This dour-looking fellow is St Patrick:
And this is what most people think of on his day:
There are a few interesting things you may not know about St Patrick's Day.
There are four places on earth where St Patrick's Day is a public holiday. One of them is, of course, Ireland, where St Patrick is the nation's patron saint. The other three are, oddly enough, the island of Montserrat ("The Emerald Isle of the Caribbean") and the Canadian provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador. And while New York City is famous for its huge annual St Patrick's Day parade, one of the longest-running Saint Patrick's Day parades in North America actually has taken place each year since 1824 in Montreal, the flag of which has a shamrock in its lower right corner ...
The Irish Network Japan sponsors St Patrick's Day parades in that unlikely nation as well, although ... understandably ... the festivities have been called off this year.
So ...
Happy St Patrick's Day to all you Irish, Irish wannabes, and people who are just looking for an excuse to drink green beer and act silly. As the old Irish blessing puts it,
May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.
Have a good day, and don't forget - tomorrow will be this week's Cartoon Saturday. More thoughts then.
Bilbo
4 comments:
St Patrick's Day is the time of year when we go through that wonderful Mother-Daughter ritual of Grace wondering why I won't let her skip school to march in the parade like all the other Irish Dancers. It's a PARADE for pity's sake! I can't believe I'm pulling her from even one period of High School so she can dance with the troupe for a crowd of a couple thousand drunks. Bad Mommy, honorary Irish or not.
Speaking of acting silly, a very Irish friend of mine has 2 posters in his home. One says, "God invented whiskey to keep the Irish from ruling the world", and the other one says, "No Irishman is truly drunk as long as he can hold on to a single blade of grass and not fall off the face of the earth." I love that second one.
Wv: guestf - The sixth person to read this blog.
This day is lost on me. I knew nothing of St Patrick's Day when we moved to Brisbane and I started high school. And now, 20 years later...I still don't understand its significance. I don't even like the colour green.
There's nothing worse than being around a bunch of drunks when you're not drinking.
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