Just Kidding - Kind Of

Why does everyone think they are Irish on St. Patrick's Day?

AP Photo

I don't pretend I am African American during Kwanzaa
Nor do I dress up and partake in the Chinese New Year
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(Just kidding, kind of)

Why oh why must everyone slap themselves in green (especially gaudy shamrock necklaces and hats) and wish everyone Happy St. Patrick's Day and pinch people who aren't wearing green?
Do they even know what the Shamrock represents?
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I guess these people don't know or don't remember what it was to be an Irish-American during the immigration/potato famine. Consider this:

...No group was considered lower than an Irishman in America during the 1850s...
...Our immigrant ancestors were not wanted in America ...Ads for employment often were followed by "NO IRISH NEED APPLY."...
...They were forced to live in cellars and shanties, partly because of poverty but also because they were considered bad for the neighborhood...they were unfamiliar with plumbing and running water. These living conditions bred sickness and early death. It was estimated that 80% of all infants born to Irish immigrants in New York City died. Their brogue and dress provoked ridicule; their poverty and illiteracy provoked scorn...
The Chicago Post wrote, "The Irish fill our prisons, our poor houses...Scratch a convict or a pauper, and the chances are that you tickle the skin of an Irish Catholic. Putting them on a boat and sending them home would end crime in this country."

From this site

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I know people are just looking for a reason to have fun - to go out and be social. I understand.

But First:
Being 1/128th Irish does not make you Irish
Learn the History of St. Patrick
and Ireland
and the Immigration
and then for fun check out this site:
10 fun facts about St. Patrick's Day (image on site not suitable for children)

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O.k. NOW go out, wear your green, drink beer, and be merry pretending to be Irish - but go knowing that St. Patrick's Day is a holiday celebrating a Saint, the shamrock represents the trinity: The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and being Irish wasn't always merry!

From another time, from another place

I just woke from a dream that left me wondering --->
Do you ever feel like you have come from another time, another place.
You have a memory or dream that isn't from this life - you wake thinking, "where did that come from? ...probably a movie I saw, or a book I read...." Does a certain type of music pull at your heart or pictures of a far off land feel like home? Have you met someone new that you are instantly connected to? Deep? Silly? I don't know. I do know that I continually think about the kitchen of a house I have never been in, not in this life time anyway. Yet I know each cupboard as if it was my own now. (that was my dream - again) I also can't hear a song from Ireland that doesn't make me want to either dance or cry. Yes, I have lineage in Ireland - "Black Irish" my genealogy searching aunt tells me, but, I have never been there myself.




How about a child who seems to be wise beyond their years. It is like they know things that their years could not allow for.....

This post will probably only serve as proof for my family to use later when they institutionalize me. Am I claiming I was reincarnated? (gasp I said the word...) No. Do I believe in it? I don't know. But, sometimes... I wonder.

"It is Nature's Kindness that we do not remember past births. Where is the good either in knowing in detail the numberless births we have gone through? ...a wise man deliberately forgets many things" -Ghandi