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.
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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.
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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
