I am not, technically, Irish. Nor am I Catholic, and saints’ days don’t have much significance for me in the traditional way.
But at least some of my ancestors came to America the hard way, on ships with sails, in the mid-18th century. They landed in Philadelphia and worked their way south down the long valleys, looking for land they could make their own. They found it in Southwest Virginia, and they settled. Got married – to Scots and Germans and English and other Irish – and had children and grandchildren.
At least one branch of the family was casual about religion in Ireland, changing from Catholic to Protestant and back, depending on the political situation. Another branch was Protestant before they left Ireland. But all of them seemed to have gone whole-hog Protestant in Virginia.
I don’t have a single Catholic relative. And we’re all what I like to call “standard Colonial mix,” that mid-Atlantic blend of Scots and Irish and English and German, with a bit of Welsh and Dutch thrown in. That’s us: Daughertys and Powerses and Strawns, most of us fair and freckled and blue-eyed, or Black Irish dark.
They came here for many reasons, according to family lore and genealogical research: Overcrowding. Too many sons, not enough land. Religious oppression. Having lost their land to an English lord. Enterprising spirits. Escaping judicial punishment. Simple poverty. And they all wound up here, in the little corner of Virginia that’s as hilly as Ireland, and nearly as green. It must have seemed like a little piece of home to them.
I raise a glass to them, on the day people are proud to be Irish. Slainte!
Photo courtesy of pdphoto.org.
Sláinte back to you, lassie…from a thoroughly mongrelized American Irish person.
I do have a family history that includes a mixed marriage: Irish Catholic + Scottish Protestant. Oh, dear. Fortunately, it happened on these shores, so there was no tribal bloodshed.
Some identities run strong, though…and some days, no matter how manufactured, do encourage one to ruminate well upon things of that nature. I can imagine how strongly that runs for you, who clearly has threads of family history woven into the fabric of her conscious.
Here’s to you and yours!
The day as a manufactured excuse to party – oh, yes. And at the same time, as you mention, it causes me to ponder beginnings (or, at least, changes in the flow) and feel grateful.
Here’s to you and yours as well!
Hi Mals! good to see you back – missed checking in with you here! I ‘m also “standard colonial mix” at least on my mom’s side – English, Scottish, German, but swap the Irish for Swiss. Our family is Protestant as well, and my mom always made a point of wearing orange on St. Patrick’s Day instead of or with green. I was actually motivated to look up St. Patrick today to see what all the fuss was about – interesting guy, but no snakes involved. Slainte to you as well!
Thanks, J. Yeah, St. P himself is not a big deal to us non-Catholics (although you gotta admire a guy who goes back to the people that enslaved him to try to tell them about God)…
… and my daughter went off to school in an orange tee-shirt today. Deliberately.
Slainte! right back at ya, from a woman who is so Irish I don’t have to wear green on St. Patrick’s Day (so said my grandmother, a Ryan who married a Higgins).
“So Irish I don’t have to wear green…” HA! Good on your granny. And Happy St. P’s day to you.
catching up on your blog, and enjoying it very much.
thanks!