You Can Dance If You Want To
"You have to be careful. It's illegal to be Irish." My father used to say that to me every time I left the house. I was raised with that constant iteration: "you can't be Irish. It's illegal." Every day, it'd be the same thing, "don't be Irish".
And I tried my best not to be. I went to the Protestant services every Sunday, I tended the land during the day and I ate my mother's cooking in the evening and I never asked any questions. "It's illegal to be Irish. You can't have an education," my father would say. And I listened to him. I never asked him why I wasn't allowed to be Irish. I never asked him how it was possible for a people to be illegal. I never asked him what it even meant to be Irish.
He told me I wasn't allowed to be Irish, and I tried my hardest not to be. But apparently he didn't.
It's illegal to be Irish. I discovered today that being Irish means being Catholic. And teaching a Catholic means you can be jailed and put to death. I never wanted to know how bad it was to be Irish.
But my father's last words before the British hanged him were "I'm proud to be Irish".
--
How do you reconcile the man who spent your entire life telling you not to be Irish with the one who went to his death as a proud Irishman? I wish I knew. If I want to inherit my father's land, I have to be Protestant. If I want to work the land so that my mother can feed our family, I have to be Protestant. My entire life, my father has told me that I can't be Irish. If being Irish is being Catholic, then I can't be Catholic.
But the British want me to be Protestant. They want me to denounce my father so that I can provide food for my family. The same man who presided over my father's execution approached me today in the market. He said that he knew it must be a lot, taking on responsibility as the man of the household. He said that if I wanted to be strong, I'd have to do the right thing, and officially convert to Protestantism. He murdered my father and now he's telling me how to be strong.
I don't know if I am that strong. It would be so easy, in a way, to do what I've been taught all my life. It would be so easy to denounce Catholicism, to declare that I am not Irish. And that's why I'm not sure if I can do it. It would be so, so easy to ignore my heritage, to pretend that I'm not Irish, that my family isn't Irish, that my father was an outlier, the black sheep. It would be so easy to denounce the man who taught me everything and at the same time, hid everything from me.
How could I not know that he was proud to be Irish? How could he get caught teaching the youngest children in the village how to write, but always tell me that I wasn't allowed to have an education? How could he tell me every single day that I shouldn't be Irish if he was proud to be Irish?
I don't know how to deal with this and there's no one to talk to. My mother has decided to isolate herself in the kitchen. She barely says two words to me at dinner. I can't tell if she wants me to convert to Protestantism.
Do I even have a choice? A Catholic cannot inherit land. My father must have known that. Was that why he told me not to be Irish? Did he know what would become of him? Was he preparing me for the responsibility of feeding this family?
--
My father was teaching five children when a guard caught him. They aren't that much younger than me, but they all seem so little. Their parents are keeping them close, grabbing their wrists when they try to move away, quieting them when they ask questions, shuffling in front to guard them when I walk by. Everyone in town seems almost afraid of me now, like my father's pride was contagious. Like it's going to get them killed.
One of the little girls broke away from her parents yesterday. Before her mother could catch her, the girl ran up to me. "I wanna learn," she said. "You can teach us. We deserve to learn!"
We were in the middle of the market, and some of the British soldiers took notice, started coming towards us. What if they thought my father was contagious, too? What if they decided I should share his fate?
"I don't know anything. I can't teach you."
The guards seemed to be all right with that. At any rate, they didn't arrest me or schedule an execution. I've got work to do; I really shouldn't be worrying about it. But that little girl's face, I can't get it out of my mind. I could understand her looking sad, crying, whining, any of it. But she just stared at me like she couldn't believe her ears. Finally, she frowned and turned away. No scene, no complaints, nothing. Just... dismissal, as if I wasn't worthy of the effort.
She should've known. I'm not my father. I don't think I'm strong enough to disobey the British.
--
The little girl was taken from her parents today. The guards said that the parents were clearly failing to raise her right. Catholics aren't allowed to raise children, they said. She'll be given to a proper Protestant family.
The parents blame my father. They came to the house to tell us that our family was cursed, that we should be ashamed. They demanded to be given their child back, but we all know that it will never happen. As far as the British are concerned, they never had a child and they never will.
I want to feel ashamed of my father for causing all of this. I want to hate him for the pain he's responsible for. I want to feel guilty for being his son, for being indirectly responsible for the fate of that little girl. But really, I'm just angry. I'm angry at her parents for blaming my father, I'm angry that they're taking it out on us. I'm angry that they have anything to blame us for, that the British took their daughter away. I'm angry that I can't forget the way she looked at me when I disappointed her. Mostly, I'm really angry that the British killed my father. I'm angry that they've made us all so scared of the idea of being Irish.
We shouldn't have to die for our heritage. I don't fully understand what it means to be Irish, but I know that we shouldn't have to be afraid of it. We don't deserve to die for being Irish.
--
My father used to say that anger made you reckless. I can understand what he means now. All I want to do is walk right up to the British and make them pay for hurting us, for hating us for being Irish.
But Catholics aren't allowed to own weapons. Only the Protestant British have guns, and I'm still too scared. My mother already lost her husband. I can't get myself killed on top of that. And I don't want to die, I really don't. Sometimes I want to, when I'm herding the cattle and there's nothing to think about except the way my father taught me to do that when I was barely waist-high. When I get angry that my father's not here, that he was never allowed to teach me more than that, that now he can't teach anyone anything; when I get angry like that, sometimes I don't care what the British will do to me. Sometimes I even like the idea - the British can kill me like they did my father. I can be like my father, be important enough that the British consider me a threat.
But the truth is, I'm not. The British don't care who I am. I converted to Protestantism, I inherited my father's land. I'm nothing to them, certainly not a threat.
But I want to be. I want to scream from the hills that my father was Irish and that I'm Irish, too, and that they can't scare that out of us.
But they already have. I'm scared to die, scared to leave my mother alone. So I don't scream anything, don't scorn the guards in the market. I keep my head down and I hate myself for being afraid, but I'm afraid nonetheless.
--
Some of the children my father taught started coming to the market again. Their parents had been keeping them home, out of trouble, but now they need them to help with the chores. The children are as scared as I am, I can tell. But they're angry, too, and my father must not have told them that anger makes you reckless.
Three of them, the oldest barely half my age, decided to throw rocks at one of the guards. At first, their aim was so bad, the guard didn't even notice.
But then one of them hit its mark. I don't know what the punishment is for attacking British soldiers. I don't know what the guard would've done to those children. But I'm tired of being angry and afraid and helpless. Before I'd really decided that I was done being too scared to act, my mouth was moving.
"I'm so sorry, sir. We were playing catch, but they're not very good at it."
The guard just looked at me. He was quiet for so long, I had to stop myself from blurting out another excuse. Contradicting myself would only hurt now, I knew. But he just stood there quietly for what seemed like an eternity.
"You're the Catholic's child", he said at last.
"I'm Protestant, sir. I'm sorry we've caused you trouble." I don't know where the words came from, but my voice was amazingly steady as I said them. And yet, as the guard was silent again, my knees began to clack together.
The guard frowned, but still said nothing. Until, finally, "you should be working, all of you, not playing games. Get back to work."
I was so relieved he hadn't decided to just kill us there, my mind went blank. I think I probably babbled out thank yous and I'm sorrys, but everything blurred together. I know I ended up at home with my mother. I know that the children and their parents came with us, too. The parents were talking to me, I know, but I couldn't focus enough to listen. There were lots of words and I couldn't seem to understand any of them until my mother placed her hands on my shoulders and steered me towards the bed. It was hardly midday yet, but my mother pushed me into bed.
"You did a good thing today, Colin. Rest. I will take care of the chores."
When I woke up, it was pitch dark outside, the world was asleep, and my memories seemed even more confusing than they had before. I don't know exactly what happened after the guard let us go, but I know that it was the first time my mother spoke to me since I converted to Protestantism.
--
I've decided that I can't let fear cripple me anymore. But fear is healthy - it tempers anger, leashes recklessness. I'm still afraid and I feel like I always will be. But being afraid won't change anything and I don't want to live my life too terrified to raise my head.
Parents are letting their children come near me again, letting me entertain them while the parents do their shopping. We stay well away from the guards, holding the items our mothers have purchased and talking.
The oldest boy, the one who threw the rock, he decided I should know everything about my father's lessons. He'll go on and on about the first time he was able to read the signs in the market. My father taught them all how to read and write and despite all the times my father had told me that education was illegal, I hadn't realized that was something rare. I could read the signs when I was younger than this boy. My father had taught me, the same way he'd taught me to tie a knot. That was illegal? He hadn't been teaching business or weaponry. He was killed for teaching us just reading and writing? Are the Irish really so terrible that we can't even be allowed to read?
I thought I was angry before, but the realization that we, as Irish, were to be deprived of so much was infuriating. What right did the British have to decide this? What right did they have to enforce it, to murder my father for teaching a few children letters?
I think that was probably the moment I decided to act. Standing in the shadow of a church - Protestant design, built on top of an old Catholic church - with four children standing underfoot, talking in hushed tones about the secret knowledge that they knew, I decided that I'm not going to be crippled by fear anymore.
Deciding to act was the easy part, though. Deciding how to act is harder. I know that I have to be careful. I really don't want to die and I don't think the guards will be so lenient next time. But I'm also through being looked down on for being Irish.
I think I know what I want to do, but I'm not sure how. How can I show people that being Irish is something to be proud of without getting caught by the British?
--
I had the strangest idea today. The guards patrol the village every day. That's how they caught my father. They require that we keep the top half of the door open, to that they can see inside. The British don't believe in privacy, not for the Irish.
In the market today, a little girl told me that she'd tricked the British. She was so proud of herself as she told me about how her parents went to the Protestant services yesterday, as required by law, but she'd stayed home sick. If the guards had looked in through the half-door and seen her, the family would've been fined. But she hid, she told me. She curled up below the door so that the guards looking through on their patrol wouldn't be able to see her.
I don't know why this idea came to me. It's kind of silly in a way, but I think it might work.
My father always told me that it was illegal to be Irish. He said that the British had outlawed all the old Irish traditions. He said that school masters were forbidden, but he also said that dance masters were forbidden. "The British thought it was unseemly", he told me once.
But I want unseemly. I want to show people that we should be proud of our Irish heritage, that we should try to revive Irish traditions. I want something that the British would find unseemly, but that they won't catch us doing.
Tomorrow, I'm going to ask parents if I can take their kids home instead of watching them at the market. Tomorrow, I'm going to test this idea out, see if it might work. Tomorrow, I'm going to see if I can stand behind the half-door and dance. I don't really know how to dance, but I want to see if it's possible - if I can dance in secret behind that half-door. If I keep my upper body straight, if I look normal, could I get away with dancing under the guards' noses?