KISS ME, I'M IRISH

Keeping it real... Second grade. Later we used the yardage from this shirt collar to sew matching playclothes for my siblings.

Everyone is honorarily Irish on St. Patrick's Day.  And that alone is reason to celebrate.  But this year we're clicking our heels a little higher, with a little more green in our teeth than ever before.  Not saying that last part's a good thing, it just Is. 

The first time I watched Irish dancers prancing around like reindeer in green velvet dresses, the hair stood up on the back of my neck and tears ran down my cheeks.  Celtic harp music entrances me, and looking for four leaf clovers can never creep too high on a list of things to do.  

Remember Grandma Annie's clovered lawn sibbies? She told us she'd found a lucky clover there. That kept us tweezing through a sea of green the rest of the summer.

In high school I spent one long night converting an AP English essay titled "I Conquered A Monster" into rhymed couplets - no extra credit ... I just couldn't help myself.  And now I know why.  I'm Irish!

Shout out to all you West cousins out there. Get your green on, cause you're more Irish than you know.  While searching out our British ancestry for Lauren and Dal, who live in Sunningdale England this year, I found them.  

Four full blooded Irish lines through Grandma Lerona who fled the green isle in the 1850's due to extreme famine and longstanding oppression under English rule.  They were James Nathaniel Walker of Newry County Down and Jane Lynn Patterson of County Down, William Richmond Scott of Ballyreagh Antrim, and Mary Jane Maginess from Gilford Down.

To get a feel for who these people are, I took a brisk walk through Ireland's history and yikes. "Luck O the Irish" is really, actually the kind of luck you don't want to have.

Simple Horizontal Celtic Knot

Land of Happy Wars?

After centuries of invasion and enslavement first by the Romans (until 500 AD), then Celts, then Vikings (we're at  700 AD now), blending until frothy when the Norman invasion in 1100 rolled in. This marked the beginning of some really creepy direct English and later British control of Ireland. 

By creepy I mean, as the Tudor Monarchs sorted out their succession issues, each shift from Catholic to Protestant triggered a blood bath over Ireland that left an indelible mark. 

When Henry VIII (6 wives guy) went Protestant in order to obtain his first divorce, Irish Catholics were slaughtered by the thousands and fled northward. When Catholic "Bloody Mary"(Henry's first child) slipped into her crown after little stepbrother Edward VI died, she had 300 Protestants burned at the stake and Irish Catholics breathed easier again. 

They began to move back Southward slaying Irish Protestants in revenge. 5 years later when Mary dies, her half sister Queen Elizabeth I jumps in to swing the pendulum back in favor of Protestantism in 1558 for the next 50 years and there we go again. Another 100 years of Irish revolts, English squelching, then Irish rebellion. AntiCatholic Cromwellian Wars, oppressive English laws and confiscation of large amounts of Irish lands.

So many times the Irish came within inches of emancipation from England, just to be thrown back to their former cycle of prejudice and oppression. When you see what's known of the history of this rocky, green island half the size of Utah, you get a flavor for the comprehensive irrelevance of the soul of man to the political powers that moved Western civilization.

The 'divine right' of kings enforced by all sorts of shenanigans on the part of the neighboring English monarchy, was about all the divinity you can find in the whole mess of the Irish question of sovereignty.  Even more absurd is how all the atrocities and slaughter were done upon the auspices of "God's Will".

During the Great Potato Blight in 1845, a key English government administrator over relief efforts to the Irish, Sir Charles Trevelyan described the famine as an "effective mechanism for reducing surplus population" as well as "the judgement of God" and felt England shouldn't interfere. By his influence government subsidy was cut off, leaving a million Irish people who'd paid long lives of servitude to the crown to die of starvation, while Englishman gorged themselves on corpulent multi-course meals several times a day. 

That dark past combined with the devastating Potato Blight prepared millions of Irish to flee elsewhere for a new start.  As a million out of 6 million inhabitants of Ireland die of starvation, another million five flee to the United States, Europe, Australia and Argentina.  By 1856 there are more Irish people in NYC than in Dublin.

Today, Ireland is divided between the independent Republic of Ireland (Free Ireland), primarily Protestants who won their independence through guerrilla warfare on British interests and police forces in Ireland (1919 to 1922), and Northern Ireland (Not-free but British Ireland), still peopled by a mix of Protestants loyal to the crown and Catholic Nationalists who want out of the UK and into Free Ireland.  


'Black and Tans' refer to an army recruited by Winston Churchill in 1919 during the Irish war of independence to maintain control and fight the IRA by launching attacks on civilians and civilian property in Ireland. At the end of this war of independence Free Ireland emerged.

Northern Ireland still remains a hotbed of resentment and prejudice. Sharing the power between Irish Brits and 'not wanting to be Brits', Irish Catholics and Protestants has been too hot to handle. Decades of discrimination against the Catholic minority over housing and jobs continue fueling bitter resentment and quasi civil war that has taken thousands of lives since. 

Throughout the 1970's, 80's and 90's, military groups on both sides have waged violent campaigns, bombings, shooting on open crowds of people, snipper attacks on police, soldiers, politicians, cats and dogs...anything to pursue their goals. It's the IRA vs. Loyalists, all of them Irish, and it's not a pretty sight. I saw bits of this on the news in high school, but never wrapped my mind around why?

And I guess I still don't get it. Irishmen may have the soul of a poet, but the emotional makeup of a junkyard dog.  Let. It. Go. Guys. And feel the LOVE. There is land O plenty, somewhere that's green. 

Irish Celtic Eternal Love Knot

Happiness

A happy result of all the sorrow the Irish have seen was the massive dispersion, BOOM, in the 1850's that brought my Irish grandpeople to America.  Now, over 150 years later,  nearly 12% of Americans claim an Irish ancestry.  And the world is now filled with some pretty awesome Irishness. 

So, if corned beef and cabbage sound magically delicious to you too, you're among some fairly high profile friends.  The Irish are wordsmiths, musicians and entertainers with an inclination toward the 'Blarney' that also makes the land of leprechauns so delightful.

Four Irishmen have won the Nobel prize for Literature; William B. Yeats,  Samuel Beckett, Seamus Heaney and George Bernard Shaw.  That's a tiny piece of real estate to spawn such a way with words.

Ireland is thought by some to be the most musical country in the world.  Harp, wood flute, fiddle, Uilleann pipes (a kind of bagpipe pumped with the elbow) and guitar, all sing the poetic songs of sadness and love lost.  Maybe it's because sometimes music was the only weapon the Irish people had.  

U2, Van Morrison, and 3 of the 4 Beatles; John, Paul and George all are 10-25% Irish. The list of American singers with Irish in their blood might surprise you too, Kelly Clarkson, the Jonas Brothers, Christina Aguilera, even Beyoncé and Rihanna.

The art of storymaking, dancing and entertaining is also an Irish trait: John Wayne, Gene Kelly, Gregory Peck, Bing Crosby, Errol Flynn, Judy Garland, Robert De Niro, Ryan O'Neal,  Harrison Ford, John Travolta, Robyn Williams, George Clooney, Mel Gibson.


Yep, even Bill Murray, Rosie O'Donnel, Chris Farley, Will Ferrell,Matthew McConaughey, Robert Downey Jr, Paul Giamatti, Tom Cruise, Bonnie Hunt, Josh Hartnett, Ben Affleck. The ladies Jennifer Aniston, Anne Hathaway, Lindsey Lohan, Hilary Duff, Amanda Bynes, Drew Barrymore,  and not surprisingly.. Brian Regan.  "Say 8, say 8."

At least twenty-five presidents of the United States have Irish ancestral origins, including George Washington and since John F. Kennedy took office in 1961, every American President has had at least 10% Irish blood, until Obama that is. Even the White House was designed by an Irish-American, James Hoban and Commodore John Barry, born in County Wexford, Ireland was the father of the United States Navy.

You know you're Irish when...you don't know how to make a long story short. Yep, this post is over. 

So, kick up your heels people.  Don't be a bogger,  raise your glass to the beloved Irishness in us all.

A toast,  "As you slide down the banisters of life,  may the splinters never point the wrong way."

Easy Irish Recipes

For our St. Patricks dinner this year, we went all out.  Corned beef with cabbage, Colcannon, Cream O'Cabbage and even Irish lime cabbage gelatin with roasted walnuts.   #toolegittoquit

So, we had a little more green caught in our teeth. Hey, green's good today, right? 

Of everything on the table, these two were the most well received. In fact, they're keepers. Got them from an Ireland born Irish woman here in Bend.  Trot it out for St. Patty's day or anyday.  Delicious!

Colcannon

Just take your favorite mashed potato recipe, throw in some microsliced kale to boil with the potatoes and "spuds o blarney"  you've got dinner.  This is an inexpensive dish that is great for feeding a lot of people in a hurry on the cheap.  What's more, according to the "Food Lover's Guide" Colcannon is actually more traditional an Irish meal than Corned beef and cabbage. 

O' Nellie's Cream O' Cabbage

1 large head of cabbage

1/2 cup cream

Salt and pepper to taste

Grated Cheese

Breadcrumbs

Salt & black pepper

Shred cabbage, steam it in a 4 qt cooking pot with 1 cup cream on medium heat until tender - about 18-20 minutes. Stir every few minutes to prevent singeing. Season with a little salt and pepper and cover with lid. When cabbage is cooked all the way through and ready to eat, place in an oven safe serving dish, cover with grated cheese, top with breadcrumbs and brown under broiler until breadcrumbs are golden.

Enjoy. 

May you live as long as ya want. And never want as long as ya live!

For more family friendly recipes from around the world check out The Feel Good Cookbook

at MyFeelGoodFoods.com