Muttontown Thanksgiving: Singing, Fistfights, and Irish Family Chaos

• 6:37Tim reflects on growing up in a huge Irish family with enormous Thanksgivings and realizes many people don't get that experience.
• 7:23His grandfather's Muttontown mansion held 50 people on Thanksgiving, with his nanny making two 22-pound butterball turkeys and trays of food.
• 7:56Tim argues that turkey is fundamentally bad no matter how you prepare it—fried, stuffed with herbs, or any other method.
• 9:19Thanksgivings would run from 3 or 4 p.m. until 5 a.m., starting with dinner at 5 or 6, then drinking and pool downstairs.
• 9:36Around 10 or 10:30 p.m., Tim's dad would take out his guitar and everyone would start singing Irish songs like the Wabash Cannonball.
• 10:09After 11:30 p.m., people put the guitar away and start serious hard drinking, then begin confronting each other about old grievances.
• 10:40The arguments mixed financial disputes, missed family events, insults about spouses, how kids were raised, and accusations of being a leech.
• 11:21Around 1 or 1:30 a.m., fistfights would break out; Tim's grandfather, a former PAL boxer, might punch someone and knock them out, then go back to bed.
• 12:04Around 2:30 or 3 a.m., the guitar comes back out, people sing again, and even the person who was punched gets up to sing along.
• 12:46Around 3:45 or 4 a.m., everyone goes upstairs to make Thanksgiving sandwiches with rye bread, turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce.
• 13:47The family knew a lot of cops who were members of the community; grandfather would show them around the house like it was a tour.
• 14:18The next day after the chaos, nobody in the family would speak to each other for a month.

Wabash CannonballMuntin CountyCounty Cork