What does Martin do at the height of his career in 2006 after wrapping up seven years starring on the top show at NBC? Go to college! And a college in Ireland no less! Martin shares a story of his college adventures followed by a compilation of writings and poems that explore the search for wisdom and clarity, most notably the Robert Frost classic “The Road Not Taken.”
What does Martin do at the height of his career in 2006 after wrapping up seven years starring on the top show at NBC? Go to college! And a college in Ireland no less! Martin shares a story of his college adventures followed by a compilation of writings and poems that explore the search for wisdom and clarity, most notably the Robert Frost classic “The Road Not Taken.”
Martin Sheen:
Hello, and welcome to the Martin Sheen Podcast with yours truly, Martin Sheen, of course, and I'm delighted to be your host for this podcast pilgrimage, where the destination is the journey itself. Along the way, I plan to share stories and personal memories of some of the many people, places and events that have helped to shape my life. Happy and continuing struggle as an artist and a man to unite the will of the spirit with the work of the flesh. I also hope to explore poetry as a powerful form of expression and communication by proxy, as it were, and how poetry is such a vital and necessary component of our spirituality and our public discourse. And from time to time, I'll invite friends, fellow actors, poets, scholars and family members to join our pilgrimage and discuss what inspires their artistic journey.
And so, friends, let us begin.
An Irish education.
I had played President Jed Bartlett on the West Wing TV series since the fall of 1999. And just as the series was ending its seventh and final season in the spring of 2006, I received an invitation to accept an honorary degree from the National University of Ireland. Over the years, I had received a number of honorary degrees from various colleges and universities in the United States, but this was the first one offered from a foreign country. And not just any foreign country, but Ireland, no less, my mother's homeland.
Her name was Mary Ann Phalen, and she came from the village of Borrisokane in County Tipperary, not far from Galway. In thanks to her, I was eligible to become an Irish citizen, which I gladly embraced nearly 30 years ago. And now I had the opportunity to add an honorary degree from the National University, which, needless to say, I accepted without hesitation.
The National University of Ireland is located in Galway, but the investiture ceremony was held in Dublin in May 2006 at the Old Kilmainham Jail, now a national museum. By coincidence, my uncle Michael Phelan, my mother's brother, an IRA veteran of the war for independence from Britain, was held at this same jail for a time during the Irish Civil War. Unfortunately, I cannot locate a program of the investiture ceremony's event, so I'm not able to recall the names or professions of the other recipients. But it was an impressive group.
I was one of seven and the only American. And after the ceremony, the honorees and their families were invited to a luncheon hosted by the university's president, who invited me to join his table. And during a pause between courses, he casually inquired, “well, now that the West Wing has ended, what are your plans?”
“Well,” I responded, “I have enough degrees. I need an education. Would you permit me to come over and study at NUI?”
He paused, as if not quite sure how to answer. Then he said, “if you're serious, you'd be as welcome as the flowers.”
I was very serious, and though I did not tell him at that moment, I was determined to return and enroll at the start of the next semester in the fall.
I was in love with Ireland since my first visit, when I went over to play the liberal priest in the film Catholics by the Irish writer Brian Moore. I love the country, its people, and its culture. I love Irish literature, especially the Irish poets, and I'm even fond of Irish weather. I began to make regular trips over and drew close to my Irish cousins in Borrisokane and Roscrea, and remain so to this day.
I co-produced and co-starred with Barnard Hughes in Hugh Leonard's Irish classic Da in 1987, filmed entirely in Ireland and brilliantly directed by my dear friend Matt Clark. And I would return again to star in “Stella Days.” The Story of an Irish parish priest who opened the first cinema in Borrisokane, in the 1950s and was filmed entirely in Ireland as well. No other country on earth offered me such pure joy and spiritual nourishment as Ireland, and so when I'd tell anyone who'd listened that I was going to the Holy Land, they all knew I meant Ireland. So it was no surprise to family and friends when, just after my 65th birthday in August 2006, I flew to Shannon, rented a car, drove to Galway, found the campus of the National Union University, and registered as the oldest freshman in the Irish Republic.
I joined the Mature Student Society as well, and was assigned a young assistant who helped me navigate the curriculum and the campus. I enrolled in three courses of study: Earth and Ocean Science, English Literature, including Shakespeare, and Computer Science.
I began to learn my way around the beautiful city of Galway, where I opened a checking account at AIB's Eyre Square branch near the public park where President Kennedy gave his famous speech in 1963. And with the help of the University Student Housing Office, I found an apartment in Salt Hill overlooking Galway Bay, where my wife, Janet, joined me a few weeks later. And we settled in for the next few months.
It was still dark and raining steadily on that early morning in September as I made my way across the quad en route to my very first class, when all of a sudden a disembodied voice called out to me. “Is it yourself?” “‘Tis,” I responded, when I discovered the voice came from a young man sheltering under a nearby tree.
“And where's your minder?” The voice demanded to know.
“Me what?” I countered.
“You know, your tug, your bodyguard,” the voice explained.
“I've none,” I assured him.
“Well, more power to you.” He laughed.
“Thanks,” I said, and laughed as well, continuing on my way.
It was not the first such unique encounter during my stay, and it would not be the last by far. As word spread of my presence on campus, such exchanges with perfect strangers became quite normal, and I enjoyed them enormously. But one in particular was truly remarkable and deserves to be newly remembered here. Above all, it occurred one night when I answered a knock at the door to discover one of the most extraordinary and uniquely powerful human beings I had ever met. Though small in stature, he was giant in spirit and energy.
“You're welcome in Ireland,” he said as he shook my hand. “I'm from the Labour Party,” he added as he presented me with an abundance of printed material on the Irish Labour Party and its history.
Highly intelligent, with a disarming sense of humor, he was a lifelong and deeply committed human rights and social justice activist who reminded me in no uncertain terms of my moral responsibility to the victims of the developing Third World and to seek justice always and everywhere with uncompromising devotion. If any one person could embody the very best of our humanity, surely it was this Irishman.
His name was Michael Higgins, and in a few short years, of course, he would become the President of Ireland and serve two full terms with honor and grace. He remains to this day one of the most revered and beloved public servants in Irish history.
My scholarly experience at NUI was really an experiment, and though quite brief, frankly, I was simply not prepared or even capable of carrying such a full load. I had flunked out of Chaminade High School in Dayton, Ohio, in my senior year and had to attend summer school to earn my diploma, I recall. Thus I had not been in a classroom since 1958.
Now, despite the encouragement and support from faculty and staff, as well as my fellow students, I was not able to keep up with the curriculum. Left in the dark, I was forced to withdraw early on from the Earth and Ocean Science course due to my fundamental lack of basic science and math. I did quite well with the English lit course, no surprise. In fact, for the record, that was the only course for which I received a passing grade. As for computer science, I took the six week course and flunked. I was advised to apply myself and take the course again. I did so, and not for lack of trying, I flunked it again. Nonetheless, I was given a signed certificate stating that I had taken the course, not that I had passed it, mind you. And then I was invited to pose for a photo with my Second Time Around classmates, which I was happy to do.
For the record, to this day I do not own a computer, and even if I did, I would still not know how to use it. To be fair, I had a wonderful and exciting time studying at the National University of Ireland and living in Galway, and I'm deeply grateful to all the Irish who welcomed, encouraged, and blessed me along the way.
At the close of that remarkable period, which, by the way, amounted to one semester, I returned to Los Angeles in time for Christmas and reunited with my family. That was nearly 20 years ago, and from time to time I reflect on that deeply personal experience and wonder what I would have or should have or might have done differently. But today, taking it all in all, I am delighted I chose to give it a try when I did. And believe it or not, every now and then I think of returning to finish my freshman year. Assuming, of course, I would still be as welcome as the flowers.
We're going to take a little break here, but I assure you there's more to come. Please stay tuned.
Welcome back and thanks for staying with us.
Consider this: “Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.” Will Durant, American Historian.
I See His Blood Upon the Rose
by Joseph M. Plunkett
I see his blood upon the rose
And in the stars the glory of his eyes,
His body gleams amid eternal snows,
His tears fall from the skies.
I see his face in every flower;
The thunder and the singing of the birds
Are but his voice—and carven by his power
Rocks are his written words.
All pathways by his feet are worn,
His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea,
His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn,
His cross is every tree.
Joseph M. Plunkett was an Irish Republican, journalist and poet. He was an Irish freedom fighter as well, and he was among the original members of the IRB Military Committee responsible for planning and carrying out the easter uprising of 1916. Following their surrender at the Dublin Post office, he was held in the Kilmainham Jail, where he was tried and condemned by a British military court. Hours before his death, his fiance, Grace Gifford, persuaded a priest to marry them in the prison chapel. Shortly thereafter he was executed by firing squad.
Born in Dublin, Ireland, on December 21, 1887, he died May 4, 1916. Joseph M. Plunkett was 28 years old.
The following is a selection from the book Blessed Among Us by Robert Ellsberg. The book is filled with daily reflections that explore the lives of Saints, as well as ordinary men and women with extraordinary stories of courage and spiritual awakening.
Henry David Thoreau.
“Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts, in 1817. He subscribed to no organized religion. Yet there was in Thoreau something of a sage or desert father, an intense need to dispense with socially defined values and to experience life firsthand. This desire led him, in 1845, to spend two whole years in solitude at Walden Pond, ‘wishing to live deliberately, to front out only the essential facts of life and to see if I could not learn what it had to teach and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.’
His account of his experience became a literary classic. But in a sense, Thoreau was himself an American classic who embodied the spirit of nonconformity, the impulse to seek renewal in nature, and the will to stand by his convictions.
Thoreau's mystical communication with nature speaks to a concern of an ecological age. But he was also a stern moralist and social critic, finding it intolerable to live in a country that sanctioned slavery. He was arrested for refusing to pay a tax, financing the Mexican War, a war to extend slavery. Though his overnight stay in jail was no more than a gesture, it resulted in a famous essay on civil disobedience, one of the most eloquent arguments ever written on the authority of conscience and duty to resist injustice. It would be embraced by Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. And it would inspire generations of peacemakers.
Thoreau died on May 6, 1862. His quote, ‘if a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Henry David Thoreau was 51 years old.”
Robert Ellsberg is an American publisher specializing in religious and spiritual exploration. He is editor in chief and publisher of Orbis Books. He lives and works in upstate New York with his wife.
Consider this from Albert Einstein. “A person who never made a mistake, never tried anything new.”
We'll be right back.
Welcome back. I'm glad you stayed.
The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost is one of America's most revered and beloved poets and the only one to receive four Pulitzer Prizes for poetry. He was born in San Francisco, California on March 26, 1874. He died January 29, 1963, in Boston, Massachusetts. Robert Frost was 88 years old.
And now, Casabianca by Elizabeth Bishop.
Love's the boy stood on the burning deck
trying to recite "The boy stood on
the burning deck." Love's the son
stood stammering elocution
while the poor ship in flames went down.
Love's the obstinate boy, the ship,
even the swimming sailors, who
would like a schoolroom platform, too,
or an excuse to stay
on deck. And love's the burning boy.
Elizabeth bishop was born February 8, 1911. She died October 6, 1979. She was 68 years old.
Consider this quote.
“I must say I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go to the library and read a good book.”
– Groucho Marx.
I invite you to delve further into the works of the poets I shared with you, and I hope you seek out writers and poets whose work speaks to your hearts and minds. Minds with the power to inspire your life. If you've enjoyed what you've heard here, please subscribe to my podcast, the Martin Sheen Podcast, with your host, yours truly, Martin Sheen of course, wherever you find your podcasts. Yeah, I have to say that you can find a complete list of the poets and titles of their poems that I've chosen at our website, the Martin Sheen Podcast.
I want to thank the people who make this podcast possible. Our producer and research assistant, Rene Estevez, who assures me that the Internet is a real thing and a safe place if not used off label. And our sound engineer and editor, Bruce Greenspan, the man behind these rich and seamless recordings. And to his dog, Gracie, our studio mascot, who. Who snores in perfect pantameter. And so, friends, we part with the prayer from Tagore. We are called to lift up this nation and all its people to that place where the heart is without fear and the head is held high, where knowledge is free, where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls, where words come out from the depths of truth and tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection, where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sands of dead habit, where the mind is led forward by thee, into ever widening thought and action, into that heaven of freedom. Dear Father, let our country awake. Amen.
The Martin Sheen Podcast all rights reserved. No part of this podcast may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form without prior written consent of the author and TE Productions An Irish Education by Ramon Gerard Estevez, AKA Martin Sheen is included here by granted copyright permission. Blessed Among Thoreau by Robert Ellsberg is included here by granted copyright permission and we thank the author for this opportunity to share his work.