Luck of the Irish
As fifteen-year-old Seamus O'Donnell looked out on the emerald green hills of the Irish countryside, he felt no great sense of patriotism, no love for the country of his birth. His best hope for making a fortune, he realized, lay in America, not in Ireland. He felt sure that if he could emigrate to New York or Boston, he would indeed find its fabled streets paved with milk and honey. The problem was that young Seamus lacked the financial wherewithal to pay for a transatlantic passage.
"Stop yer daydreamin', boy, and put some weight behind that plow," his father ordered.
Seamus hated farming. It was backbreaking work that lasted from dawn to dusk, and the meager earnings eked out of the land barely kept his family fed and clothed.
When his work for the day was finally over, Seamus headed for the stream that bordered the eastern boundary of his family's small farm. He stripped off his worn and dusty clothes and waded into the cool water. Then he lay on his back in the shallow stream, letting the gentle current wash away his perspiration.
Above the sound of the gently rippling water, he heard a rustling on shore and turned in the direction of the noise. A golden glow emanated from the heavy undergrowth that had sprung up around the base of a thick tree. Seamus feared it might be a smoldering fire that, if left untended, would destroy his family's fields. Cautiously, he neared the tree, knelt down at its base and divided the leaves and vines with his hands. On the mossy ground was a small wooden chest filled with gold pieces. It had been the light of the setting sun reflecting against their surface that had given off that golden glow.
Seamus reached down and picked up a handful of coins. He did not know their exact value, but he estimated that there was more than enough gold in the chest to pay his way to America. He dressed quickly and then picked up the heavy chest and carried it back to his family's cottage.
"We're rich!" he shouted with excitement as he crossed the humble threshold.
"What's that ye're yellin' about, lad?" his exhausted father asked gruffly, looking up from his bowl of stew.
"I found this chest lyin' beside the stream," he said, depositing his treasure on the kitchen table. "And it's filled with gold!"
To Seamus's surprise, his father's eyes widened with fear, not joy.
"For God's sake! Put it back before he notices it's gone," he cried.
"Who?"
"Why, the leprechaun, of course. If he finds out ye stole his gold, ye'll be cursed with bad luck the rest of yer days!"
Seamus laughed with incredulity.
"Leprechaun, ye say? I dinna believe my own Da fears pixies and brownies."
"Then answer me this, lad. In a country as poor as ours, who else do ye think has chests of gold hidden under a tree?"
"Some well-heeled Englishman, maybe. I dinna know," his son admitted, "but I surely don't believe the old tales of elves, fairies and the Land of Tír na Nóg."
"Whether ye believe or not, the gold's not yers. Keepin' it will only get ye in trouble. Put it back, I say."
Seamus looked from his father to his mother, but there was no help to be found in that quarter. She was, after all, an illiterate peasant woman who knew of nothing but cleaning, cooking and giving birth. To all other matters, she deferred to her husband.
"All right," he sighed. "If ye dinna want to grasp good fortune when it lands at yer feet, so be it."
He picked up the chest and walked out the door, but rather than head back toward the stream, he walked in the direction of the road that led to Dublin and to his destiny.
* * *
The gold Seamus O'Donnell found not only paid for his passage to Boston, but it was also enough for him to support himself modestly for many months thereafter. A clever, fearless and not-too-scrupulous young man, Seamus did well in America. In a short time, he owned his own business and soon married Bridie O'Hara, the daughter of a prominent New England politician.
The years went by, and the young Irishman's fortune grew. Likewise, as he branched off into more diversified areas of commerce and acquired greater wealth, his ambitions grew. Having attained some fame and a great deal of money, he then sought power and gazed with longing eyes at his father-in-law's world of politics.
"You've got the luck of the Irish, no doubt about it, lad," Bridie's father declared when his son-in-law announced his intention to run for office. "Still, it takes more than luck alone to become a successful politician."
"I know," Seamus replied cynically, "it takes money, and I've got plenty of that."
"It takes money to make a politician—that's the easy part—but it takes more than that to be one. Oh, I'm sure you might be able to wrangle yourself an appointment of some kind, a cabinet position or maybe an ambassadorship, but you'll never be able to win an election."
"Don't be so sure of that. I can buy a lot of votes with my considerable fortune."
"Maybe," his father-in-law conceded, "but I seriously doubt it. Let me speak plainly to you, Seamus, as though you were my own son. You've got a dishonest face. No man is going to put his trust in you. Plus, you're a foreigner and a Catholic to boot."
"Come on, you know I don't have any religious beliefs."
"That in itself is sure to lose you an election. Neither the Protestants nor the Catholics want an atheist in office."
Bitter, disappointed and resentful though he was, Seamus knew his father-in-law was right. He would never earn enough votes to win a major election. The poor would resent him because he was rich, whereas the rich, with their disdain for "new money," would consider him an immigrant upstart. Also, he had made many enemies during his climb to the top, and they would most likely jump at the chance to ruin any political aspirations he might have.
On one of those increasingly rare occasions that Seamus went home after a day at his office, he sat on his back porch and watched his children playing on the lawn. His oldest son, Tommy, was leading his younger brothers and sisters in a game of touch football. The self-made billionaire smiled with pride as he watched the seventeen-year-old. He had a handsome face and a strong, athletic body. He was also an excellent student and was quite popular with his peers.
Tommy has all the advantages in life that I never had, Seamus thought.
Then he realized that his son might succeed where the father was destined to fail. Although Seamus could only inspire the distrust and envy of his fellow man, Tommy would command respect and admiration. With his intelligence and charismatic personality—not to mention his father's vast fortune behind him—Tommy O'Donnell could become a senator, congressman, governor or even the president.
On that fateful summer day, Seamus began to plot a course that would eventually lead his family to greatness. However, later that night he had a dream that took him back to the old country and to the deprivation and misery of his past. In his sleep, he journeyed back to the day when he was a boy of fifteen, plowing his father's field. He relived his bath in the cool waters of the stream and the discovery of the chest of gold. Only this time, when he picked the treasure up and headed for home, Seamus was stopped by a tiny man, barely a foot tall.
"And just where do ye think ye'll be goin' with me gold?" the leprechaun asked.
"I'm off to America," Seamus replied calmly, as though meeting one of the wee folk was a common occurrence.
"Yer old Da was right, Seamus O'Donnell. If ye dinna return me gold to the land of Eire, ye'll be cursed with bad luck from here on in."
"Away with ye, now," Seamus laughed derisively. "I've had nothin' but good luck since I found yer gold. I've gained great wealth and success here in America. I've got a grand house, a good wife and nine healthy children."
The leprechaun smiled, but there was more threat than humor in his eyes.
"'Tis when a man has everything he wants that he has everything to lose."
"Don't threaten me," Seamus said angrily. "I've had to deal with worse ...."
The leprechaun was not intimidated by his worldly power.
"Enough! Return me gold or ye'll wish ye were ne'er born."
* * *
The dire predictions of that dream did not begin to materialize for another few years, but when they finally did, bad luck began to rain down on the O'Donnell family.
While the rest of the world turned its watchful eyes toward the growing threat of Nazi Germany, Seamus was worried about his daughter, Eileen. She had never been the brightest of his children, but for the past several months her behavior had taken a turn for the worse. After Eileen attacked one of the upstairs maids, Seamus found it necessary to have her hospitalized in a private sanitarium.
Then one night he and his wife were awakened by a dreadful wailing scream.
"What was that?" Seamus asked, his heart beating wildly.
"It sounds like a banshee," his wife replied fearfully.
Bridie, like Seamus's own mother—God rest her soul—was a superstitious woman. Although born and raised in Boston, she knew and believed in all the folk tales of Ireland.
"Something bad is going to happen," she cried. "I just know it."
"Don't be ridiculous, Bridie. One of the girls probably had a nightmare; that's all."
The children, however, were sleeping peacefully in their beds—all except for Eileen, who at that moment was in her private room in the sanitarium, hanging herself with knotted strips torn from her bed sheets.
Eileen's death—Seamus refused to call it a suicide—was a great loss to the O'Donnell family. Yet even in the face of such a profound tragedy, there was still much to be thankful for. Tommy, who now answered to the more formal name of Thomas, had graduated high school first in his class and was attending Harvard. Seamus, in the meantime, had become an economic advisor to President Franklin Roosevelt. It was as close as he had ever gotten to his dream of political power.
Then, on December 7, 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and Seamus's carefully laid plans collapsed like a house of cards. Against his father's wishes, Thomas left Harvard, enlisted in the Navy and became a naval aviator. Geraldine, the eldest of the O'Donnell daughters, joined the WAVEs. The following year, young Daniel O'Donnell also joined the Navy. With three of their children serving in the armed forces, the O'Donnells turned their attention to helping the war effort.
One night, shortly after arriving home from an important dinner with the Secretary of State, Seamus was startled by a wailing scream, one that sounded strangely familiar. He remembered his wife's fear at hearing a similar cry.
"It's the banshee," she had insisted. "Something bad is going to happen."
That was the night Eileen died.
Once again, that dreadful scream foretold tragedy. While flying a bombing mission over Germany, Thomas O'Donnell's plane was shot down, and although his body was never found, he was presumed to be killed.
Bridie was heartbroken at losing a second child, her firstborn. Seamus, too, was deeply affected by this calamity, but he was not one to accept defeat. Thomas may be dead, he reasoned, but he had three other sons, and each one was as charismatic and had as much potential as Thomas had. And so, with the eldest son gone, Seamus's political goals fell on his second son, Daniel.
The father's lofty ambitions soon suffered another setback when the boat on which Daniel was serving was torpedoed by a German sub. Luck seemed to be in his favor on this occasion, however. Although Danny suffered severe injuries, he came out of the incident a hero: a fact that made a good impression on future voters.
* * *
Just when things were finally looking up, the paterfamilias of the O'Donnell clan had a second dream of Ireland. Again, the leprechaun confronted him, as a fifteen-year-old Seamus was in the act of absconding with the chest of gold.
"Well, Seamus," the little man in green asked, "have ye not had enough bad luck yet? Ye lost two children already."
"My wife and I have suffered greatly," Seamus conceded. "Nevertheless, we also have much to be thankful for. Our son Daniel is a war hero, our other two sons are both in Harvard, Geraldine is engaged to marry a British Lord and our three youngest girls are sure to make us proud."
"Ye've got it all planned, haven't ye?" the leprechaun goaded him. "Heed me warnin', man: return me gold to the Emerald Isle or ye'll regret it till yer dyin' day."
Again, Seamus ignored the warning. It was only a dream, a figment of his imagination, probably nothing more than the result of his parents' and wife's superstitions and his own concern for the safety of his children.
There seemed to be little to fear at that time. Hitler's Third Reich was coming to an end, and peace with Germany was in sight. Confident in a U.S. victory in both Europe and the Pacific, Seamus began formulating plans for Daniel's eventual political future. Sadly, ill luck would deal the O'Donnells one last blow before the armistice. The banshee wailed again when Geraldine and her British fiancé were killed when his lordship's plane crashed during a bombing raid.
* * *
The postwar world smiled brightly on the O'Donnells. The two younger boys graduated from Harvard and went on to law school. The three surviving girls married well, except neither Seamus nor Bridie was too happy with Jeanne's choosing a Hollywood actor as a husband.
Thanks to his personal charm and his father's well-placed connections and financial backing, Daniel O'Donnell became a Congressman, and several years later he received the Democratic nomination for president. It was a close race, but it ended in victory, and Seamus rejoiced in his triumph, He had succeeded in making his son President of the United States. Once in the Oval Office, Daniel appointed his brother, Ryan, Attorney General.
Back at home, young Matthew, the baby of the family, became a United States senator. The O'Donnells were now more than a family; they had become a dynasty.
The night after his son's inauguration, the wealthy tycoon had another dream of Ireland in which the angry leprechaun confronted him on the banks of the stream.
"Seamus, me lad, I've yet to get me gold back. Ye've lost three children already, man. What are ye waitin' for?"
"My children's deaths, tragic though they were, had nothing to do with you, little man. Eileen killed herself, and Thomas and Geraldine died during the war."
"Don't be daft! They died because I cursed ye when ye took me gold."
"Cursed am I? One of my sons is President of the United States, one is the Attorney General and the other is a senator. I've got the luck of the Irish, to be sure."
The leprechaun shook his head sadly.
"Ye're proud of yer children, as ye have a right to be. Don't risk jeopardizin' their futures over a chest of gold. After all, Seamus, ye're a very rich man. Ye can part with the money and never miss it. What's stopping ye from returning what's rightfully mine?"
That was true. The leprechaun's gold had amounted to little more than a few thousand dollars, a mere pittance to Seamus O'Donnell. All the same, the aging Irishman was proud and obstinate. He would never return the gold and thus admit to believing in nonsense such as curses and leprechauns. He preferred to leave all that blarney to the poor, ignorant peasants in the old country.
* * *
It had been nearly fifty years since Seamus O'Donnell, an ambitious, impoverished, teenage Irish immigrant, had sailed into Boston harbor. In those long years, he managed to amass an incredible fortune and make his boyhood dreams a reality. It had taken him almost half a century to reach that mighty zenith, yet in less than five years thereafter, he plummeted into an abyss.
In a world of princes and paupers, of peasants and kings, death took equal claim of all. The banshee's mournful cry sounded for presidents and for rich men's Harvard-educated sons as well as for the bourgeoisie and the disadvantaged offspring of the nation's poor.
The assassination of President Daniel Francis O'Donnell was a blow to the morale of the country and a loss to the world. Not long after the president's tragic death, his grieving father suffered a devastating stroke that left him paralyzed and unable to speak. Yet despite the incapacity of his body, Seamus's mental capacity was as clear as ever, a fact that brought him no comfort. In his later years, he often wished that his mind could take shelter in some distant world, far away from his pain.
Fate, though, would not let Seamus off so easily. He would first have to suffer the loss of yet another son. Neither the family nor the country had quite gotten over the killing of the president, when his brother, Senator Ryan O'Donnell, former Attorney General, was assassinated while campaigning for the presidency.
* * *
The elderly Seamus was tired, both in body and in spirit. His male nurse helped him from his wheelchair into bed, and he was asleep within a matter of moments. The dream was more real than any he had ever had before. He could feel the coolness of the water on his bare feet and could smell the earthy scent of the Irish farmland. As the fifteen-year-old sat on the bank of the stream, feeling the strength once more surging through his now useless limbs, Seamus heard the familiar high-pitched, squeaky voice of the leprechaun.
"Seamus! Seamus! What a waste! Why didn't ye just give me back the damned gold when ye had the chance? Why put your wife through such misery? Do ye think I like standin' by watchin' yer fine children dyin' off one by one: two daughters, three sons, and the fourth one—well, ye've had your troubles there, too; haven't ye?"
"Whatever Matthew's shortcomings are, he's my son. The only one I have left," he sobbed.
"And whose fault is that? Wouldn't it have been worth that pitiful pile of gold—nay, every cent of yer vast fortune—to have all yer children about ye in yer old age and to have yer grandchildren know their fathers?"
"Stop all this damned talk of curses! I don't believe in them. Yes, I've known tragedy, but I've also known great triumph. For every sadness I've had to endure, there has been a joy to balance the scale. That's life!"
"Ye stubborn ass! Of the nine children ye fathered, five have died well before their time. And yet ye still sit there and tell me ye don't believe in curses. Are ye daft, man?"
"No, I don't. It's the uneducated masses of the world who wallow in such superstitions. I'm too smart to believe in pookahs and pixies—or in you! This is just a dream, and you don't really exist."
"So it's arrogance and not greed that was yer undoin'. Seamus, swallow yer pride and bring me gold back. No one need ever know."
"If your talk of curses is true, why should I give you back your gold? If you are responsible for all that has happened to my family, then I now curse you. I'd sooner bury your damned gold in my children's graves than return it to you."
"Ye'll never learn, will ye? It doesn't matter to ye how many people will have to suffer because of yer stubbornness. I wish I could take back me curse, but I can't. It's just the way it is with us leprechauns."
"Keep your pity. Neither I nor my children need it."
"I'll be goin' now. Ye won't ever see me again. But I have one thing to ask ye before I go: how many grandchildren do ye have now, Seamus?"
* * *
Bridie O'Donnell prepared for bed. As usual, before climbing into the four-poster and closing her eyes in anticipation of sleep, she picked up her rosary and prayed. While she was on her knees at the side of her bed, her devotions were interrupted by the sound of a terrible wail.
"The banshee!" she cried, now too familiar with that awful sound.
She had heard it several times before: for her father and mother, for her daughters Eileen and Geraldine and for her boys Thomas, Daniel and Ryan. Suddenly, she dropped her rosary.
"Matthew," she moaned, fearing the banshee's wail signaled the death of her remaining son.
Despite her advanced age, the terrified mother got up off her knees, ran out into the hall and headed for her husband's bedroom.
"Seamus! It's the banshee," she screamed as she crossed the room to his bed. "Seamus! Something must have happened to Matthew. Oh, God, not another car accident!"
Bridie reached for her husband's hand. His flesh had already grown cold.
"No!" she screamed.
Then she dropped her husband's lifeless hand and slowly backed away from the bed.
Seamus O'Donnell was buried four days later after a well-attended funeral officiated by Cardinal Flannigan and held at Boston's Cathedral of the Holy Cross. The widow, properly dressed in black, leaned on the arm of her surviving son, Matthew. Afterward, at the graveside, the former Bridie O'Hara was surrounded by her three daughters, their husbands, Daniel's and Ryan's widows and her many grandchildren.
None of the mourners assembled to bid Seamus goodbye glimpsed the tiny man in green hiding behind the mountain of floral arrangements stacked around the casket. Despite the animosity that had existed between the two, the leprechaun took off his hat respectfully and looked with sadness at the faces of the O'Donnell family members. Seamus's children and grandchildren were all good-looking, intelligent and possessed of a great love for life. Too bad they were all cursed as well.
"They'll be no eternal rest for ye, Seamus," he said. "Regrettably, as long as there's a person alive with a drop of yer blood in his or her veins, my curse will go on. Yer children, their children and their children's children will pay for yer pigheadedness, and not even the luck of the Irish will be able to help them."
The leprechaun then put his green top hat back on his head and disappeared in a puff of smoke.
While loosely based on a famous American family, the characters in this story are purely fictional.
Salem jealously guards his gold pieces: foil wrapped "coins" of Godiva chocolate!
