Celebrate St. Paddy’s by toasting literature

St. Patrick’s Day is nearly upon us. It’s funny how the holiday has become an occasion of festivity for so many Americans. Even the ones who aren’t of Irish descent have been caught putting the Chieftans on the CD player and downing a Guinness or two.

Perhaps it’s the long calendar gap between New Year’s and Memorial Day that compels us to wear bright green clothes and shamrock earrings.

Of course, there are other ways to celebrate the Irish and their contribution to the world.

One of those ways is to celebrate what is their most valued and enduring gift ? their literature. It cannot be denied that the Irish as a nation have produced a greater amount of notable literature per capita than most larger and richer nations.

Irish literature (oral or written) dates back to the very early Middle Ages, but it was in the 18th century that Irish writers, working in English, rose to world prominence. Jonathan Swift’s masterpiece “Gulliver’s Travels” is often relegated to the children’s room, even though it is one of the most savage satires ever written. Two other Irish-born greats from that century are Lawrence Sterne (“Tristram Shandy”) and Oliver Goldsmith (“She Stoops to Conquer” and “The Vicar of Wakefield.”) These authors created a style of playful irony that set the tone for the future of Irish literature.

Most Irish writers of the 19th century are not known or read here. Many of the novels represent what is called “big house” literature ? epic novels that depict the relationship between the English or Anglo-Irish landowners and their Irish tenants and servants. But as the 19th century drew to a close and “the troubles” were fomenting, the steam had to escape somewhere.

George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde represent the first break into modernism and out of Ireland. It is one of the peculiarities of Irish literature that so many of its writers, until recently, have immigrated or lived in self-imposed exile. Two famous exiles, of course, are James Joyce and Samuel Beckett, who embody 20th century literature. And if “Ulysses” (published in 1922) and “Waiting for Godot” (written in the late ‘40s) are still too daunting, try reading Joyce’s short stories in “The Dubliners” or Beckett’s trilogy of novels “Molloy,” “Malone Dies” and “The Unnamable.”

As a relative peace came to Ireland late in the last century, wonderful writers have emerged out of the earlier tradition of poetry, humor and insight. There are the great exponents of the short story, Frank O’Connor and Seán O’Faoláin. The poetic tradition of William Butler Yeats has been carried on by Patrick Kavanagh and Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney. The plays of Shaw were followed by Sean O’Casey, John Millington Synge, Brendan Behan, Brian Friel and Tom Murphy.

And it is the recent Irish novels that have woven a long line of literary tradition into some of the outstanding works of our age. Edna O’Brien, Walter Macken, Liam O’Flaherty, Maeve Binchy, Jennifer Johnston, Dermott Bolger, Colm TóibÃn, Roddy Doyle, William Trevor, Sebastian Barry and Joseph O’Connor (incidentally, brother of Sinéad) all prove that the Irish gift to world literature has not waned.

So along with the partying, why not try a different way to remember the Irish heritage: Read a novel. O’Connor’s “Star of the Sea,” Doyle’s “Paddy Clarke, Ha Ha Ha” or Barry’s “A Long Long Way” will offer a fresh new look at the world and into a literature that is laden with lyricism, sly wit, and a deep understanding of the human soul.