Patrick, Lottie & Viola, Diane, and Me
There are about six calendars around the house. All of them list St. Patrick’s Day as a “holiday.” This is remarkable when you think of it. It is not actually a holiday by any standard used to proclaim a holiday, and there is no other canonized Saint of the Catholic Church so honored. Patrick must have been some guy. If you look him up you will find he is something more than a mere man, and something less than his legend would demand.
On St. Patty’s Day we are all Irish. Celebrating St. Patty’s day in America goes back to at least 1862; and has become a very big deal, indeed. It is a day on which everyone wants to “be Irish” for a day – even some who on every other day hold tenaciously (and visibly) to an African heritage. But, “we” Irish were not always all that popular. At the time of the great immigration of the 1800’s “No Irish Need Apply” was about as common as wearing of the green is today.
There are self-evident reasons St. Patrick has become such a big deal over the years:
The day became popular because someone figured out a way to make money on it. Nothing makes a Saint more popular than profit. I for one spent a whole $5 on trinkets for our grandchildren – who probably don’t know what the day is about, never heard of Patrick, and don’t have a clue they are Irish.
A much older reason is that it was a day during Lent when the rules of sobriety were relaxed in order to “commemorate” a Saint with green beer and corn beef & cabbage. I concede these two delicacies religiously carried forward by modern American can lead to really fun things. However, neither beer nor cabbage has ever had a particular appeal to me, nor have I totally grasped the appropriateness thereof in regard to Sainthood.
The main reason for this life-long Protestant honoring a Catholic Saint’s day is Charlotta Jane Burnett (nee Harrington, 1884-1959), known to one and all as “Lottie”. Lottie was my maternal-grandmother. She was a grandmother’s grandmother with whom I had a strong spiritual connection I cannot here describe. And, she was OLD like grandmothers are supposed to be old – not young like Kay and I!
According to my mother, grandma was “from” Ireland. My sister Diane found that grandma was born in Illinois cir. 1884, which makes her most likely a child of one of millions escaping the Irish potato famine about that time. For the record, Diane found our paternal-grandmother, Viola Reed Lewis, had family who came from Tyron, Ireland.
It doesn’t matter after all these years, but me and Diane want our grandchildren to know of their Irish legacy. For me it is not about Patrick or beer or cabbage, it’s about giving honor to Lottie & Viola and whatever Irish heritage which may have come “from” Ireland.
theOldIrishDaddy
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