How can I not do this today? Most people assume my surname is Irish—it’s not; it’s Scottish—but today I won’t complain. On St. Patrick’s Day, everyone has the right to be a wee bit Irish.
A few years ago, I wrote a Musing about Pádraig, Ireland’s patron saint. In case you missed it, here’s a quick refresher: Pádraig was actually born in Scotland in 387 but at the age of sixteen, he was kidnapped and sold as a slave to an Irish chieftain named Milchu who happened to be a Druid priest. It was while tending Milchu’s sheep that young Pádraig encountered an angel who turned his heart toward God. The rest, as they say, is history.
Historical as he may well have been, Pádraig has certainly become the stuff of legends. Like: he used the lowly shamrock to illustrate a parable about the Holy Trinity. Like: he banished all the snakes from Ireland (never mind there never were snakes in Ireland to begin with). Like: he walked throughout Ireland with a staff made of ash wood which he thrust into the ground wherever he stopped to preach. In one village, so the story goes, it took so long for his message to get through to the local hardheads that his staff actually took root and grew into a tree. (That town is now known as Aspatria, Pádraig’s ash.) All these yarns may or may not be actual history, but they make for awfully good Blarney.
But leaving hagiography aside for just a moment, Patrick has done a lot of good marketing for Ireland. Guinness alone owes him a small fortune in marketing fees, to say nothing of Leprechauns, Claddagh rings, Aran sweaters, the Boston Celtics, and Irish soda bread. I have a friend who drinks nothing but Jameson’s Irish Whiskey but personally I draw the line there: there is really no good whisky spelled with an “e.”
I will say this for the Irish: they know how to tell a good story or a good joke. Another friend of mine who just happens to own an Irish pub tells jokes non-stop and most of them are really funny although half the laugh comes from his authentic brogue. I play golf with him sometimes and he always wins because I can’t putt and laugh at the same time.
For such a small country—after all, it’s only about the size of New England—Ireland has produced more than its fair share of gifted writers and poets. James Joyce, Jonathan Swift, William Butler Yeats, C.S. Lewis, to name but a few. Moreover, Ireland also has exported many literate sons and daughters to this country: Flannery O’Connor, Frank McCourt, Eugene O’Neill, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Margaret Mitchell, William Faulkner, Henry James, Ken Kesey, and many more. Maybe there’s something in that peaty Irish water or some other form of Irish liquid. Whatever the cause, we are a richer nation of letters for our Irish ancestors.
Ireland has blessed us in other ways, too: with inspiring politicians of both stripes like Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy; with sublime singers like Bing Crosby and Judy Garland; and
with wonderful actors like Grace Kelly and George Clooney. But not Sean Connery. He’s Scottish and always will be.
Music? I defy you to sit still during a session with an Irish fiddler, someone tooting on a tin whistle, an uilleann piper, and at least one bloke thumping on a Bodhrán. The maudlin stuff is grand, too: I dare you not to weep as the sun goes down on Galway Bay or not to shed a tear over the grave of Danny Boy. Molly Malone will keep you craving cockles and mussels, alive, alive-o, while the Wild Rover will leave you clapping three quick times long after the last note is sung. But there is a musical limit, a point beyond which even i won’t go: you can keep your green alligators and long-neck’d geese, your humpty-backed camels and your chimpanzees, your cats and rats and elephants and, sure as you’re born, the loveliest of all, the unicorn. No, please. You can t’ank me later!
Last, but never least, there’s the wee wife who has a lot of the Irish in her. At most recent count of her eight siblings, their spouses, children, and grandchildren, we now number 53.5. (The .5 is due soon.) I think that qualifies us as our very own Irish diaspora.
So, for just this one day a year, ‘tis fine to wear a bit o’ green, raise a parting glass and cry “Slainte!”, kiss your neighbor, watch “The Quiet Man” for the umpteenth time, and find that pot of gold at the end of your rainbow. Finian did.
Éirinn go Brách!
Sure and beggorah, I’ll be right back.
Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer with a home in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine.
Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com
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