Faile Phadraic
Mar. 13th, 2003 10:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jawnbcOnly a few more days ‘til St Patrick’s Day. And, for the first time in years I’m in a city that actually celebrates it. Woo hoo!
The local parade is on Sunday, so I’ll head down and take a look. For most of the first 25 years of my life I participated in the NYC St. Patrick’s Day Parade. We marched with County Offaly, where my grandfather Pop hailed from (Nanny, my grandmother, is from Galway, go raibh maith agat). At various times Pop, my Da and my sister were all officers in the Co. Offally Society. We *never* went to school on St. Pat’s; instead we put on 3-4 layers of clothing (March is a fookin’ lion awright in NY, lemme tell yooo), including an Irish Aran-style sweater, and headed into town in the station wagon (pre-teen) else on the bus (teens and older, to get a head start on the drinkin).
It was easier to join the parade en route, rather than queue up with the hordes, so we watched. And drank. And drank. Did I mention drinking? If you want a sense of what it was like, I recommend the Simpsons episode where Bart gets drunk at the local St. Paddy’s Day parade--waaay to close for comfort. Then we marched, tossed $$ onto huge Irish flags (I really had no idea it was for the IRA), then off to a bar. Co. Offaly always had a party, usually in a party room above a Chinese restaurant, with an open bar (”bar” meaning kegs of beer) and live music.
Speaking of which, I love Irish music. Truly. But a lot of it’s fookin’ maudlin. No wonder it took 800 years to get the British out, we were too busy lamenting and crying. Jaysus gawd! My personal favourite goes like this”
A mother’s love’s a blessing
No matter where you roam
Keep her while she’s living
You’ll miss her when she’s gone
Love as in childhood
Though feeble
Old, and
Grey
For you’ll never miss your mother’s love
‘Til she’s buried beneath the clay.
And if that ain’t maudlin enough, during the song you could always count on a bunch of the donkeys (newly emigrated Oirishmen) to:
1. Cry the bejaysus for dere Mas
2. Put their arm aroun dere Ma’s shoulder, and say “Ah jaysus Ma, I’m after missin’ yuz already”. To which Ma would reply, “Ah yer a good boy Seamus.”
Buried beneath the clay? Creepy...
Next came the singing. Ah g’won Siobhan, give us “Fields of Athenry”. Ah won’tcha sing “Four Green Fields” Kevin? Everyone sang “The Town I Loved So Well.” What is amazing is that most of the singers had very nice singing voices. Lovely!
Eventually the beer’d run out. We’d figure out which drunk driver was ours and head home. Or to an Oirish bar--if you could get in the door. Though it wasn’t unusual to have folks out on the sidewalks in front of the bar--that 1/3 of the cops in NYC were named Kelly or Egan (like my Da, Uncle Kevin, brother Tom, cousin Des, plus Mike Heffernan, Pat Leahy...well, you get the idea) made such indiscretions palatable.
Of course this all pre-dates the kerfuffle about the Gay Group marching in NY. A controversy that doesn’t exist in Dublin or Cork, where gay groups have marched for years.
But the NY parade brouhaha (how’s that for an Oirish word) amply demonstrates that the Oirish, regardless of gender, age, occupation or sexual orientation, can be pigheaded and close-minded.
An’ dat’s all dere is ta tell.
slan go foill
PS: here’s a photo taken about a month before I left Honcouver. A veritable sunset from Cypress Mountain:
The local parade is on Sunday, so I’ll head down and take a look. For most of the first 25 years of my life I participated in the NYC St. Patrick’s Day Parade. We marched with County Offaly, where my grandfather Pop hailed from (Nanny, my grandmother, is from Galway, go raibh maith agat). At various times Pop, my Da and my sister were all officers in the Co. Offally Society. We *never* went to school on St. Pat’s; instead we put on 3-4 layers of clothing (March is a fookin’ lion awright in NY, lemme tell yooo), including an Irish Aran-style sweater, and headed into town in the station wagon (pre-teen) else on the bus (teens and older, to get a head start on the drinkin).
It was easier to join the parade en route, rather than queue up with the hordes, so we watched. And drank. And drank. Did I mention drinking? If you want a sense of what it was like, I recommend the Simpsons episode where Bart gets drunk at the local St. Paddy’s Day parade--waaay to close for comfort. Then we marched, tossed $$ onto huge Irish flags (I really had no idea it was for the IRA), then off to a bar. Co. Offaly always had a party, usually in a party room above a Chinese restaurant, with an open bar (”bar” meaning kegs of beer) and live music.
Speaking of which, I love Irish music. Truly. But a lot of it’s fookin’ maudlin. No wonder it took 800 years to get the British out, we were too busy lamenting and crying. Jaysus gawd! My personal favourite goes like this”
A mother’s love’s a blessing
No matter where you roam
Keep her while she’s living
You’ll miss her when she’s gone
Love as in childhood
Though feeble
Old, and
Grey
For you’ll never miss your mother’s love
‘Til she’s buried beneath the clay.
And if that ain’t maudlin enough, during the song you could always count on a bunch of the donkeys (newly emigrated Oirishmen) to:
1. Cry the bejaysus for dere Mas
2. Put their arm aroun dere Ma’s shoulder, and say “Ah jaysus Ma, I’m after missin’ yuz already”. To which Ma would reply, “Ah yer a good boy Seamus.”
Buried beneath the clay? Creepy...
Next came the singing. Ah g’won Siobhan, give us “Fields of Athenry”. Ah won’tcha sing “Four Green Fields” Kevin? Everyone sang “The Town I Loved So Well.” What is amazing is that most of the singers had very nice singing voices. Lovely!
Eventually the beer’d run out. We’d figure out which drunk driver was ours and head home. Or to an Oirish bar--if you could get in the door. Though it wasn’t unusual to have folks out on the sidewalks in front of the bar--that 1/3 of the cops in NYC were named Kelly or Egan (like my Da, Uncle Kevin, brother Tom, cousin Des, plus Mike Heffernan, Pat Leahy...well, you get the idea) made such indiscretions palatable.
Of course this all pre-dates the kerfuffle about the Gay Group marching in NY. A controversy that doesn’t exist in Dublin or Cork, where gay groups have marched for years.
But the NY parade brouhaha (how’s that for an Oirish word) amply demonstrates that the Oirish, regardless of gender, age, occupation or sexual orientation, can be pigheaded and close-minded.
An’ dat’s all dere is ta tell.
slan go foill
PS: here’s a photo taken about a month before I left Honcouver. A veritable sunset from Cypress Mountain:
