The fading of the green
Whenever County Kerry played in an All-Ireland football final, and the Kingdom has won 35 of them so it's a common occurrence, the only place to be in this town was Nash's on Dot Ave.
For Nash's was not just an Irish pub, it was a Kerry pub. And it was not just a Kerry pub, it was a West Kerry pub. The accents were thick and, before the ban, the cigarette smoke was thicker. There were chancers and characters and carpenters, and the craic was 90 - meaning the fun could be no better. Every other word was unprintable. You'd might as well be in Dickie Mack's in Dingle.
But when I walked into Nash's on All-Ireland Sunday last September, everything had changed, changed utterly. Kerry won, of course, making mincemeat of a Cork side that never stood a chance. But hardly anyone was there. Those who were weren't celebrating. It was as if they were holding a wake, and a small one at that.
"They're all gone," Pete Nash said, staring at his pint glass, as if it held an answer instead of some cider. "They've all gone home."
And so they have, and so they will continue. The Irish are leaving. And so Pete Nash, a Kerryman who was a good footballer in his day, sold his pub to a woman named Karen Diep. Her parents are from Vietnam. Nash's will soon re-open as Van's, named for Diep's husband, not Van Morrison. Karen Diep is smart and savvy. They should do well.
Things change. It's as natural and as normal as the tides. One immigrant group replaces another. In some parts of Dorchester, the Vietnamese are the new Irish. They look at empty storefronts and see opportunity. Vietnamese entrepreneurs have breathed new life onto Dot Ave., from Savin Hill all the way to Fields Corner.
The Irish had their time, their ascendancy, in Dorchester, and there's still more than a few of them around. But along much of Dot Ave., it's someone else's turn.
Legally speaking, today isn't St. Patrick's Day in Boston. It's Evacuation Day. On St. Patrick's Day in 1776, British warships sailed out of Dorchester Bay. It was a wise decision, as the American rebels had dragged cannons from Fort Ticonderoga and aimed them at the British fleet from the top of Dorchester Heights.
On this St. Patrick's Day, it is the Irish who are evacuating Boston, the capital of Irish America. A booming economy in Ireland, the inability to get green cards to stay here legally, and a crackdown on illegal immigration since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks have conspired to make Boston a less desirable and hospitable destination for the young Irish who used to stand three deep at Nash's, with paint on their clothes and dreams in their eyes.
For most of two centuries, the Irish came here looking for work and a better life. That steady stream has slowed to a trickle. Some might cheer that prospect. Others might lament it. Still others might shrug and say someone else will take their place. And that's true, and that's America.
But it is also true that no ethnic group, no tribe, had a greater influence on this town, on the way many of us do business, practice politics, and even pray. Even as the Irish go home, even as fewer come over, their influence will linger, like the smoke that used to hang like rain clouds above the bar at Nash's.
Twenty years ago, when Bruce Bolling became the first African-American president of the Boston City Council, one of his first orders of business was to reward those who backed him and punish those who didn't. At a reception in his honor, I sidled up to Bolling and teased him, noting that for all the significance of his ascension, he had behaved like an old Irish ward boss.
Bruce Bolling smiled and said something that is as true today as it was back then.
"In this town," he said, "we're all Irish by osmosis."
Kevin Cullen is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at cullen@globe.com.
