CHARLEY BRADY
A couple of weeks back I mentioned the recent re-discovery of a scene from a lost 1927 Irish film. (‘Happy Days at the Lost and Found’.) And the reason that The Callahans and the Murphys were ‘lost’ in the first place was down to a supposedly outraged Catholic Church and the growing power of the Irish lobby in America.
As the story related to the Irish started to emerge as a force to be reckoned with Stateside, my friend Paula drew my attention to something she was reading called The Book of St. Brigid*.
Like many clever ideas, it is deceptively simple. The first half details the remarkable life and career of the woman who would enter history as a Saint of the Church; and the other half takes the reader on a freewheeling guide through the name ‘Brigid’ in general.
The authors explain that from around the 1840s/50s onwards, tens of thousands of Irish girls and women departed these shores and headed for the New World. And many of them were named – yes, you guessed it – Bridget or Brigid. They give the example of the city of Buffalo, New York where in 1855 it was recorded that a quarter of Irish girls there were employed as live-in domestics and that elsewhere the pattern was being repeated. They became known as ‘the Bridgets’. The authors write:
“Lacking culinary skills and untrained in housework, they were soon being sniggered at and criticised not only in parlours and coffee shops but in the American press. Of particular interest to their detractors were their boldness, brassiness, and upfront assertiveness to express personal opinions.”
To which I can only say ‘more power to them’. Unless they had been working for me and then it would have been ‘There’s the door, what’s your hurry?’
In any case, these Irish characters became so famous that they even had a film based on their goings-on.
I’ve never seen The Servant’s Revenge from 1909 (it was directed by Max Linder, a rather tragic figure of the era that I want to do a piece on at some stage), but The Book of Brigit reports that it is about an Irish maidservant who has been given the Royal Order of the Boot from her job and basically breaks back into the house in order to cause maximum mayhem before a dinner party. She puts a laxative in the food, sabotages the gas jets, and almost blows the face of the hostess.
Tell me again why she was fired. Jason Bourne would have run from this lady!
Apparently, the audience of the time was splitting their sides with laughter.
“This, after all, was exactly what Americans expected from a “Bridget” – the most insolent, destructive, offensive, ill-mannered, cheeky, and brazen creature ever to enter their houses and homes!”
I’m beginning to see a pattern here. The drunken, violent St. Patrick’s Day punch-up in The Callahans and the Murphys? The quite frankly psychopathic maidservant with a grudge who wrecks the gaff in The Servant’s Revenge?
All that stuff about the Irish being welcomed wherever they went…
Someone wouldn’t be pulling my leg, would they?
*The Book of St. Brigid is by Colm Keane and Una O’Hagan.
charleybrady@gmail.com