I’m not particularly interested in watching them dye the Chicago River green. I’ve been down to see the South Side St. Patrick’s Day Parade. It was okay. Public drunkenness isn’t my idea of a good time. Or, at least, it’s more fun to be a participant than a spectator.
Consequently, our St. Patrick’s Day was pretty quiet. Corned beef and cabbage is Irish-American rather than Irish. I made a sauté of Irish bangers, onions, leeks, carrots, potatoes, and cabbage. Sort of a combination of bangers and colcannon. My wife wants to have it again tonight.
Then we watched The Quiet Man on TV. Director John Ford created as close to a love note to Ireland as you can get in that movie. It’s probably John Ford’s most beautiful movie. When you consider how many movies he shot in Monument Valley that’s saying something.
For my money the unsung heroes of the picture are all of the members of the Abbey Theatre (National Theatre of Ireland). That includes Maureen O’Hara, her brother Charles FitzSimons, Barry Fitzgerald and his brother Arthur Shields. They provide most of the humor and local color in the movie.
Tragically, that Ireland and those Irish are dead and forgotten. Modern Ireland verges on a Third World rat hole. Most of Europe is gone, too. Only Russia and the Russians persevere.
New Orleans being New orleans, it is not a celebration without a parade (with throws). There are two Irish parades and one Irish-Italian parade. St. Joseph’s day is celebrated with alters and a parade, of course.
The Quiet Man is one of my favorite movies, but it could never be made today.
bob sykes:
You wrote:
My best high school buddy is of 100% Irish ancestry. All four of his grandparents emigrated from Ireland in the late 19th century.
About 50 years ago, his surviving grandmother visited Ireland to see one of her surviving sisters who had remained in the old country. When she returned to the United States she lamented that the Irishmen she had known were gone—the closest approximation were in the United States. That was 50 years ago. I suspect that is even more the case today.
My dad’s birthday is St. Patrick’s day, so the holiday has a different meaning for me. He would have been 100 today, but he passed 8 years ago.
I used to play drums in a bagpipe band, and it was our biggest day of the year for gigs (and also for sexual harassment/assault from drunk middle-aged women), but it’s been 15 years since I did that.
This year it was just another Monday, and a very busy work day.
Man, all this just makes me feel old.