A visit to a Carlow cemetery gave Charlie Johnson a new insight on America’s Independence Day
Even before I arrived in Ireland, I had been looking forward to this year’s Independence Day, celebrated in the US every year on 4 July. I thought it would be a great way share my history and culture with the Irish, and even bond a bit over our mutual defeat of the British.
But I soon discovered after arriving that there wasn’t much the Irish didn’t already know about the States. American music blared at me from pub speakers, McDonald’s outlets abound, and Barack Obama is even more popular here than he is at home. So what did I really have to gain from celebrating the Fourth?
Quite a bit, it turned out. In years past, I have usually seen Independence Day as a day off work and a chance to stuff my face with cheeseburgers. Martin Luther King Day and, more recently, September 11th were the days where I found myself slowing down and giving deep thought to what my citizenship means to me.
I love my country deeply – flaws and all – and am enormously proud of the opportunities and freedom it has provided for people from every corner of the world. But the Fourth of July has never really symbolised that to me.
Since our nation’s founding, we’ve had to deal with slavery, xenophobia and some colonising of our own, and I’m far prouder of the moments where we left that part of our past behind than the day when, in essence, some rich English guys in America decided to split from some rich English guys in England. So when the Fourth rolled around every year, I always saw it more as an opportunity to relax and watch the fireworks.
Yet there’s a reason why this Fourth of July was special. The reason is a grave marker in a small cemetery in Rathvilly, Co Carlow. Beneath it, my great great grandfather, Edward Lawler, is buried.
Standing at that grave, I realised the magnitude of what America had meant for the Lawler family. The promise it held was so great that they opted to uproot themselves from everything they had ever known.
That their children and children’s children would be Americans meant so much to them that they braved a long and dangerous ocean crossing knowing that that would be the easy part, and the hardest were still to come. Putting it in perspective, when I crossed the Atlantic my biggest concern was jet lag.
It’s a story that is hardly unique in Ireland, or around the world for that matter. But its beauty is such that it caused me to look at the signatures on the Declaration of Independence in an entirely new light.
The names written on that page in 1776 gave life to something so powerful that, 100 years later, my relatives were willing to give up everything to be a part of it. And even 233 years on, other families around the world are still doing the same. That is something to be proud of, and certainly something to celebrate.
This Independence Day I ate my fair share of fatty foods and drank copious amounts of beer, just like I would have at home. But this year also caused me to pause and remember those who have made lives and families with the liberty and opportunity of a country that I take for granted more often than I should.
And even though this was my first Fourth of July outside of the United States (and sadly, without fireworks), it was probably my proudest one.
