It's St. Patrick's Day! You know what that means

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Well, yes and no. Guinness was started by an Anglo-Irish. Ditto the IRA. St. Patrick was actually British…

Happy St Patrick’s Day!!

 
Yes, we also loved Mrs. Murphy’s Chowder. And “Dear Old Donegal” and “Mcnamara’s Band”. My mom would sing Mrs. Murphy and Mcnamara’s Band to me when I was a tiny tot. She couldn’t remember most of the words but she’d just hum what she didn’t recall.
 
The day almost every person in the world claims to be part Irish! LoL
(The Welsh, of course, may have a little more claim as there is a strong argument that St Patrick was Welsh.)
 
FollowChrist34 said:
St. Patrick was actually British…
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My Italian friend says St. Patrick was Italian, because his father was a Roman official with a very Roman name 🙂

I think it’s wonderful that St. Patrick manages to be Irish and so many other nationalities as well - I’ve also heard various arguments that he was French or Scottish.
 
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Well, according to the song, “he’s worth any two saints that we know.” Perhaps that’s why so many claim him as their own!

Birthday of Saint Patrick: Leo MacCaffrey

 
Everyone including Andre Rieu!
Here’s The Irish Washerwoman featuring Mr. Rieu and John Sheahan.

 
I don’t think I have any Irish in me, but DH and DD do, so lm Irish by marriage.
 
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Like a lot of my generation, I can’t stand latter-day U2, but we pretty much all universally loved the early albums. (I fell off the bandwagon after “Desire”)
 
My favorite “Bono moment” was when I was in some congressman’s office on Capitol Hill with a group of folks, and we were checking out the wall display of photos of Mr. Congressman shaking hands with various VIPs. There was a photo of him shaking hands with the immediate past President of USA…one of him with the Pope…and then one of him with Bono. We all started laughing so hard that Bono was somehow worthy of display alongside President and Pope.
 
Here’s a tall tale about St Brendan the Navigator – said to have discovered North American before the Vikings when he sailed across the Atlantic in a leather boat.

Not only is it a jaunty tune (written by American composer Jimmy Driftwood) but it tells some of the folklore of this delightful Saint. 😄 Lyrics are below the YouTube link.

When I was a lad on the Emerald Isle
I heard many stories both lovely and wild
About the great dragons and monsters that be
That swallow the ships when they sail on the sea
Though I was an artist with canvas and paint
I sailed with St. Brendan and his jolly saints
We told the good people goodbye for a while

We sailed for St. Brendan’s fair isle, fair isle
We sailed for St. Brendan’s fair isle

We’d been on the ocean for 94 days
When we came to a spot where the sea was ablaze
Those demons from Hades were dancing with glee
And burning the sailors alive on the sea
St. Brendan he walked on the blistering waves
He threw those demons right back to their caves
And all of the saints wore a heavenly smile
We sailed…

One night while the brethren were lying asleep
A great dragon came up from under the deep
He thundered and light’nend and made a great din
He awakened St. Brendan and all of his men
The dragon came on with his mouth open wide
We threw in a cross and the great dragon died
We skinned him and cooked him and feasted a while
We sailed…

At last we came onto that beautiful land
We all went ashore and we walked on the sand
We took our longbows and we killed us a boo
We roasted it up and had hot barbecue
And after a while we were singing this song
We noticed the island was moving along
We ate and we drank and we rolled in great style
We sailed…

St. Brendan said "Boys, this is much to my wish
"To ride on the back of the world’s biggest fish
"Hold on to the line that is pullin’ the ship
“We’ll need it some day if this fish takes a dip.”
We sailed every ocean, we sailed every sea
We sailed every spot that a sailor could be
In 44 days we sailed 10 million miles
We sailed…
 
My priest hardly ever picks out the music. This week, he did. We ended with “Danny Boy.” He takes his Irish heritage seriously, being only third generation. Interestingly enough, there are many more Irish-Americans than Irish in Ireland. Also, there are around 25,000 undocumented Irish immigrants still in the Boston area, some having lived there for decades.
 
I have heard we have many undocumented Irish in the U.S.
I didn’t realize there are so many in Boston.
 
Surprised no one has mentioned my favorite, The Pogues. This is the first tune I ever learned to play on the guitar.

 
To me, Irish folk music is the most beautiful in the world, particularly when sung by the likes of a tenor such as the great John McCormack. I love Irish music!
 
7_Sorrows said:
I have heard we have many undocumented Irish in the U.S.
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Not undocumented, illegal.

Generally, they entered legally/documentd abutnd didn’t go back during the “Troubles” in Occupied Ireland.

Anyway, Irish used to be the second largest population of illegal aliens in the US. I assume that that is no longer the case, as the reason is gone, and Ireland has been actively trying to get her diaspora to return (in fact, any grandchild of a citizen can have citizenship by registration).

And as a side issue, during the years that I practiced immigration law, not a single person called himself “undocumented”; that’s a term from the activists. Every single one said “illegal”.

hawk
 
I used to teach English As a Second Language in Arizona - home to many illegals in the late 70’s, 80’s and 90’s.
We were never allowed to ask or to prove they were here legally.
 
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