St. Patrick’s Day

St. Patrick (née Maewyn Succat) was a 5th century Brit, abducted as a teenager as a forced laborer and trafficked as a swineherd to Ireland, where he got religion. He later escaped, went to France, and became a priest (at either Lérins Abbey or Auxerre) before returning to proselytize in Ireland. A millennium later, North America’s early Irish immigrants and their descendants began to celebrate the day of his death as a joyous holiday, which seems a wee bit ghoulish.

The party ramped up after the Potato Famine increased Irish immigration to the US in the mid 19th century. St. Patrick’s Day became a celebration of parades, corned beef and cabbage, fiddle music, soda bread, and green beer rather than the solemn saint’s day it had been in the Auld Sod, but that’s America for you. US tourists in Ireland expected a big bash on March 17th, and the host country was glad to oblige, in celebration of greenback dollars. The holiday has now gone global. Faith and begorrah!

A National Georgraphic video.
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Short link: https://wp.me/p6sb6-Dad

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

 

St. Patrick’s Day

St. Patrick (née Maewyn Succat) was a 5th century Brit, abducted as a teenager as a forced laborer and carried to Ireland, where he got religion. He later escaped to France and became a priest before returning to proselytize in Ireland. A millennium later, North America’s early Irish immigrants and their descendants began to celebrate the day of his death as a joyous holiday, which seems a wee bit ghoulish.

The party ramped up after the Potato Famine increased Irish immigration to the US in the mid 19th century. St. Patrick’s Day became a celebration of parades, corned beef and cabbage, fiddle music, soda bread, and green beer rather than the solemn saint’s day it had been in the Auld Sod, but that’s America for you. US tourists in Ireland expected a big bash on March 17th, and the host country was glad to oblige, in celebration of greenback dollars. The holiday has now gone global. Faith and begorrah!

A National Georgraphic video.
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Short link: https://wp.me/p6sb6-yol

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

 

The Season’s Upon Us

“The Season’s Upon Us,” by the Boston area’s Dropkick Murphys.

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The Season’s Upon Us

“The Season’s Upon Us,” by the Boston area’s Dropkick Murphys.

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March 17th

March 17th marks an American popular and commercial holiday with roots in the liturgical calendar. The first St. Patrick’s Day Parade in New York City (1848) started and ended at memorials to George Washington and allowed Irish Americans to demonstrate both their love of their heritage and allegiance to their new country. They weren’t trusted by many of the native-born because they were, you know, immigrants. Today the holiday presents an equal opportunity for all American adults to dye their tongues green.

The Season’s Upon Us

“The Season’s Upon Us,” by the Boston area’s Dropkick Murphys.

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Short link: http://wp.me/p6sb6-mB3

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Christmas in Killarney

“Christmas in Killarney,” written by James Cavanaugh, John Redmond and Frank Weldon, recorded in 1950 by Dennis Day, accompanied by the Mellomen and the Henri René Orchestra.

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March 17th

St. Patrick is a patron of Ireland.  March 17th, the liturgical Feast of St. Patrick, occurs during the Lenten fast. Think about it.

And think about the potato (Solanum tuberosum; Gaelic “práta,” anglicized to “pratie“). Successful introduction of the New World crop bolstered the Irish countryside; the crop failures of the Potato Famine sent Irishmen to the USA, where the Irish-American secular observance of St. Patrick’s Day developed in Boston, New York and Chicago for a century before it was exported back to Ireland. Faith and Begorrah! “Globalization’ wasn’t invented yesterday.

Read Gregory McNamee’s excellent post on the Britannica blog, and stop by the Potato Museum on your way back from the pub.

Related:

“The fading of the green,” Drew DeSilver, Pew Research

“How Irish Are People Who Identify As ‘Irish-American’?” Walt Hickey, FiveThirtyEight

“How Corned Beef and Cabbage Became a Holiday Staple,” Craig Morris, USDA Blog

“No One Really Knows What a Shamrock Is,” Bess Lovejoy, Smithsonian Magazine

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Sure, an’ all, wee Mr. Potato Head® is a registered trademark of Hasbro, Inc.,  used here under the “satire” provision of the Fair Use doctrine, dontcha know.  Mr. Head is a Yank “Baby Boomer,” but clean the paidrín up and he makes a proper little leprechaun.

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Faith and Begorrah!

St. Patrick’s Day on ice. You go, Gaels!

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