Being ethnically Irish in the U.S.A. can be interesting to say the least and there is quite a bit to say about our role in this country for sure. This post however is on a more personal level and is really about what the holiday means to those of us who came later to the States.
Both sides of my family had various roots in the Nordic and Germanic regions of northern Europe but coincidentally landed in Galway region of Ireland. It seems to me like the most western point in Europe one can go and still be around a few people but I suppose it still wasn't far enough away from the grind of the mainland because they kept going. It always made me smile to think that both lines of my family started out a few thousand miles away but made the same V line across a continent, closing that gap between them every generation, to ultimately meet in Boston Massachusetts.
There were many reasons why we kept pulling up our roots and heading west but the major two that I heard on St. Patrick's Day growing up, the constant threat of war and our innate yearning to be free and to pursue success on our own merits.
I still hold an anti-war point of view and wouldn't want to be involved in trench warfare myself. In fact it turned out to be a decent decision because by the time WW2 began we were already natural born citizens in my opinion much better off. My grandfathers were drafted but were able to serve as an electrical engineer and a physicist in the Pacific arena instead of front line Germany. I know this comes across wrong/insensitive to a lot of people but I really do believe that if they had stayed in Galway and been drafted after a life of farming and tailoring like their processors, things would have been very different and I may not be here at all, so I am definitely grateful they made these decisions.
It wasn't just that we are conscientious objectors to serving the oligarchs in battle for the sake of being rebels though. We are of the mind that having your life taken off its track and losing any part of your prime years due to the rich and powerful want to fight is a huge reason why wealth classes go stagnant. If you are off in a trench breathing mustard gas to protect the stock prices of your monarchs buddy, you are not earning wealth for yourself. It's not a fear of battle, the Nordic roots have made it so there hasn't been a man among us who wasn't over 6 feet tall in hundreds of years, its that when we fight it has to be for something or someone we love and not for that which we despise.
To be sure we know when we are being held back and have always resented it, that's the big reason we crossed the Atlantic. Some of our cousins had made it out a generation before us and landed in New York. The kids they raised here were able to make some waves in the culture and proved to the rest of us that we could make it in the States as well. Check out these books by the most visible of our 1st generation, Frank "Mickey" Spillane if you want something cool and cultural to read over the holiday weekend. I personally think the western world needs Mike Hammer more than ever and he is still a timeless, bad ass character indeed!
Seeing one of the family succeeding was a huge inspiration but it was more than that sign of prosperity that prodded my ancestors to sell nearly everything the owned and move thousands of miles away from home. The U.S.A. was very different place after WW1 than it is today, the restructuring of our society was just in its beginning stages. Back then, the social programs we speak of today as the 3rd rails of politics, you touch them you die, and the massive taxation system we endure now was not yet implemented. When a guy like Mickey wrote his books, he was able to keep most of the profits and that makes a huge difference to someone like me who resents being held back. Its not a matter of being selfish but it is the recognition that taxation is theft and there is nothing altruistic about being robbed at gunpoint by the government, just like the fighting I spoke of before we want to give to those we love and care about and not have our resources go to those we despise.
There was nothing stopping us from writing and selling millions of books in Ireland at the time, it was and still is a free society by most standards of course, it is the idea that most of the wealth generated by the work will be confiscated and used to drop bombs in France that was the problem. Perhaps I sound like a beatnik, but even if after I explain this position you still feel this mind set is too self serving I won't argue with. Instead I'll move west and keep to myself if I feel like I'm being held back like I've been taught to, it is what it is.
This story is what St. Patrick's has always been about to me and mine. Call me old fashioned but on Christmas and Easter we talk about Jesus, on the 4th of July we talk about America and this Sunday around here we will be talking about Ireland and our personal connection to the beautiful country. In Boston, that conversation came first when we got together and then we would get into the religious side of the gathering. Catholicism is a big part of why we celebrate and tomorrow I'll tell the story of the man and his miracles if you all would like to hear it.
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If you want to hear more about how life was for Irish immigrants I can get into that part of history on Monday as well. I hold back on that for two reasons though, this post is meant to encourage family to get together and talk about positive things first and foremost. The other reason I haven't brought it up is because it doesn't have a personal connection to me, my great grandma was still living in Galway pulling radishes out of the ground and sewing in shops during the worst of it. We came after the assimilation had more or less taken place and live to see J.F.K. get elected president. If that is your family's story though, please feel to share it here. It is how things were and we can most definitely learn a lot from those stories that will apply to today's cultural climate.
I just wanted to express what this day means around here with this article, I think it says a lot that the people of Boston make such a grand celebration of it and really I hope it shows how much love there is for Ireland here.
I hope to write up the story of St. Patrick tomorrow but in case life gets ahead of me I wanted to end this post by wishing everyone a Happy St. Patrick's Day! Let me know if you plan to celebrate and how you do things this time of year.