Truth is I’m a slacker where St. Patrick’s Day is concerned. The Everyman’s model for celebrating the day belonged to my Mother, who was one hundred percent Irish and one thousand percent proud of it.
As a child, I remember how Mother always made the day special. She had little money and not much more creativity; instead she was a student of tradition. And Irish tradition meant wearing green on St. Patrick’s Day, eating corned beef with or without cabbage, and listening to Irish tenors sing their hearts out. Dennis Day was one of her favorites.
She knew the words to the most familiar Irish songs: “Irish Eyes Are Smiling,” “Danny Boy,” “Rose of Tralee.” She knew the legends of St. Patrick and of the druids. She knew the map of Ireland like she knew the map of any city where we lived, even though she’d not visited the Emerald Isle. (In later years, of course, she visited several times.)
But what made her Everyman’s model isn’t just how she celebrated March 17. What gives her claim to the title was her inherent pride in being Irish regardless of the date. She was proud of the Kennedy family and its accomplishments; she took my family and me to Ireland so we could experience it firsthand for ourselves. I even kissed the Blarney Stone and have a photo to prove it. She never missed an opportunity to reveal her ancestry.
I’m only half Irish and I’m not sure Earl’s Irish at all. But tonight we’ll have corned beef and probably watch the PBS Irish special. We’ll talk about the country, since both of us have been there; and then we’ll move on. But in the recess of my mind, I’ll hold on to the memories of my childhood when Mother would buy Irish soda bread and we’d sit at the kitchen table with butter and a knife and a deep connection to our ethnic past.
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