Having a Paddy
Friday, March 17, 2006 at 01:04PM The Irish are fortunate in having today off, as a bank holiday - to celebrate their patron saint. They are more fortunate than those of us living across the small sea, with only 9 annual bank holidays a year, of which celebrating our Patron Saints per country is not one of them. St George’s Day comes up next month - but with no official holiday.
I guess I’ll put it down to Irish Luck. St Patrick is supposedly also the patron saint of Nigeria - seems odd, but hey…. The radio this morning has been filled with Irish jokes and music in celebration of much of our joint history with the Irish - but I don’t see any green hair around the workplace.
In New Zealand, my home country, St Patrick’s Day is celebrated with great gusto. Many workmates come in wearing green clothes, green-dyed hair, green wigs. Everyone worth their Irish Ancestry salt will go out after work and celebrate in a rocking kiwi pub done up with four leaf clovers, and good Irish beers. Maybe even a jiggley Irish band. Many kiwis have an Irish ancestry which we remain proud of.
My own adopted family has a Scottish background. In fact, I have a Scottish grandmother, so came into the UK under an ancestry visa rather than by marriage. But my searches into my birth ancestry found that I actually came from a wealthy Irish Catholic family from Auckland - my birth mother was Irish - obviously in the 1960s it was not exactly okay to have a child out of wedlock, hence my adoption. All up, my Celtic background rings out solidly in my own blood - cross-matching with quite a bit of New Zealand Maori. No wonder my hair is curly.
(A side-note (or snide-note) towards some people who call themselves Irish because their mother’s grandfather’s father came from Ireland. What? At what point do you call yourself Irish, if not born of an Irish person or born in Ireland yourself - and therefore able to secure an Irish passport? Yes you can claim some Irish ancestry - but so can most of the world).
Which brings me finally to the predominance of Irish or St Patrick’s digital kits out there at the moment - the majority of which are from - Americans! Who share the same good ol’ Blarney background as me. I’m not sure I’m so into the cutesy kits with the Irish green and leprechaun symbols. I may even be a little sick of seeing a string of four leaf clovers. The green colour associated with all of this is kinda puke-green also. Sorry anyone who’s wearing it currently.
What I find fascinating is the movement of some of this into a "Good Luck" theme. I know that leprechauns - who are meant to be seemingly wicked (or at worst case - mischievous) little fairies or should I say faeries - are meant to have a pot of gold; and of course - the four leaf clover is lucky. But suddenly you see this interpretation going on for the whole St Paddy’s thing being now towards Good Luck.
In fact - it’s moved on from just March 17th to the entire month as a theme. Lucky March. Fascinating. March for Luck, April for Spring and Easter, May for Mother’s Day (American and Antipodean, anyway), June for Summer… I really do find it fascinating watching how these themes for each months become progressed through the digital world like this.
There’s no point to this blog. Sorry. Just a bit of blarney.
My favourite St Paddy’s kit - for what it’s worth - is Carrie Stephen’s kit. Total shabby, and gets away from the kirsch of some of the others - plus it’s based on luck. As I’m never going to have any actual St Patrick’s day photos in this country anyway - the luck theme is more usable for me. I haven’t bought it, but did notice it.
There, Paddy over.
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Reader Comments (2)
Love reading your blog. It's a regular on my list. Anyway, I have absolutely no Irish in me, not even a smidgen. While I'm with you on the rush of Irish and luck-themed kits (some of which are actually pretty cute) being too much, I guess I had to comment on your snide note... ;)
As I said, I claim no Irish ancestry. I do however consider myself very proudly Scottish and my tie to that country is my great grandparents, both of whom came from Aberdeen. In fact, when I visited Scotland, it felt like home to me, and I'd never been there before nor am I old enough to remember my great grandparents well (except quick audio memories I have when I think of them -- I can still hear my great grandma's very strong brogue). I suppose calling myself Scottish is a bit much considering two more generations before me were born here in the U.S. By the same token, I am very proud of my heritage and of my ancestors from there AND other places (which also include Austria, Germany, and Poland). So yeah, it may be a stretch for those who are one-sixteenth Irish from waaaaaay back in the family tree to claim today as their own. But, why not? Good for them and it's a way to remember their roots. Isn't that part of the reason some of us scrap -- to preserve roots for generations to come?
On a similar note, I intend to celebrate my Scottish heritage next month at the annual Tartan Day parade in New York City. Sure, I'm only one-eighth Scottish, but it still resonates for me and the bagpipes give me chills every time. Maybe the Irish thing does for those who celebrate their Irish heritage today too.
Totally babbling, not saying much. Thanks for such a great blog. I always love reading what you have to say.
Krista
I didn't mean to reign on somebody's Irish parade - if they feel irish, they are irish, I guess. Or Scottish for that matter.
Irish music normally annoys me personally - after too much of the same stuff - but I do feel something when appreciating Celtic symbols and any Celt languages. But then I also have a flow of Maori blood in me - and some of the symbols in Maori carvings etc are similar to Celtic knots etc - all good.