More Than a Seanarchie, More Than a Historian

The following is my article on Mike McCormack, the National Historian for the Ancient Order of Hibernians, reprinted by permission from The Irish Examiner USA publisher, Paddy McCarthy

“Do we need to know that?”
How many times have we heard someone ask a History teacher that question? Ask Mike McCormack that same question and you’ll find out that you do indeed “need to know that.”
I did, and I came away with a perspective of the National Historian for the Ancient Order of Hibernians that surprised me. I have known Mike for over five years and went into this interview with the idea of labeling him ‘The American Seanachie.’ However, I now have a fuller understanding of storytelling, myths, history, and how researching and telling the true History of the Irish really does matter - so much so that the traditional title fell short of the truth.
Before the interview began we spent about a half-hour reviewing a ten-minute video Mike was producing on the Great Hunger, popularly known as ‘The Famine.’ The fact that it actually lasted from 1845 through 1852 is lost on most people. As is the fact that, except for the potato crop, the harvest in Ireland was very good for all those years but most of the food was exported to England. We hadn’t even started the interview and Mike was showing me about his efforts to broaden people’s understanding of History beyond what is commonly understood.
“Tell them the story in a way they enjoy hearing it, but just make sure they learn something.” Mike said at least four times in the three hours we were together. “For example, it was an Irishman who invented the shorthand that stenographers use to this day. The inventor, John R. Gregg, was born in County Monaghan. Here’s an interesting fact that makes Gregg more memorable. Tom Clark, a Republican leader, was jailed during the uprising of 1916 with two other rebels. Those two went mad from their imprisonment and ended up in a sanitarium. But because Clark knew his fellow Irishman’s shorthand he was able to keep his sanity by translating the Bible from English to shorthand and then back again.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“That’s what I want to hear: ‘I didn’t know that.’ I feel great when I can take a commonly understood story and add something to it so people will say – ‘’I didn’t know that.’ That means you’ll remember it.”
We started our conversation with his background:

RH: How did Mike McCormack become the National Historian?

MM: I used to love to sit with my grandfather and listen to him tell me about the stories, myths and legends of Ireland. About the Tuatha de Dannan, the Fir Bolg, the giants, the fairies, and of course the little people, the Leprechauns. When he died I was surprised to find some of these stories as well as other stories in books at the library. But the library had other books - history books. I soon learned that so many of the stories that my grandfather told me had a basis in history. I started learning the stories. I used them for my high school and college assignments. I had to go to greater lengths to uncover more and more about the truth behind the stories from first person accounts and archeological expeditions. I would tell my friends the stories and the pertinent history at the parties, bars, and dances that I would go to. But when I moved from the Bronx to Long Island I didn’t have as many opportunities to go to Irish events. Long Island just didn’t have the dances and other things as in the city.
Then I saw an ad for the founding meeting for Division 9 of the AOH in Port Jefferson. I became a charter member of the division and found an audience for all the History I could summon up. I was encouraged to share the stories at the Division meetings. They then asked me to be the Division historian. Next, as a Division officer, I would share them at the County meetings and was invited to be the County Historian. The same thing happened at the state level and then finally at the National level.

RH: What is expected of the National Historian?

MM: The Constitution of the AOH requires each Division meeting to have a reading of Irish history. But so many of the Divisions couldn’t find someone to devote the time to research a history for each meeting. I had already started making copies of the history vignettes I wrote for my radio show at the request of some listeners. I decided to publish a 32-page booklet with 16 stories from my radio show in a format that would work for the reading at Division meetings. Our first edition had 100 copies printed and I offered them for the cost of printing and postage. They all sold out, so I did a second volume, and others followed, as did reprints of earlier volumes. We now have eight volumes and counting, including two for young readers.
The success of the booklets led us to look closer at what more we could do. We decided that the Historians should also help coordinate the availability of the stories to the public outside the AOH. If we could promote more interest then that should inspire more people to become better acquainted with their heritage. Something we saw lacking in second and third generation Irish-Americans. This required us to develop better contacts with the media. Plus we wanted to get more Irish History in the schools.

We spent a number of minutes talking about History in general. About how much of what we learned in school is more myth than truth. As an example I offered the relationships of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Ben Franklin. Adams and Jefferson were close friends but neither was fond of Franklin who was more cunning and self-possessed as the other two. Yet the common understanding that is presented in the History books suggests that the three worked on the Declaration of Independence in a cooperative and convivial fashion. So there is a myth vs. truth issue with all History.
But Mike had a different take on Irish History.

RH: Is there a larger role for the National Historian besides offering quaint stories?

MM: Definitely. We need to get the truth into the textbooks. The myths about historical events and people were structured to provide a predetermined mindset for Americans. But people don’t want to hear the truth unless you can make it interesting. They believe that they already know the story and are too busy to hear the truths that they consider inconsequential.

RH: But I think that has changed. We do have more people who will look beyond the textbooks. Ever since Watergate there is a stronger dedication to uncover the facts. And more people are ready to accept that their historical figures had some warts. Like JFK’s womanizing. This was a common failing among a lot of historical figures, including Washington and Franklin. But the public appears ready to accept this.

MM: Only if it’s made interesting. But the Irish accomplishments, I believe, were deliberately suppressed by the English Education system that was maintained in America. After the Revolution, we threw out the English government system, the English currency, the English social structure, but not the English educational system. America’s first teachers were a product of an English education in which the contributions of the Irish were written out of the History books. To this day they have never been replaced.
For example, the U.S. has the greatest submarine Navy in the world. But who invented the submarine? We know the story of the Bushnell ‘Turtle’ in the Revolution. It failed. The Confederate Navy tried another submarine in the Civil War called the Hunley. It failed. Both of these failures are in our children’s History books, but not the first successful one.
It was an Irishman named John Holland who built the first successful submarine. You don’t see that story in the History books because he built it for the Irish Republicans to attack the British Navy, considered at that time as the symbol of the British Empire. We don’t hear about the successful Irishman just the failed attempts. We discovered an interesting fact later. The Holland sub could only work underwater for a short time, it would never cruise the Atlantic. But our office ran a national fund-raiser to support the Holland exhibit and copy Holland’s papers. But when we went through his papers we found hand-written notes and plans for the construction of a merchant ship with a special hull. The submarine was designed to fit into the hull of the merchant, which would anchor in a British port. They would launch the sub, attack a few British ships, and then reunite with the freighter and sail away in the following confusion. That’s brilliant, but that’s not in the textbooks.
History revisionists should work on stories like that. History can be revised to mislead. So it can be revised correct.
The AOH has been trying to correct so much of what’s in the books. One of the ideas is to put together DVD’s as a way of sharing History in schools. We made one about the Great Hunger. It was a four-part, one-hour DVD. It came with six Document-based Question sheets and eight activity sheets so the teacher could have follow-up lessons and discussions with little or no research required on their parts. We took this to the National Council of Social Studies Annual Convention and introduced the teachers there to the DVD’s and they were huge success. This is what we need to do more of. Make it easier for people to learn of the great accomplishments of the Irish throughout History.

RH: Okay Mike, let’s focus on a few of those accomplishments. What are five of the great people of Irish decent who you feel every one who reads this article needs to find out about?

MM: Let’s start with Charles Thomson of County Derry, the first and only Secretary of both Continental Congresses. The only real first-person account of the total events leading up to the Declaration of Independence and the governance of the Revolutionary War is his journal; his notes on what happened. This is the only man who attended every single meeting of the Congresses. John Hancock and the rest signed the Declaration, but it written by Thomson. It’s in his handwriting. Not only that, it was he who designed the Great Seal of the United States.
And then there’s Nellie Cashman, the Angel of Tombstone, who was eventually called the Angel of the West. She emigrated from County Cork to Boston at a young age. She then went west to San Francisco in 1860’s where she started as a cook and then opened up a boarding house. Next she started following the miners to various camps before finally arriving for the gold rush in Nevada. She started a boarding house there. The miners would come out of the hills and stay at her place and pay her in gold or a share of their claims.
She wandered the frontier mining camps of the late 1800’s seeking gold, silver and a way to help others with the money she had made. On a trip to British Columbia to donate $500 to St. Joseph’s Hospital, she heard of some miners trapped by a snowstorm in the Cassair Mountains who were suffering from scurvy. She organized a six-man party, collected food and medicine and set off to rescue the sick miners. After 77 days of trekking, pulling 150,000 pounds of supplies she found 75 sick men. She nursed them all back to health with a vitamin C diet, endeared herself to the entire mining community and, when the strike petered out, bid farewell and headed south for the silver strike in Tucson Arizona.
Next she went to Tombstone for the silver rush there. A devout, lifelong Catholic, in Tombstone she got the famous Crystal Palace saloon to close on Sunday mornings for mass. She also built a church and then she founded a hospital, both of which still stand. She built a restaurant and fed the likes of Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and the Clanton gang. At site after site she started at least a boarding house, a restaurant, a church, or a hospital. There are even stories of her competing in an Arctic dog sled race while in her late sixties. She is buried on the site of the hospital she founded in British Columbia.
Third is Thomas Addis Emmett, a powerful New York politician, who was a friend and supporter of Thomas Jefferson. Emmett, who later became New York’s Attorney General helped build support in New York for Jefferson’s reelection as President.
Another political figure I think people should also learn about ‘Big’ Tim Sullivan. It was he who resurrected Tammany Hall into a political powerhouse after Boss Tweed. When Tweed ran Tammany Hall it wasn’t Irish. It was Sullivan who took over and expanded the Hall’s influence by bringing power to the street. Regular working people now had political power because he included as many people as he could. That included bringing the Italians and Jews into his constituency. He was in favor of women’s right to vote, too.
Those four and of course John Holland who I already spoke about, would make a good start for people.

RH: Mike I’ve covered my agenda, is there something else that you feel the readers of this article need to hear?

MM: Just to say again, as History has been revised to mislead, so it can also be revised to correct. Here’s what I mean.
There is a story about the Nine Famous Irishmen who were convicted of Rebellion in 1848 and sentenced to hang. A popular uproar from around the globe got their sentences commuted to banishment to Australia. Years later Queen Victoria asked what had happened to them and was astonished to hear that they were all prominent citizens in Australia, Canada, and the U.S.
That’s all a bunch of hooey!
They were never sentenced to anything but banishment. There was no worldwide outcry. And the Queen could not have cared less what happened to them.
It is true though, that they all became successful after escaping from the prison camps. Years later one became the Attorney General of New South Wales, one was a Canadian Government Minister, one was a newspaper publisher, one was an author, and three became Members of Parliament.
In the U.S., two were Civil War Army Generals, one of which, Thomas Francis Meagher, led the famous Irish Brigade and went on to be acting Governor of Montana. And another one of the nine became a Superior Court Judge and big in New York politics. But the popular story is all wrong.
But here’s the thing. I was in Las Vegas and I saw a pub called the Nine Famous Irishmen. Of course I had to go in there. It’s a nice place but it doesn’t really remind you of a pub. I looked down at my paper place setting and there it is! The real story. The history - without the bogus myths. Here’s a perfect way someone’s effort to spread the truth had taken on a new energy. Everyone who eats here is going to look down at that paper and see the real story.
I just had to tell the owner. I introduced myself as the AOH National Historian and how happy I was that they got it right. He laughed and told me to look at the place. Over there is the dock where the prisoners would have stood. There’s the bench for the judge. The whole place was laid out exactly as the courtroom these men were tried in! The exact layout and the exact dimensions. What a great place!

Not to be put off my original agenda I asked Mike if I could bestow on him the title of Seanachie, the traditional Gaelic Storyteller. He didn’t say yes, but he didn’t say no. Instead he told me about the History of the Seanachie. He said the position started as what the Druids called a Bard.
“When St. Patrick et al Christianized Ireland, the Bard was the person who kept the ancient Celtic History alive. They would spend at least sixteen years as an apprentice learning all the history by heart. Ireland had no written language then so they needed to present everything orally. And the discipline did not allow for any deviations to the stories. They had to be learned and presented verbatim.”
“Then the British took over and they outlawed all of Irish culture. They tried to destroy the rulers, the economy, and the very Irish people. It was up to the Bards to continue the story of Ireland’s past. Under a threat of death if captured, they took to the roads and would travel from village to village and cottage to cottage telling their tales for a roof for the night and a meal or two. No one asked any questions about who the Bards were or where they were from. But the Irish traditions were kept alive and passed on to another generation.
What did suffer in this system was the commitment to accuracy by future generations. The stories now were altered slightly from telling to telling over the centuries. Not the exact detail that the disciplined Bards of old had to uphold but still Irish, those who retold the stories became known as Seanachies (storytellers). Some became Hedge School Masters and secretly taught the now forbidden History to a degree beyond what the British invaders would tolerate. For this was a time when promoting Irish heritage was illegal under British law.”
The attempted destruction of Irish culture made it difficult for us Irish of today to go back for the truth. This is what Mike has made his primary effort. Finding the History within the myths. A process that began soon after his grandfather had died. The wonder of this effort is not so much where it began, but what made it a passion.
During a trip ‘home’ to Cavan, Mike spoke about his unsuccessful efforts to trace their heritage back to before their great-great grandfather settled in Cavan in the 1850’s with a cousin who was well into his nineties.
“You won’t find anything.” The cousin said.
“Why not?”
“Because he was a Storyteller who came to town and fell for a local girl. No one would have asked him where he had come from and he never told.”
“When I heard that,” said Mike, “it was like a light going on. Now I knew where my grandfather got all those stories. Now I knew why I was so fascinated by History. Had I known this in my younger years, I would have become a teacher. The wind in my sails became stronger and what had been an interest now became an avocation.”
Mike McCormack is the latest to adopt the storyteller role in a family with a long tradition of storytelling. Each who accepted the role was committed to fulfilling the task of maintaining Irish History against the suppressions of their times.
What we Irish need now is to wade through all the myths, all the first person accounts, and all the long-delayed archeological work and finally expand the world’s understanding of the truth. Following Mike’s lead, we must join those working to revise History with an expanded understanding of the great contributions of the Irish. To stoke the interest and energy of the next generation to seek the truth behind the myths.
We do need to know this.
The Bardic tradition, upheld by the Seanachie and Hedge School teachers kept the glory and magic of being Irish alive for centuries as the British sought to eradicate the heritage, the culture, and the people. Now, Mike McCormack is one of a few spearheading the effort to counter the historical suppression of Irish accomplishments by uncovering the truth beneath the myths. Keeping the Irish culture alive as a Seanachie, but also updating and revising the stories with more facts as a historian.
Mike asks us to open our minds to the facts behind the myths - such as the example of the archeological discovery of a race of Early Celtic people in prehistoric Ireland who stood about four-feet tall.
Could these people be the Leprechauns of myth? I don’t know, but they are now proven to be an Irish people of History