KIss Me, Even if I am not Irish!

I first learned about St Patrick's Day in college when I had friends who were Catholics with Irish ancestry. Back in the Bible Belt, we didn't do saints' days; it smacked of idolatry and polytheism and, worse, Roman Catholicism. We didn't have many Catholics in my hometown, and I knew only one Irish family, the O'Donnels, who didn't make much ado about their heritage or religion. That was understandable in view of the anti-Catholic sentiment in the community. For some reason, folks who had never even met a Catholic disliked them vehemently. They were not even Christian, I was told on numerous occasions.

I chalk this up to the history of the people of my mountain community. They were mainly of Scots-Irish Protestant ancestry, and their forebears had doubtless fought Irish Catholics back in Ulster. They still had a tinge of "orange" in them so to speak despite two and a half centuries in North America. I reckon that I am about half Scots-Irish myself. (It's hard to tell the difference sometimes between English and Lowland Scots surnames). My Morrows and Mebanes and Dunlops and Callahans and Scotts are all definitely Scots-Irish.

I really liked my Irish Catholic friends in college, and I loved spending weekend evenings at the Four Provinces on Connecticutt Avenue. I developed a taste for Irish beverages and music and folklore, and I came to wish that I was even a little bit Irish, the green kind rather than orange. Thanks to James Webb, I now refer to myself sometimes as a "Celtic-American", especially when I need some dirt road cred. But it's not the same thing. I am not Irish as in St Patrick's day river dance potato famine fleeing 1860s draft riots Irish. Even my one possible Irish ancestor, Mary O'Brien from my Chastain Huguenot connection, was already in the North American hinterland in the mid18th century and probably was not Catholic.

I console myself on this day for my non-Irishness by acknowledging that my Lowland Scots ancestors originally came from Ireland in the first milennium and that they were Catholic for several centuries before they embraced Calvinism. Also, my Scots-Irish ancestors had a similar culture of hard drinking, brawling and merrymaking before the Baptists got hold of them. To all you Irish folks, let me say on behalf of my people that I'm sorry about that running your ancestors off their land thing back in the 17th Century. If it's any consolation, we got screwed, too, and had to leave for North America in pretty short order. We were just tools of the English. Let's make up and embrace what we have in common rather than fighting the Battle of the Boyne over and over.

Happy St Patrick's Day!