St. Patrick's Day This and That
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| Irish dancers in St. Patrick's Day Parade, Washington, D. C. |
I usually don't do a lot to observe St. Patrick's Day except wear green--a habit that started in elementary school days to avoid being pinched. If you didn't wear green, you were fair game. I wondered how that crazy tradition got started and found out that, most likely, it was started by Irish immigrants in this country a couple hundred years ago. Supposedly, wearing green made you invisible to mischievous leprechauns who would pinch you if they could see you. A pinch from someone reminded you to be aware that a leprechaun could sneak up on you at any time.
However, it wasn't until last year that I learned about wearing orange on St. Patrick's Day. Apparently, you wear green if you are Catholic and orange if you are Protestant. A friend, whose mother is Irish, said that she was always insistent that they wear orange instead of green on St. Patrick's Day. I think that detail was lost on most of us in this country or at least me.
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| Shamrocks (white clover) |
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| St. Paddy's day in New Orleans ( Photo source) |
We've been to one parade here and while it was enjoyable, it didn't quite live up to the vegetable throwing in New Orleans.
I've been thinking about St. Patrick's Day more than normal this year because I found out I'm half Irish--DNA speaking that is. As a curiosity, I had my DNA tested by Ancestry. com and found out that I am 48% Irish. I knew that there was some Irish background, but didn't realize how much. That may be because it was only recently, through the same avenues, I got a new grandfather. Meaning birth certificates don't always represent what's really going on. It's a long story.
So as I go and figure out what green thing I'm going to wear to work, I hope you have a Happy St. Patrick's Day however big or small you chose to celebrate it.
My parents loved listening to the Irish Roves and I grew up hearing this song: http://www.metrolyrics.com/the-orange-and-the-green-lyrics-irish-rovers.html and my mom explained to me what it meant.
ReplyDeleteMy husband does the corned beef and cabbage dinner. He's the weekend cook so I'll probably get it Saturday or Sunday. I like Irish music but I'm not a beer drinker. I bought a couple of clearanced cupcake mixes a while ago--I think they are green and orange in color ... hmmm, that would make a fun dessert.
Enjoy your day and thanks for your well-researched post!
The song sounds like classic Irish music and I enjoyed listening to it. Thanks for the link.
DeleteWe were talking at work today and one person's mother (another one) always made her wear orange to school on St. Patrick's day and she hated it because everyone made fun of her. I"m glad that this was not a problem for me when I was growing up.
I think the orange and green cupcakes sound like a good idea. If you wanted to take the religious feud out of it, you could just say they represent the colors of the Ireland's flag. Add white icing and you'd be good to go.
Alas, I was wrong about the colors--it was orange and blue. So I made oatmeal cookies.
DeleteGlad you enjoyed the link. My parents took me to an Irish Rovers concert when I was an adolescent. I was really grouchy about it--"what if someone I know sees me there?" was my thought (Irish Rovers didn't qualify as "cool"). I didn't stop to think that if someone saw me there, it was because they were there with their parents, just like me.
You aren't like Cliff Clavin. His facts were never completely accurate. Yours are. :)
I thought Cliff was great along with everyone else on Cheers. I remember an interview that I heard once with John Ratzenberger, who played Cliff, that he made up the know-it-all character at an audition for Norm. They added Cliff to the script after that.
DeleteThis was a particularly fascinating post! I am one of those nerdy type people who can never have enough random facts floating in my head. So I can add this to the other things I know that will never be of any use in any emergency, but does make me the oddly interesting party guest.
ReplyDeleteI'm a lot of fun at cocktail parties. too. (Well, I haven't been to one of those for about 20 yrs, but other gatherings.) I love little facts like this, but I will say that I'm not as bad as Cliff Clavin from Cheers. Remember him?
DeleteI do remember Cliff. My favorite episode was when he was on Jeopardy!
DeleteThe perfect Cliff episode.
DeleteI had never heard that about the orange. Interesting! And also, that's kind of exciting to find out that you're more Irish than you'd ever thought.
ReplyDeleteThose parades in New Orleans would be my kind of thing!! I'd be bringing the whole family and instructing everyone to catch as much produce as they could! That's crazy! Id never heard of that, either!
Have a happy St Patrick's Day!
I can see you lined up with your family getting your veggies for the next month. And I don't think you'd be the only family doing that. The parades in general (mostly Mardi Gras) are kind of crazy and my husband didn't like them at all. Too much pushing and shoving to get whatever they were throwing off of the floats. Luckily, some of the smaller neighborhoods were a little better. However, I loved them all.
DeleteI had no idea orange was an alternative color for St. Patrick's day. Guess growing up in a mostly Catholic city that green was the go-to color for all. I never had any attraction to visiting Louisiana, until now. I want to catch vegetables!!
ReplyDeleteWearing green is so ingrained I did actually plan on wearing my only green shirt but it was in the laundry basket to be washed.
There were very few Catholics where I grew up, however, no one very wore orange. Green for a long time has been associated with Ireland, even before St. Patrick visited, so maybe that fact shines through brighter than the religious aspect.
DeleteI did wear green on Thursday because I was out among the public at work. Some of my coworkers wore both orange and green.
I did not know about the orange. In school when little, if we didn't wear green, we'd get pinched. We'd all be out in clover fields looking for four leaf clovers too. We have lots of white clover here, in fact my yard is covered in it, much to the disgust of neighbors.
ReplyDeleteWe had one section in our yard that had a lot of four leaf clovers. You could find one almost every time you looked. However, the trees have shaded the area so we don't have any clover there now at all. I miss them.
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