Biden was inaugurated called Joe Biden Irishman. That article also pointed out that Mike Pence as vice president and Nick Mulvaney as Trump's chief of staff were also Irish and pinned shamrocks to their suits on St. Patrick's Day, just as they work for an administration that proposed cutting famine relief to hungry people. How do you understand the existence of that strain of Irish American politics given the history of Irish America?

Maeve Higgins: It was so interesting/horrifying for me to learn about this whole-- The Irish have a pretty powerful position in American political life, in New York and really nationally. I'd be watching for that and I'd be hearing the Irish Americans like Pence, Mulvaney, using their Irish heritage as a touchstone and trotting out these tales of ancestral heritage at the drop of a hat and then doing things like cutting famine relief or cutting refugee admission numbers. It's difficult to understand.

It's, I think, a way that they have must have learned white supremacy through generations of living here and understanding that, "If we go this way, if we stand on the shoulders of people will get up further and faster," and not using it as a a ladder and pulling people up behind them. That's how I could understand it. It's a deliberate turning away, I think, as well from the history of Ireland. I think a refusal to understand that really we're the same. We're just the same.

I suppose with the Ukrainian refugees I do see similarities and I really see similarities with Syrians who, again, were people who just wanted freedom and wanted to live lives of independence, not against a oppressive power coming from without, but coming from within. America did not listen to them and did not care when Russia really did bomb the hell out of Syria. We're seeing it again now, but with a different reaction. It's maddening, isn't it? It's hard to make sense of but we have to try.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, Irish Americans, our phones are open for anyone from Ireland or of Irish descent. What does it mean to you to be Irish on St. Patrick's Day, 2022? I'll assume we don't have anybody who's actually attending the parade because you would be out there already by now. We will go live to our Gwynne Hogan at the top of the hour as the parade kicks off. Anyone else who's Irish American, 212-433-WNYC. What does it mean to you in 2022 in particular with our guest Maeve Higgins and Stephanie and Randolph, New Jersey. You're on WNYC. Hi, Stephanie.

Stephanie: Hi, good morning. I'm excited for St. Patrick's Day today. I'm half Irish and I decided to book a trip to Dublin in for my daughter's 20th birthday-

Maeve Higgins: Oh.

Stephanie: -next month.

Maeve Higgins: That's great news. I think you'll have a ball. That's wonderful. It's so close too, I think flying to Dublin takes less time than flying to Los Angeles.

Stephanie: Exactly, and I wanted her to spend her birthday internationally, because in 2019, when my younger daughter turned 13, we were in Montreal. We realized at that point that all of us had spent at least one birthday internationally. My husband, we were in London, and for me, we were in Hong Kong, except for my older daughter. I told her when she graduated from high school, I would take her someplace on a trip. Of course, she graduated in 2020. That trip, obviously, didn't happen.

When I was talking to her and we were discussing that maybe we should go away, we toyed with Barcelona because she speaks English and Spanish. I had been to Dublin about 12 years ago, and just remembered how wonderful and great the Irish people were to us tourists and I said, "You know what, I want to bring you to Dublin." She goes to a Catholic University, so she gets off Holy Thursday, and Good Friday, and Easter Monday, so we're taking that long weekend to go there.

Brian Lehrer: That's wonderful. Stephanie, thank you so much for your call.

Maeve Higgins: I noticed that alternate side parking was off today, I thought, "St. Patrick's Day," but it's actually for Purim. [laughs]

Brian Lehrer: Interesting, even though St. Patrick's Day is also a religious holiday in a certain respect, right? Wasn't he famous for building churches all over Ireland and converting people?

Maeve Higgins: Yes, he brought Christianity to Ireland. That was his whole deal. He was an early influencer in that way. [chuckles]

Brian Lehrer: You know what else I was thinking? Let's see, how can I put this delicately? In this country, we celebrate our heroes usually with their birthdays. George Washington's birthday, Martin Luther King's birthday, St. Patrick's Day is the day in 461, as everybody knows, that St. Patrick died.

Maeve Higgins: Exactly, I know.

Brian Lehrer: I have Irish friends who say, "That is very Irish to celebrate the day-

Maeve Higgins: It's so difficult.

Brian Lehrer: -that somebody died."

Maeve Higgins: Of course, of course. I know, I know. The dark hearts of the Irish, it just makes sense when it's all over. [laughs]

Brian Lehrer: You name checked Los Angeles with that last caller, and guess what, here's Elizabeth in Los Angeles. You're on WNYC with Maeve Higgins. Hi, Elizabeth.

Maeve Higgins: Hi.

Elizabeth: Hello, I'd like to piggyback a little bit on what was just said. If you're a Catholic person, the day you die is the day you enter the kingdom of heaven. That would be why it would be remembered. I'd like to say that I listen to the radio, I listen to the RT1 for news, and I listen to Brian Lehrer to just get my mind working and thinking. I've never been so proud of the noble Irish, and the way they've rallied around the Ukrainians. They have a close relationship because they built the hospitals to treat child radiation poisoning after Chernobyl.

More recently, they've raised millions of dollars, sent 50-plus lorries full of medicine to the Polish border. They've already taken in, I think, almost 10,000 refugees, with people volunteering their homes, spare rooms, and it is the kindness and the nobleness of the Irish that really warms my heart today. Happy St. Patrick's Day, the top of the morning to you and the answer is, and the rest of the day to you.

Maeve Higgins: The rest of the day to you. That's wonderful. Thank you so much for that.

Brian Lehrer: That was beautiful, Elizabeth. Thank you very much. Michael in Ramsey, you're on WNYC. Hi, Michael.

Michael: Hey, Brian. Thanks for having me on. I just wanted to--

Maeve Higgins: Hi, Michael.

Michael: Hi. St. Patrick's day for me, I'm first generation Irish, has traditionally been a lot like Thanksgiving in the sense of we get together as family, we don't go out and get crazy. It's more of, I always say, hug your friends, hug your family, raise a glass to the people that you've missed. That tradition is kept on with myself and my two boys and it's really just a time to spend with family and enjoy. We were on the phone with relatives this morning in Ireland and my eight year old was just fascinated on how they get off of school and he doesn't. That's [unintelligible 00:14:58]

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Michael.

Maeve Higgins: It's a really fun day at home, and it's really for kids too. My sister lives in Waterford and she sent me pictures of her two-year-old, this little red haired girl waving at the Ukrainian Waterford Community Float, because then I suppose they're on their minds there too and there's plenty Ukrainians living there. It's merged in a beautiful way. The parades at home are a lot less formal than the big parade here in New York. There's a lot more tractors and dogs, and children and puppets.

Brian Lehrer: Nice, I don't take you for much of a green beer person, Maeve, would I be wrong?

Maeve Higgins: I'm actually not even going to drink today because I have to work tonight. My niece and her school, they pinch people if you're not wearing green. Yes, no green beer for me but I am going to wear green because I just don't want to get pinched on the streets of New York City. I don't know if it's made it over here yet, but that's a frightening new tradition that Irish children have started.

Brian Lehrer: I did not know about that tradition. Some of them are going to get in a lot of trouble. Dee in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Dee.

Dee: Hi, Brian. My mom is an Irish immigrant who came in 1958 to Philadelphia. I was really reflecting on the connection to the current refugee situation because earlier, her family had gone to London to try to get work in the early '40s. My mom's older sister was a baby and they were in the subway during the air raids then, with my mom's older sister. My mom wasn't born yet.

I just think about that when I'm seeing those images that refugees-- They quickly actually left London and went back to [unintelligible 00:16:57] after the repeated air raids in London during the war and then a decade later came to the US. I loved what the earlier caller said that the Irish have really opened up to Ukrainian refugees, I think taking in a bigger proportion than many other countries of that size because they understand the need. Happy to be proud to be an Irish American today.

Brian Lehrer: Dee, thank you.

Maeve Higgins: Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Another beautiful expression, Maeve.

Maeve Higgins: Definitely.

Brian Lehrer: I have a question for you. Did you hear about the Irish Prime Minister testing positive for COVID yesterday after being briefly in close contact with Biden at the Ireland Funds Gala?

Maeve Higgins: I did. It's so unfortunate. The poor thing. That's Michael Martin, who's our prime minister. Even the fact that the Irish Premier gets to come over every year, for such a small country, it's only 6 million people in Ireland, and we get this access to the hugeness of American power. Sadly, yes, he was there. They were having a special dinner, and I think it's always a really fun time.

Today, he was going to go again to visit with President Biden and give him a bundle of shamrocks and have a chat. The poor fella, the poor thing got COVID, so he had to dart off. Daniel Mahal, there was plenty of junior people around to fill the gap. You'd feel for him all right, would you? It's a nice fun job, and then the next thing he's isolated probably in some hotel somewhere just watching Netflix.

Brian Lehrer: Indeed, and when a prominent person like that gets it and, of course, we've got the news hook of St. Patrick's Day for the Prime Minister of Ireland, it also reminds people that this is not over over-

Maeve Higgins: No.

Brian Lehrer: -even if it's more over than it was two months ago. Any idea how Ireland is doing with COVID now compared to the US?

Maeve Higgins: That's not my expertise. I was home during the pandemic, earlier in the pandemic. We had certainly the longest lockdown in Europe. You might remember that the former prime minister was a medical doctor. They took it very, very seriously. Vaccination rates are very high in Ireland. I couldn't tell you the COVID rates at the moment, although sadly, obviously, the big boss does have it. Luckily, he's not sick with it but he does have it.

Brian Lehrer: Eric Adams, by the way, said today he's Mayor O'Adams.

Maeve Higgins: [laughs] I love that. I just love that New Yorkers really embrace it and everybody feels Irish today. It's absolutely gorgeous. I can't think of another country that gets this privilege and I just love being here today as well. In fact, it may be a bigger deal here.

Brian Lehrer: Well, that's the problem, right? Shouldn't everybody be Indian on Diwali, and go down the list?

Maeve Higgins: Yes, absolutely. Yes, why not? It's funny, isn't it? We really get to dominate the cityscape. It's the biggest parade too in New York. I don't think anymore that we're the biggest ethnic group. Not at all. Not for a long time. I think you have the Dominicans and the Chinese Americans. We need to pay attention.

Brian Lehrer: As New York City residents. That's right. Listen to tweets, "We pinched each other for not wearing green in school in California in the 1980s."

Maeve Higgins: Great.

Brian Lehrer: So tweets Mollie [unintelligible 00:20:44].

Maeve Higgins: I can't believe I'm saying that that's an important cultural [unintelligible 00:20:48].

Brian Lehrer: One more caller, and then we're going to go live to the parade site. Marie in Queens, you're on WNYC with Maeve Higgins. Hi, Marie.

Maeve Higgins: Hi, Marie.

Marie: Hi, Brian and Maeve. Thank you for having me and listening. I immigrated with my parents in the 1960s. I was born in Derry in Northern Ireland in the Bogside. There really was no work at the time. I was very fortunate to be able to go through the New York City school system. I did it myself, paid for myself, and became a Doctor of Nursing Practice. It's a really good story.

Having watched Derry be bombed and the troubles and all of that, watching the Ukrainians, their cities being bombed, I know it's on a different level and a different scale, but today Derry is a very cosmopolitan and beautiful city, and the transformation was amazing. I do feel that connection with them and how difficult it really is, although we weren't being bombed out at that time, but we could never go back and settle there because life was better here. My mother always said, "God Bless America and Erin Go Bragh.

Brian Lehrer: Erin Go Bragh, Marie.

Maeve Higgins: Beautiful. Erin Go Bragh, yes. I think as Irish people, Irish Americans, today is a great time to think, yes, I love Irish culture, the songs, and the literature and the food, but do we use Irish culture as a sentimental but ultimately meaningless touchstone, or like your mother and if our own blood memory will move us to understand that interconnectedness with migrants and refugees today?

Brian Lehrer: Just as a quick last thought, before you go, the St. Patrick's Day Holiday is really an American creation in terms of it being a big deal, not Irish. From my understanding, the Irish didn't really adopt it in a big way, like a big St. Patrick's Day Parade until the 1990s. Is that right?

Maeve Higgins: That's right. When I was a child, it was only kicking off. I think the very first St. Patrick's Day happened here in New York in 1762. There was a few Irish soldiers over here, and they realized, "We're not allowed to wear green at home. We're not allowed to sing Irish songs, but here in America, we are." It's a funny exported back and forth. Now, of course, it's celebrated all over the place, even St. Patrick is the patron saint of Nigeria. It's really a global thing now.

Brian Lehrer: I looked it up and in fact, you said 17-something, according to the History Channel website, record show that a St. Patrick's Day Parade was held on March 17, 1601.

Maeve Higgins: Oh my gosh.

Brian Lehrer: Spanish colony on what is now the United States, under the direction of the colony's Irish Vicar Ricardo Artur. There you go. It's 1601 St. Patrick's Day.

Maeve Higgins: That's fabulous. Yes, I wasn't born yet.

Brian Lehrer: We leave it there with Maeve Higgins who was Ireland-born New York-living. She's a comedian and a serious person. You know her from Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me, from the movie Extra Ordinary, from the play Autumn Royal, from her writings in the New York Times and elsewhere, and maybe even from her new book called Tell Everyone on This Train I Love Them. Do you want to tell everybody out there who loves you where they can see you or hear you next or anything like that?

Maeve Higgins: Sure. I'm a regular on Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me where I always lose massively. Every Monday night I have a comedy show at Littlefield and it's called Butter Boy.

Brian Lehrer: Maeve, first I'll say goodbye and then I'll do the station ID. It's been great to have you. Thank you for making time for us, I know you're super busy.

Maeve Higgins: You're the best. Thanks so much. Happy St. Patrick's Day.

Brian Lehrer: This is WNYC-FM HD and AM New York, WNJT-FM 88.1 Trenton, WNJP 88.5 Sussex, WNJY 89.3 Netcong, and WNJO 90.3 Toms River. We are in New York and New Jersey Public Radio, and streaming live at wnyc.org. Well, it's just about parade time on Fifth Avenue for the first time in three years. Let's check in with WNYC's Gwynne Hogan, who I think is at the start of the parade route. Hi, Gwynne, can you hear me?

Gwynne Hogan: Good morning? Yes, I am at the start of the parade route, Brian. How's it going?

Brian Lehrer: It's going. You tell me. How's it going? Where are you exactly, and describe the scene.

Gwynne Hogan: I'm on the corner of-- You might be able to hear that. I heard there's some chanting in the background. I'm on the corner of 44th and 5th Avenue and just a moment ago, folks started marching up 5th Avenue. There's a lot of marching bands. There's some student marching bands. I'm seeing some baton twirlers, of course, a lot of groups of bagpipe players. Yes, generally festive day despite a little bit of rain.

Brian Lehrer: How is the weather?

Gwynne Hogan: It was spitting earlier. I wonder if it deterred some people. I was surprised that the crowds were as small as they were, although it does seem to have filled up in the last 20 minutes. Maybe there'll be more folks as I march up along 5th Avenue.

Brian Lehrer: I see that you tweeted a photo of yourself in Irish dancing dress [chuckles] as a child this morning and writing, "Your heart goes out to all the little girls who something." You want to tell it?

Gwynne Hogan: Sure. It's a picture of me wearing a traditional Irish feis costume. A feis for those who haven't heard of it, it's a competition for traditional Irish dancing. There's soft shoe and hard shoe. I did this for several years in elementary school. It was very grueling. I said my heart goes out to all the little girls who had their hair in curlers for several days and are wearing very uncomfortable polyester dresses now. [chuckles] They're not comfortable costumes, but it was a lot of fun.

Brian Lehrer: Do you get the sense that people are turning out with any different emotion than usual this year because of COVID?

Gwynne Hogan: I've talked to some people who are excited that it's finally happening. One gentleman who was involved in a parade thought that it should have happened a year ago, but everybody's really glad that they're here today. For the most part, there's a lot of tourists in town, some who had specifically planned their trip around the parade. I talked to one guy from Texas who is from New York City originally, and he told me about how he grew up coming to the parade. It was his mother's favorite holiday, and so it's nostalgic for him to be back here today.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, and, of course, it was in 2020 that St. Patrick's Day was the very day after the city schools and lots of other things officially shut down, March 17, two years ago. Mayor de Blasio was holding out on shutting down the city, because he said he didn't want to ruin the festivities and business for so many businesses that depended on St. Patrick's Day traffic, and that was the very day after he finally acquiesced to the shutdown. That will always be remembered in New York.

Gwynne Hogan: I know, we thought he's going to go ahead with the parade despite what was happening. It was I remember a very, very, very tense moment, wondering if there was just going to be this huge event that we suspected would be a super spreader event if it happened. When the plug was finally pulled, that was the beginning of the massive shutdown that we saw in the next two weeks after that. The school shut down soon after that. It feels like we're almost returning to normalcy here, but you can never tell.

Brian Lehrer: Did you say the crowd was surprisingly small?

Gwynne Hogan: It's gotten busier. I was here an hour early, and I was one of a few people here. I'm seeing folks lined up along Fifth Avenue. I think it's going to be a better turnout than I thought, and maybe the rain has tapered off, so that might help as well.

Brian Lehrer: Last thing, Gwynne, we were just talking with Maeve Higgins about the history of St. Patrick's Day going from solidarity among Irish immigrants who were persecuted in the US way back to a more general just celebration of Irishness now that that's not the case anymore, so much the persecution, but do you get any sense of a political consciousness among the parade-goers regarding migrants of today, or not so much?

Gwynne Hogan: I got to say, most of the folks that I talked to just talked about the general festivities of being here, the excitement of a lot of tourists who just want to "I've never seen a parade in New York like this before." I think people are just here for the fun of it.

Brian Lehrer: WNYC's Gwynne Hogan out on Fifth Avenue for the first St. Patrick's Day Parade in-person in three years. Thanks a lot, Gwynne.

Gwynne Hogan: Thanks, Brian.

 

Copyright © 2022 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.