All this time I thought George M Cohan was Jewish!

This ties into a line from "The Quiet Man" when John Wayne's character first sees the name on the tavern and it's also Cohan. His friend Flynn explains to him that "over here [in Ireland] we pronounce it 'Co-HAN'."


"Hey you sleeze... my bed!" - Elwood Blues

No you're not the only one I feel dumb now too!

I'm sure you're not the only one. It is very easy to leap to conclusions due to one's own experiences etc.

For instance, I missed the first season of "Friends", started watching from the second season and assumed Ross's son Ben was the result of Ross doing a sperm donation for his lesbian friends Carol and Susan. I just missed all the glaringly obvious clues that Ross was previously married to Carol and Susan hated Ross etc. When I watched reruns of seasons 1 and 2 I thought "how did I miss that? What a bozo" Lol.

I've wondered about this, too. Not because I thought Cohan was Jewish -- in fact I knew George M. was Irish -- but because to an American the name doesn't really seem Irish at all, does it? I looked on the Web, and here's what I found:

Cohan is a simplified form of the Irish surname Keohane, changed to approximate the way the name is pronounced. The Irish would pronounce both of them as "Co-HAN," but it's easy to see that most Americans would say it "KEE-oh-hane" if the real name weren't stripped down.

There’s a funny remark in a Web blog at http://crookedtimber.org/2007/07/16/apocrypha-now-ii-the-revenge-of-samuel-pepys/ to the effect that the blogger, who had been trying to get accepted for graduate study at Duke University, talked by phone to a professor named Robert Keohane. But even though he had been told the name was pronounced “Ko-hane,” [and I would have told him "Co-han"] he kept calling the man “Professor Kee-oh-hane.” He didn’t get into Duke.

To go back a bit further, Keohane is an Anglicized form of the Gaelic surname Mac Eocháin, or “son of Eochán” – which in turn is derived from the personal name Eochaidh. One Web source said you can trace this last mentioned name back to the old Irish word for horse.

Then to bring it back to George M. Cohan, some members of the Keohane family have a message board on ancestry.com, at
http://boards.ancestry.myfamily.com/surnames.keohane/19.24.1/mb.ashx#
One of them found, on another Web page that is no longer live, a write-up specifically about George M. Cohan’s father Jeremiah Cohan, who was the son of Michael Keohane. Here’s some of the text pertinent to the Irish part of this:

“Jeremiah Cohan was born on Blackstone Street in Boston on January 31, 1848, the son of Michael Keohane and Jane Scott, both emigrants from County Cork. He started with a trade, working as a saddle and harness maker and also serving as a Surgeon's orderly during the Civil War. But he was particularly fond of Irish dances he learned as a youngster, and he eventually developed an act, performing Irish steps and also playing the fiddle and the harp. He began touring with minstrel shows, and met his wife, Nellie Costigan of Providence, Rhode Island. They married in 1874 and went on the road together. They formed a Hibernicon, described as "a form of Irish vaudeville featuring songs, dances and rapid fire sketches." For a time Patsy Touhey the piper traveled with the troupe in 1886-87.”

George M. Cohan was not Jewish, but his partner, Sam H. Harris was. Late in the movie there is a scene when some young people stop by his farm to borrow some water for their car's radiator. When one girl asks his name he tells her and she repeats it back to him as Cohen, to which he replies, no Cohan. However in real life while most of his relatives pronounced the family name that way, George M. always pronounced his name as though it were Cohen.

And as to your opinion about casting Cagney as a Jewish man, well you might be interested in knowing that Jimmy spoke fluent Yiddish, a skill he demonstrated onscreen in the movie Taxi (1932). Jimmy said that he grew up in a neighborhood that was half Irish and half Jewish and he just picked up the language from friends, and as he was fond of saying, it was, "No sweat, no strain."

In that movie there is a scene where a Yiddish speaking immigrant is trying to get some information from an Irish cop with little success. Seeing this Cagney intercedes and answers the man's questions in Yiddish. The puzzled policeman then confronts Cagney's character and in a thick brogue asks him, "Nolan, what part of Ireland are you from?" To this Cagney replies, "Delancey Street, tank you."

Am I the only one who thought this? I feel dumb now!
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It was in the movie! When the teenager drive up to the now 60ish Cohan relaxing in the hammock, they ask him his name and though he says Cohan, the girl mispronounces it as Cohen and he has to correct her.

That must have happened to the real Cohan a lot. Cohan isn't the most common Irish name.

Ironically, James Cagney grew up with Jewish people and actually spoke Yiddish.







Absurdity: A Statement or belief inconsistent with my opinion.

You feel dumb? I always confused George M. Cohan with George S. Kaufman!






"Joey, have you ever been in a Turkish prison?"

You are not the only one to think this! I have known several Cohens (and Koen, Coen and other similarly spelled names). I was Irish American born and breed and did not know until 5 minutes ago that Cohan is an Irish name!! I think most people are aware that the name Cohen refers to the Kohanim, the priestly caste of Israel who were the only ones allowed into the Holy of Holies. Even today, the name Cohen is viewed with this honor in Jewish circles.

I guess you learn something every day! I suppose even George M. had to explain this a few times in his life.