Navigating the Zeitgeist

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Helena Sheehan. Navigating the Zeitgeist

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NAVIGATING THE ZEITGEIST

A Story of the Cold War, the New Left, Irish Republicanism, and International Communism

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The idea of masculinity was inextricably tied up with military combat. Any man who had not done military service was a dubious character, and even those who had been in the military but not engaged in combat seemed vaguely suspect. Each of my brothers would come to terms with this in his own way, but they were all shaped by it. Whatever his other children’s achievements, I believe that the military service of my two brothers meant most to my father, certainly more than my degrees and publications. He also felt a special bond with his cousin Jim Thomas, who had been a prisoner of war. Jim was one of the quietest men I ever met. I sensed that he was inarticulately damaged by the experience, and he later had what was mysteriously called a “nervous breakdown.” But men did not talk much about such matters. It was only decades later that a public discourse began about the devastating mental impact of military service and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The idea of femininity was similarly constricted. The only women in the world of my youth were housewife-mothers and teacher-nuns and shop assistant-maiden aunts. The one thing I knew for sure was that I was not going to be a housewife-mother, not least because, as the oldest in a large family, I was under constant pressure to be just that, even while still a child myself. Any book I wanted to read was preempted by a seemingly never-ending list of domestic tasks. It was assumed that no one chose to be a shop-assistant-maiden-aunt, but it happened because some unlucky women were “left on the shelf.” I thus intended to be a teacher-nun, aiming toward something larger and higher than the small domesticated lives of other women. When my mother advised me never to let a man think I was more intelligent than he was, I dismissed her words with disdain. As the years went on, I had less and less respect for women like my mother, particularly housewives. I had more and more respect for men and actively sought their company and respect.

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