If you are reading this on Saturday, March 17, Happy St. Patrick’s Day! If you are already a wee bit tipsy, Happy St. Paddy’s Day!
St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland, where he converted the Irish and expelled the snakes, which I presume were anti-Catholic. When I was in parochial school, many years ago, we sang a song at assemblies (Italian and Polish kids could not opt out) that went like this:
Hail glorious St. Patrick,
Dear saint of our isle,
On us thy poor children,
Bestow a sweet smile …”
In my earliest grades, the priest in charge, classically Irish with pale skin that could burn from getting too close to a 100-watt bulb, would stroll over to our school and announce that in honor of St. Patrick, classes would be canceled March 17. And so in his honor we slept late and rode bikes and tossed baseballs.
I don’t know if I am on sound theological ground here, but in my mind St. Paddy, as opposed to Patrick, is the patron saint of bar owners. His day is even bigger than Cinqo de Mayo, when we embrace Mexican heritage the same way we embrace the Irish — by drinking beer.
But since I drink only a little and the sort of conversation I like doesn’t flourish in noisy bars where half the talk is “what, what?”, I’m more of a St. Patrick’s Day man myself. I take on serious thoughts in March, such as I can manage.
I think about being, if not Irish, then Irish-ish. When I was a kid, I felt 100 percent, true-blue American, what with hot dogs, baseball, apple pie and the American car brand of your choice.
Then again, my family adored John F. Kennedy as if a cousin were in the White House. To us, he was witty, charming, capable, handsome, irreplaceable.
But it wasn’t all shamrocks and rainbows. In those days, you couldn’t get past St. Patrick’s Day without coming face to face with corned beef and cabbage, which I could not force myself to like. It seemed cooked in swamp water and filled the house with a foul aroma that itself could have expelled snakes.
I didn’t know what to make of leprechauns, standoffish little hoarders who are like the 1 percenters for all the good they’ve done me. We get a glimpse of rainbows, but they hold the cash tight.
The Irish step-dancing of my youth was grimmer than that of today. The kids who did it had the blank, far-away stares of people being held against their will.
I didn’t care much for Bing Crosby-style crooning. I coped by monkeying with lyrics: “My wild Irish Rose, she always picks her nose …” Irish jigs, to my untrained ears, seemed to chase their own tails and didn’t know when to quit.
But those are trifles. When my wife, Dede, and I visited western Ireland some years ago, the people were friendly and the beauty was vast. Signs of loss and the passage of time were common among green fields and rolling hills. The abandoned ancient monasteries and churches are sad and beautiful; empty, but full of something eternal. We walked around them and in them, wondering about their stories.
The stories of my own ancestors are scattered to the winds. I suppose they were ordinary people, which in Ireland meant they were subject to hard forces larger than themselves. When the potato famine struck in the 19th century, as much as a quarter of the population was lost. A million died and as many emigrated, while the British Parliament debated whether providing famine relief was government overreach. Helping the poor has long been overthought by those who would rather not.
My parents talked about Ireland, or ancestors beyond their own parents, only a little. My father’s “people,” as they say, first emigrated to Prince Edward Island in Canada, where he was born and spent his early childhood. They came to the U.S. in the 1920s, when he was still a boy; he called P.E.I., where some relatives remained, “Down Home.”
Oddly enough, it was only a few years ago that it dawned on me that I am a first-generation American, at least on my father’s side. Does that put the stories of new immigrants in another light? I think it does, because they share the struggles and desperation that likely brought my ancestors here. They were likely poor, the only gift they passed on was their own survival.
In June we are traveling, of all places, to Ireland with my adult son’s hurling team from Connecticut — which plays a Gaelic sport that calls itself “the fastest game on grass.” He joined on a whim last year and loves it. He’s in so deep that he’s joined the Irish American Home Society. Faith and begorrah!
Once a lacrosse player for Lebanon High, he will be playing with a sliotar (ball) and hurley (stick) in Killaloe, Tralee and other places with pretty Irish names. We will watch and join the home teams in pubs or clubs afterward, taking it all in.
For me, this return to Ireland is an unexpected turn of events, a chance for new stories, another gift.
Dan Mackie can be reached at dan.mackie@yahoo.com.
