Shep’s Ireland


The late humorist Jean Shepherd was part Irish, which may explain why he was such a natural storyteller. During Shepherd’s first trip to Europe he explored Dublin and the surrounding countryside. On St. Patrick’s day in 1967, Shep describes his first impressions of Ireland as he walks the streets of Dublin and drinks stout at a local pub with an old man named Séamus. It’s one of my personal favorites from his classic 1960s WOR radio shows. You can hear and download the entire broadcast here. I have transcribed a short excerpt just to give you a flavor of his reflections on Ireland. Shep’s Ireland.

It’s a funny thing about Ireland. One thing I recall, the first night I was in Dublin: Ireland is a silent country. Very little sound in Ireland, and this adds to the strange poignancy of this country. There’ a curious kind of silence that hangs over even the biggest cities. Even in the middle of a giant traffic jam, somehow it’s muted and silent. And I remember walking out of the hotel I was living in, which was not far from the river in Dublin, and it was March, this time of year, and the streets were wet, and there was a kind of grayness, a sort of wrapped in cotton softness to everything.

Ireland doesn’t really get cold, you know, like we get here in New York or in America, ’cause it’s an island country and the sea tempers everything. It doesn’t get warm in the summertime, really. It’s always sort of muted, and it’s always vaguely green and gray. It’s always a sense of, somehow somebody hasn’t really quite opened the curtains. There’s a quality of, continually of, you can’t quite see in Ireland. Even in the bright sunlight, it’s muted and soft.

And so I’m walking along a winding street. And the concrete and the stones, the bricks were rounded, and they were wet and the kind of slippery and gleaming. And I was walking along, it must of have been nine or ten o’clock… And it was vaguely foggy, and you could see the fog laying around the streetlights, the turn in the street that I was walking along. And there was something that was kind of bothering me. I couldn’t figure out what it was. It was a strange thing. And then I began to discover what it was. I could hear my own footsteps! It was the first time, in a long time, I ever heard my feet on a street in a big city. I could hear my feet and I could hear them echoing from side to side. And then, as I became conscious of this, I could hear feet all around me. I could hear feet in the next street. I could hear feet of people ahead of me, and behind me. And then I heard sounds of windows. Someone would open a window and I would hear the sound of a door close…

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March 17th, 2008
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Viewing 8 Comments

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    I didn't know either that Shepherd was part Irish.
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    • v
    Thanks so much for this post, and the link, which I will also listen to when I get home. I loved Shepherd's work, and his persona, no matter how fabricated it may or may not have been.

    I have only been to Ireland once, for 2 weeks nearly 20 years ago, but the excerpt brought it back so vividly. When we landed in the early morning in Shannon Airport, we were immediately confronted by silence, which we thought was just the early morning and the let lag. We stayed that first day, in a B&B in Limerick, if I'm recalling correctly, and broke the traveler's rule by napping for a good part of that first day. When we woke and went out to the business part of town to find a place to eat, that same hushed, near-silence was everywhere. And it was that way the entire 2 weeks, in every town, city or village we visited.

    We thought initially that the Irish people's reputation for hospitality had been exaggerated, as it felt almost as if everyone was retiring, withdrawing to themselves and away from us, into their own secrets. Of course, 30 seconds into our first Irish pub proved otherwise. The pubs were full of smoke and talk and laughter, and occasionally music, but even there, the Irish were more conversational than we were used to, being then veterans of loud, music-blaring bars in the US, shouting ourselves hoarse to be heard within arm's length. The wood, and smoke, and stone and ale made every night a family gathering in Ireland, but so did the pitch and volume of the talk. Opening that door each night to head back to our B&B was like entering into a vacuum, so pitch black were the roads, and so quiet.
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    Thank you for bringing the Irish this week! I love it! I'm really excited about being able to listen to this once I get off work :)
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    Wait, don't we get two grandmothers? What about his other one? Near the end of the broadcast, his Rafferty heritage is mentioned again at the pub.

    Looking forward to the new edition.

    Seltzer Bottle!
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    • v
    It's been years since I've heard this Shepherd broadcast so I'd forgotten that he claimed he had Irish blood. Maybe he had and maybe no. He made lots of stuff up and one has difficulty deciding on a particular statement without other confirmation. He might just have said it because it was St. Patrick's Day. I can neither confirm nor deny--especially as my research and my book are mainly concerned with his art rather than biographical details of his life. There is info (1930 census)that her maiden name was Hetrick and her family came from Germany, despite Shep's agreement with his friend during his narration that his mother was a "Raferty." As with so much other biographical trivia about Shep, we may never know the "truth." By the way, I'm working on a follow-up book now to include lots of material that has surfaced since my book came out 3 years ago. Jean Shepherd has taken over a good part of my life.

    Knees Loose!

    ebb
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    Sorry, actually, it's 15 minutes into the show that he talks about having Irish blood (30 minutes are left in the broadcast). It's been a long day.
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    Hey Gene! I read your book and really enjoyed it. I must admit, I am rather confused. Fast forward to about 30 minutes into the show, right after the commercials in the 3/17/67 broadcast that I uploaded and linked to this article and you will hear Shep himself state that he has Irish blood, and that his grandmother was a Rafferty. Now, maybe Shep was just wanted to be Irish like Norman Mailer, I don't know. If its not correct, I will post an erratum. Cheers!
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    I was not aware that Shepherd was part Irish. Where did that info come from?

    I'm the author of the only book about him, EXCELSIOR, YOU FATHEAD! THE ART AND ENIGMA OF JEAN SHEPHERD, and I'd like to see any available proof of this.
    Excelsior
    EBBergmann
 

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