230317 Saint Patrick's Day

I’m posting this today, a day early, so I don’t forget to post it tomorrow.

Tis a grand day to be the Irish!

This picture was me mum in 1999.

This picture was me grand mum in 1935, she was the Irish, fresh off the boat she was.

The grand Saint Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland, so the legend goes. Saint Patrick was actually a Roman, but when he did so well, we claimed him as an Irishman. Ireland was a poor country at one time. The great potato famine began in 1845. Because the tenant farmers of Ireland—then ruled as a colony of Great Britain—relied heavily on the potato as a source of food, the infestation had a catastrophic impact on Ireland and its population. Before it ended in 1852, the Potato Famine resulted in the death of roughly one million Irish from starvation and related causes, with at least another million forced to leave their homeland as refugees.

One of the great songs of all time follow the link here “Oh Danny Boy” came from the Irish. It’s a sad, but beautiful song that tugs at the heart. Irish songs are the real deal, down to earth as any music anywhere.

The greatest priest I ever met was an Irishman named Father Peter Walsh, the only down to earth priest I ever met. We became great friends from the moment we met. He made a trip back to his homeland and from that trip he had a poster made and he hung it on the wall of his abode. On his trip home, he stopped in a pub there and met an old friend of his. He asked his friend how he was that day. The man replied, “I feel more like I do than when I came in here.” That sounds kind of silly, but I remember that, this very day some 49 years later. When my beloved Joyce was still alive, we would sit in this room where I am writing today’s post and have our drinks, her whiskey and water, and me having my beer. As the afternoon went on I would often repeat that line, “I feel more like I do than when I came in here.” It sounds much better after a few beers. These days my beer consumption is drastically cut back. I’m practically sober, close, but no cigar. I have to maintain some pleasure in my daily life.