I Hear His Pipes, And My Da’s Alive Again

People who don’t understand Twitter, or don’t want to, often dismiss it as little more than an opportunity to utter inanities. It is that of course, but no more than the telephone, or indeed the power of speech itself.

But words on twitter can also be eloquent, informative, and moving. Here are 6 posts made over several hours on Saturday by Kansas City’s Katy McKenna.

They speak for themselves:

The old KC Irish community has lost another soul. Funeral today. Burial in Irish contingent of cemetery with my brother, father, & the rest.

When my brother died in 1955, the Irish from Redemptorist parish in KC purchased burial plots together, surrounding him. Place is full now.

The Irish (and Scots) I grew up among were immigrants w/thick brogues. They huddled together in the Irish part of KC, fresh off the boat.

Funeral for old family friend was beautiful. Still, 3 funerals & 1 Irish wake in past 18 days is plenty. A reprieve, I hope?

And the bagpipes accompanying the body from church, and playing at the gravesite? “Our” bagpiper’s been w/ us for happy & sad, since 1975.

Our piper’s lead St. Paddy’s parade in KC, but plays also at our weddings, funerals, & parties. I hear his pipes, and my da’s alive again.

Old time readers might remember Katy from a Kansas City Irish genealogy story I posted over 3 years ago.

Follow on Twitter
   • Katy: @KatyMcKenna
   • The IrishKC author @eolai
   • The IrishKC site @IrishKC
   • The IrishKC author’s cartoon site American Hell @AmericanHell
   • The IrishKC author’s dog @AmericanDogDog

Share |

This entry was posted on Monday, August 3rd, 2009 at 2:02 am and is filed under Immigration, twitter. You can follow responses via my RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

2 Responses to “I Hear His Pipes, And My Da’s Alive Again”

Katy McKenna responds: August 3rd, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Hi, Eolai! It was lovely of you to blog my Tweets! I think you may have picked up on my love for serial tweeting. I enjoy posting my 140 characters, and then having someone wonder, “What happened next?”
Saturday did hit me hard, though. There’s a large population of Irish in KC whose families came over during the famine years, but a smaller group of us whose own parents were immigrants. (And then you!) We stuck together, but now the brogues are dwindling. Memories are not.
Katy McKenna responds: August 3rd, 2009 at 5:30 pm
Eolai, I clicked back to the previous story of mine you linked to, and saw that I was still going by Katy McKenna Raymond then. For purposes related to attempting to get published, I’m using my maiden name now. But my hubby Doug Raymond is still by my side…