Post by Tim Collins on Mar 12, 2009 15:04:59 GMT -7
Every St. Patrick's day my loving wife gets mad at me because I do not wear green. I think she gets mad because my usual reason - repeated every year - is that there are two kinds of people in the world...those that are Irish and those that want to be. As I am Irish, I leave the wearing of the green to the want to be group.
Now I have documented evidence for her that our celebrations are not Irish, but Irish American. I think in celebration of this rare victory in spousal relations, I will cook her the corn beef and cabbage meal she learned to love from my Mom, even though I hate cabbage!
www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20090312/ENT/903120311/1001/NEWS
March 12, 2009
K. Williams Brown • Statesman Journal • March 12, 2009
Leprechauns, green and four-leafed clovers — out. Royal blue, saints and harps — in. If you'd like a traditional Irish St. Patrick's Day, it's time to put down the green beer and pick up the ingredients to cook your family a big meal.
Our St. Patrick's Day celebrations, while charming, are a little less than authentic, report Irish-American residents living in and around Salem.
"I hate to rain on anyone's parade, but to be honest, I think the whole parade thing was developed by Irish here," reported Aislinn Adams, who has lived in the United States for 11 years.
Growing up, she said, there were no parades, little drunkenness and way more holiness.
"It was like a very special Sunday," she said. "You'd go to Mass, then everyone would have a day off work. It often fell in the middle of Lent, but you had a dispensation for St. Patrick's Day; if you'd given up meat, you could have it."
The day she refers to is more focused on St. Patrick himself, the patron saint of Ireland who was credited with driving the snakes out, though no one is totally sure there were snakes there to begin with. (Some scholars say the snakes were a metaphor for Ireland's non-Christian Druids, whose religion was infused with symbols of serpents.) He also used the three-leaf shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity, Adams said — three leaves, one stem.
There are, however, some traditional celebrations happening here in Salem, including the St. Patrick's Day Ceili at the VFW Hall on Friday.
And, she said, some things that scream Irish to us here aren't so popular over there.
"Just for the record, the national color of Ireland is royal blue or St. Patrick's blue, and the national symbol is a harp," she said, adding that leprechauns also are not that big.
Of course, here, if you want to avoid those hateful St. Patrick's Day pinches, you'll definitely be adding some green to your outfit, but there — not so much.
"You'd never wear green, you'd wear your best clothes and maybe have a little ribbon," she said. "Everyone knows they're Irish, so you don't have to go around wearing green ... it's more an effect of the diaspora — it's people outside of the country that want to have a connection."
But, she said, while our celebrations are different, she still definitely enjoys them.
"There's Irish culture, and there's Irish-American culture, and I wouldn't criticize it in any way," she said. "I see it as an interesting separate phenomenon."
There are plenty of classically Irish-American celebration going on, including bar parties at Magoo's, Mac's Place, Lenora's Ghost, Iggy's Bar & Grill and a pub crawl in Mount Angel.
And, Adams said, some of our traditions here have spread back there.
"Ireland now really celebrates it more like (America)," she said. "It's fun in some ways; in other ways, people overindulge themselves. We all know about that."
Charlie Wallace, the chaplain for Willamette University, accompanied a group of students to Galway in the spring of 2006.
In that town, he said, everyone was excited about the parade, which he described as joyful and family-friendly.
"A very small scale but really energetic parade, with lots of kids and marching groups and so forth," he said. "It's very family-friendly, and it doesn't mean there's not lots of booze anytime in Ireland, but it was more a celebration of a family-friendly parade. There's no green beer."
If you'd like to spend the day with your family, you could head out to Blanchet Catholic School's Blarney Blast, which includes musical entertainment, contests and games.
Wallace echoed Adams' thoughts on how many traditions emerged on U.S. soil.
"A lot of the St. Patrick's Day stuff was made up, from what I can tell, made up in the Irish diaspora, in Boston and New York.
So back there, it's more restrained in some ways, but more celebrative of the saint and the tradition than something made up," he said.
The tradition of feasting on corned beef, for example, developed in the 19th century among Irish immigrants in New York who learned about this more affordable cut of meat from Jewish neighbors.
Linda Lee is from northern Ireland and said that growing up in the British-controlled area, she had little concept of the day.
Her first St. Patrick's Day was celebrated in a Catholic hospital in Yonkers, N.Y.
"I went to the cafeteria and saw this great big slab of gray, and I said, 'What is this?' and (my coworker) said, 'corned beef!' ... Everybody was, of course dressed in green, and I didn't own a single thing that was green and had no idea what corned beef was, so that was my initial experience."
kwbrown@statesmanjournal.com or (503) 399-6743
Wearing o' the green, corned beef, green beer — it's more American than the old country
Now I have documented evidence for her that our celebrations are not Irish, but Irish American. I think in celebration of this rare victory in spousal relations, I will cook her the corn beef and cabbage meal she learned to love from my Mom, even though I hate cabbage!
www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20090312/ENT/903120311/1001/NEWS
March 12, 2009
K. Williams Brown • Statesman Journal • March 12, 2009
Leprechauns, green and four-leafed clovers — out. Royal blue, saints and harps — in. If you'd like a traditional Irish St. Patrick's Day, it's time to put down the green beer and pick up the ingredients to cook your family a big meal.
Our St. Patrick's Day celebrations, while charming, are a little less than authentic, report Irish-American residents living in and around Salem.
"I hate to rain on anyone's parade, but to be honest, I think the whole parade thing was developed by Irish here," reported Aislinn Adams, who has lived in the United States for 11 years.
Growing up, she said, there were no parades, little drunkenness and way more holiness.
"It was like a very special Sunday," she said. "You'd go to Mass, then everyone would have a day off work. It often fell in the middle of Lent, but you had a dispensation for St. Patrick's Day; if you'd given up meat, you could have it."
The day she refers to is more focused on St. Patrick himself, the patron saint of Ireland who was credited with driving the snakes out, though no one is totally sure there were snakes there to begin with. (Some scholars say the snakes were a metaphor for Ireland's non-Christian Druids, whose religion was infused with symbols of serpents.) He also used the three-leaf shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity, Adams said — three leaves, one stem.
There are, however, some traditional celebrations happening here in Salem, including the St. Patrick's Day Ceili at the VFW Hall on Friday.
And, she said, some things that scream Irish to us here aren't so popular over there.
"Just for the record, the national color of Ireland is royal blue or St. Patrick's blue, and the national symbol is a harp," she said, adding that leprechauns also are not that big.
Of course, here, if you want to avoid those hateful St. Patrick's Day pinches, you'll definitely be adding some green to your outfit, but there — not so much.
"You'd never wear green, you'd wear your best clothes and maybe have a little ribbon," she said. "Everyone knows they're Irish, so you don't have to go around wearing green ... it's more an effect of the diaspora — it's people outside of the country that want to have a connection."
But, she said, while our celebrations are different, she still definitely enjoys them.
"There's Irish culture, and there's Irish-American culture, and I wouldn't criticize it in any way," she said. "I see it as an interesting separate phenomenon."
There are plenty of classically Irish-American celebration going on, including bar parties at Magoo's, Mac's Place, Lenora's Ghost, Iggy's Bar & Grill and a pub crawl in Mount Angel.
And, Adams said, some of our traditions here have spread back there.
"Ireland now really celebrates it more like (America)," she said. "It's fun in some ways; in other ways, people overindulge themselves. We all know about that."
Charlie Wallace, the chaplain for Willamette University, accompanied a group of students to Galway in the spring of 2006.
In that town, he said, everyone was excited about the parade, which he described as joyful and family-friendly.
"A very small scale but really energetic parade, with lots of kids and marching groups and so forth," he said. "It's very family-friendly, and it doesn't mean there's not lots of booze anytime in Ireland, but it was more a celebration of a family-friendly parade. There's no green beer."
If you'd like to spend the day with your family, you could head out to Blanchet Catholic School's Blarney Blast, which includes musical entertainment, contests and games.
Wallace echoed Adams' thoughts on how many traditions emerged on U.S. soil.
"A lot of the St. Patrick's Day stuff was made up, from what I can tell, made up in the Irish diaspora, in Boston and New York.
So back there, it's more restrained in some ways, but more celebrative of the saint and the tradition than something made up," he said.
The tradition of feasting on corned beef, for example, developed in the 19th century among Irish immigrants in New York who learned about this more affordable cut of meat from Jewish neighbors.
Linda Lee is from northern Ireland and said that growing up in the British-controlled area, she had little concept of the day.
Her first St. Patrick's Day was celebrated in a Catholic hospital in Yonkers, N.Y.
"I went to the cafeteria and saw this great big slab of gray, and I said, 'What is this?' and (my coworker) said, 'corned beef!' ... Everybody was, of course dressed in green, and I didn't own a single thing that was green and had no idea what corned beef was, so that was my initial experience."
kwbrown@statesmanjournal.com or (503) 399-6743
Wearing o' the green, corned beef, green beer — it's more American than the old country