The Clancy Brothers

by Dawn Corrigan

After the incident with the IRA, Tommy’s interest in his Irish heritage did not recede but evolved into something more personal and aesthetic. He ordered the Hogan family crest and a map of the island with its ancient family names printed on their County of origin. Then he spent hours hovered over these two documents, admiring the knight’s helmet that appeared on the coat of arms and imagining the inland landscape to which the dot on the map by his name must correspond, a landscape colored in many shades of green, through which ancient Hogans, clad in the crest’s armor, roamed. Tommy also took to drinking Tullamore Dew exclusively, and to listening to Irish music. He started out with a Clancy Brothers album that had been recorded at Madison Square Garden, then later acquired albums actually recorded in Ireland. He listened to the latter music dutifully, but secretly he continued to prefer the Clancy Brothers.

6S

Dawn Corrigan's fiction has appeared recently or is forthcoming at VerbSap, Pindeldyboz, Monkeybicycle, The Dream People, Rumble, 55 Words, Defenestration, and 3711 Atlantic. Her nonfiction appears regularly at The Nervous Breakdown. For more on the Hogans (and Capuanos), check out Dawn's previous six: An Interrupted Meeting.