keep learning them.
TWELVE
11:19 p.m.:
Bold Thady Quill
“Bold Thady Quill” is an old Irish drinking song about the adventures of a hell-raising boyo who carouses and blackguards and chases women and fights and barely staggers into the next verse. “For rambling, for roving! For football and courting! For drinking black porter as fast as you fill! In all your days roving, you’ll find none so jovial, as our Muskerry sportsman, the Bold Thady Quill!”
This song reminds me of my mom, because it’s the song I sing for her on special occasions. I sing it on the phone and in person, on birthdays, wedding anniversaries, any time we’re together and the hour gets festive. When it’s Thanksgiving and the fire is lit and the stingers are poured, it’s only a matter of time before my mom declares, “Let’s have a sing-song,” and we all start singing the old Irish songs. Over the course of any holiday weekend, I will sing “Bold Thady Quill” for my mom until everyone’s sick of it.
I didn’t realize how much my mom loved this song until one day years ago when we were visiting cousins in Ireland. On the road west out of County Cork, the car broke down, so we stood waiting for the tow truck by the banks of the River Lee. I casually sang a few lines from this song—“the great hurling match between Cork and Tipperary, / ’Twas played in the park on the banks of the Lee”—and my mom recognized the tune. So I sang it until the tow truck came, and if you’ve ever waited for an Irishman to show up, you know that gave us plenty of time to get though all the verses. My mom and I were each surprised to discover how much the other one liked the song. I’ve been singing it for her ever since.
We know this song from an old Clancy Brothers record that her mother had, called Come Fill Your Glass with Us: Irish Songs of Drinking and Blackguarding . The liner notes claimed Thady Quill was a real-life athlete from Cork, still alive at the time the record came out, a star in the Irish sport of hurling. (Ever watch a pack of grown men attack each other with clubs for thirty seconds? That’s what a hurling match looks like.) But I really know nothing about Thady Quill, or whether any of his exploits in this song ever happened. For me, he’s just the guy in this song, and I feel like I’ve come to know him, because he’s part of my duties as a son. I take my mother’s car to Jiffy Lube, I go through her fridge and throw out all the expired salad dressing, and I sing her “Bold Thady Quill.” I always will.
I’M ALWAYS SINGING FOR MY mom, in a way. She only has the one son, so she doesn’t have the luxury of having both a loud son and a quiet son. I started out quiet, but I’ve learned to get louder for her. For my last birthday, when Ally and I were heading out to Sing Sing for karaoke, she asked me to sing an Elvis song for her. (I did “Can’t Help Falling in Love.”) My mom likes her children loud; she made us this way. So I feel close to her when I sing. I’m always trying to impress her. Singing is just one of the ways.
She’s the most passionate person I have ever encountered in my life, and when she has something important to say, she doesn’t beat around the bush. One day, right after I moved to Virginia, she called me up. I had just started my graduate studies in the English department. I was brimming with plans and ambitions. She listened to me rave for a few minutes about everything I had gone there to achieve.
“You know, you have impressed me,” she said. “You have impressed me, permanently. Your father and I are both very pleased with you. You don’t have to do anything else the rest of your life to impress me.”
Why did she say that? I don’t know. I’ve never asked her. I’m not as good as she is with a blunt question like that. But I wonder all the time. How did she know to say that? Did she realize she had just said a few words that I would remember for the rest of my life? For
TWELVE
11:19 p.m.:
Bold Thady Quill
“Bold Thady Quill” is an old Irish drinking song about the adventures of a hell-raising boyo who carouses and blackguards and chases women and fights and barely staggers into the next verse. “For rambling, for roving! For football and courting! For drinking black porter as fast as you fill! In all your days roving, you’ll find none so jovial, as our Muskerry sportsman, the Bold Thady Quill!”
This song reminds me of my mom, because it’s the song I sing for her on special occasions. I sing it on the phone and in person, on birthdays, wedding anniversaries, any time we’re together and the hour gets festive. When it’s Thanksgiving and the fire is lit and the stingers are poured, it’s only a matter of time before my mom declares, “Let’s have a sing-song,” and we all start singing the old Irish songs. Over the course of any holiday weekend, I will sing “Bold Thady Quill” for my mom until everyone’s sick of it.
I didn’t realize how much my mom loved this song until one day years ago when we were visiting cousins in Ireland. On the road west out of County Cork, the car broke down, so we stood waiting for the tow truck by the banks of the River Lee. I casually sang a few lines from this song—“the great hurling match between Cork and Tipperary, / ’Twas played in the park on the banks of the Lee”—and my mom recognized the tune. So I sang it until the tow truck came, and if you’ve ever waited for an Irishman to show up, you know that gave us plenty of time to get though all the verses. My mom and I were each surprised to discover how much the other one liked the song. I’ve been singing it for her ever since.
We know this song from an old Clancy Brothers record that her mother had, called Come Fill Your Glass with Us: Irish Songs of Drinking and Blackguarding . The liner notes claimed Thady Quill was a real-life athlete from Cork, still alive at the time the record came out, a star in the Irish sport of hurling. (Ever watch a pack of grown men attack each other with clubs for thirty seconds? That’s what a hurling match looks like.) But I really know nothing about Thady Quill, or whether any of his exploits in this song ever happened. For me, he’s just the guy in this song, and I feel like I’ve come to know him, because he’s part of my duties as a son. I take my mother’s car to Jiffy Lube, I go through her fridge and throw out all the expired salad dressing, and I sing her “Bold Thady Quill.” I always will.
I’M ALWAYS SINGING FOR MY mom, in a way. She only has the one son, so she doesn’t have the luxury of having both a loud son and a quiet son. I started out quiet, but I’ve learned to get louder for her. For my last birthday, when Ally and I were heading out to Sing Sing for karaoke, she asked me to sing an Elvis song for her. (I did “Can’t Help Falling in Love.”) My mom likes her children loud; she made us this way. So I feel close to her when I sing. I’m always trying to impress her. Singing is just one of the ways.
She’s the most passionate person I have ever encountered in my life, and when she has something important to say, she doesn’t beat around the bush. One day, right after I moved to Virginia, she called me up. I had just started my graduate studies in the English department. I was brimming with plans and ambitions. She listened to me rave for a few minutes about everything I had gone there to achieve.
“You know, you have impressed me,” she said. “You have impressed me, permanently. Your father and I are both very pleased with you. You don’t have to do anything else the rest of your life to impress me.”
Why did she say that? I don’t know. I’ve never asked her. I’m not as good as she is with a blunt question like that. But I wonder all the time. How did she know to say that? Did she realize she had just said a few words that I would remember for the rest of my life? For
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