On this a sacred day...

Today, everyone is a little Irish. I am more than a little. I am only a couple of generations removed from an Irish immigrant. My grandfather, my father's father, sailed out of what is now called Northern Ireland (back then, the entire Irish isle was "owned" by England) and came to America. And stayed. Rumor has it that he met one Helen Mahaffey on a previous trip and was so smitten that he returned to woo and wed her. There is Irish blood somewhere on my mother's side, too, though that story was one she never told me. Probably Scottish and French (a mingling of MacDonalds and Piccards) is more likely.  But today is that one day a year when we happily indulge in that stereotype of Irish behavior... drinking.

I do not know how the Irish got that reputation but my grandfather certainly did his best to live up to it. Much to Grandma's chagrin. He hid his vice from her as best he could, I think, in order to keep peace. She had a temper, that one. She must have been a babe in her youth because her personality was not a pretty one when I knew her.

It has always seemed odd to me that we celebrate a saint by getting snockered. But then we do that for so many celebrations, I suppose. And it is odd that a Welshman is the patron saint of Ireland. Especially when you find out he was captured in his youth and enslaved  in Ireland for 6 years before escaping and returning to Wales, only to return as a bishop to spend many of his years in what is now Northern Ireland trying to civilize heathens as a bishop of the Catholic Church.

Maybe it has something to do with the belief that March 17th was the day he died, not the day he was born.

Happy St Patrick's Day, one and all!



An Irishman, an Englishman and a Scotsman go into a pub. Each orders a pint of Guinness. Just as the bartender hands them over, three flies buzz down and land-- one, two, three-- in each of the pints.
The Englishman looks disgusted, pushes his pint away and demands another... the Scotsman picks out the fly, shrugs, and takes a long swallow.
The Irishman reaches in to the glass, grabs the fly between his fingers and shakes him as hard as he can, shouting 'Spit it out, ya bloody bastard! Spit it out!'