Happy St. Patrick's Day

[h=1]American leprechauns versus Irish fairies - St. Patrick’s Day death match[/h]Cahir O'Doherty @randomirish March 16,2014 04:00 AM









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MI+Leprechaun++Getty.jpg
Pots o’ gold or mischief and hauntings, take your pick.Photo by: Getty

In Ireland people never talk about leprechauns, so would it surprise you to learn that on Saint Patrick’s Day very few Irish people dress up as them either?

Usually it’s only visiting tourists who walk around in bright red beards and buckled top hats shouting top o’ the morning on March 17 in Dublin.

Your complexion may be as pasty as a native’s but you won’t be fooling anyone. We’ll know you’re from abroad with just one look.

There’s a very good reason you’ll never catch us at all that Darby O’Gill begob malarkey. It would just be embarrassing overkill. It would be like dressing up as Uncle Sam and walking around with a pair of lit sparklers for a 4th July barbecue here in the US.

We really don’t mind others doing it, but we won’t be doing it ourselves thanks.

The things that you probably will see in an Irish St. Patrick’s Day parade (alongside a bearded man in green dressed up as Saint Patrick) are heroic figures from our Irish myths like Cu Chulainn, or fearsome supernatural creatures from the old tales like the Morrigan, and kids dressed up as woodland fairies. It will be colorful community based festival; it will not be an epic pub-crawl after a military tattoo.

So leave the green beer, neon shamrocks and Kiss me I’m Irish t-shirts at home, it drives us nuts.

Interestingly one place where you can see the difference between how Ireland approaches St. Patrick’s Day versus how America does it is in the standoff between leprechauns and fairies.

Some might suggest there’s a modern lesson in that face off, but lets for now keep our eyes on the magical creatures, not the marching ones.

In the Ireland of long ago country folk lived in dread of the wee folk. And by wee folk they meant fairies, never leprechauns. Fairies could bring you good fortune, but more often they could bring tricks or even disaster.

From making mischief to out and out terrorizing your community and even stealing away your child, they were to be respected and stayed away from whenever possible.

Do they sound like the kind of people you’d want to eat Lucky Charms with? No, they do not.

Contrast that with the bubbly broth of a red headed boy of American leprechauns – and yes, leprechauns as we know them are largely an American creation, a softening of the fearsome Irish fairy – and you’ll wonder how the same country produced two distinctly different types.

Leprechauns almost want you to steal their pot of gold. When you do they’ll dance a jig and sing your praises for having found it. They’re as insipid as their counterparts are severe. They’re much more Madison Avenue than the Old Sod.

It’s been said that sentimentality is the refuge of the ruthless, so perhaps kindly leprechauns are the reflex of a tough nation.

By contrast fairies sound like they belong to the ancient Irish past, to the world of old biddies in long shawls bending by the fire on winter nights. That’s probably why they live in such different worlds still.

But fairies are something else too, they’re creatures who are halfway to becoming ghosts - and old Ireland knows all about hauntings.

The Irish are different from Americans in one very key way, for them the future does not necessarily imply hope or aspirations. So their haunted past finds expression in those little ghostly figures who live in the woods and the bottom of the garden that remind you that fate is fickle and often enough it is cruel. There’s nothing reassuring about Irish fairies at all.

So this St. Patrick’s Day pick your magical companions carefully and remember there’s something to be said for both of them. And what it says largely depends on where you’re from.



Read more: http://www.irishcentral.com/roots/c...t-Patricks-Day-death-match.html#ixzz2wCnuahau
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Oh I am sure of it RK, I forgot to tell you when I was in Greer's Ferry (well at the lake) I got to go to a real hoedown! It was complete with a washboard etc. We had to walk about 2 blocks through some heavy woods on their dirt road, and it was dark already, but the music coming up through there, and the little lights we started to see were soooooo inviting! I loved it. People were doing their jigs, eating good food and it just had a "feel" about it I'd never experienced. Wonderful!
 
I've learned some things about St. Patrick and the celebration. He "brought" Christianity to the pagans and so began the myth of chasing the snakes away. When the Feast of St. Patrick began, during Lent, things were suspended to allow for drinking and eating and partying. Also, the greening of all things consumed came from the days of the terrible famine when so many were eating grass just to fill their stomachs.

Unfortunately, as with Cinco de Mayo, the majority of stupid Americans just use the day as an excuse to drink themselves into oblivion.

I am neither Catholic nor Irish, but honor the wearin' of the green every year.
 
That Guy said:
I've learned some things about St. Patrick and the celebration. He "brought" Christianity to the pagans and so began the myth of chasing the snakes away. When the Feast of St. Patrick began, during Lent, things were suspended to allow for drinking and eating and partying. Also, the greening of all things consumed came from the days of the terrible famine when so many were eating grass just to fill their stomachs.

Unfortunately, as with Cinco de Mayo, the majority of stupid Americans just use the day as an excuse to drink themselves into oblivion.

I am neither Catholic nor Irish, but honor the wearin' of the green every year.
Click to expand...

Interesting info, thank TG, I mentioned somewhere I saw a movie about St. Patrick. It was good, Hollywood of course so not sure how close to reality. Starred Patrick Bergen.
 
That Guy said:
I've learned some things about St. Patrick and the celebration. He "brought" Christianity to the pagans and so began the myth of chasing the snakes away. When the Feast of St. Patrick began, during Lent, things were suspended to allow for drinking and eating and partying. Also, the greening of all things consumed came from the days of the terrible famine when so many were eating grass just to fill their stomachs.

Unfortunately, as with Cinco de Mayo, the majority of stupid Americans just use the day as an excuse to drink themselves into oblivion.

I am neither Catholic nor Irish, but honor the wearin' of the green every year.
Click to expand...


[FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica]"I, Patrick, the sinner..."
http://www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/ASaints/Patrick.html[/FONT]
 
Tom Young said:
If you're Irish... and even if you aren't, you'll love this: Turn on the sound :)

http://www.my-3-sons.com/music/StPatty/StPatty.html
My Favorites:
McNamara's Band
Irish Eyes
Molly Malone
Danny Boy

... and many more
Click to expand...

Here's the real deal:


Walking all the day, near tall towers
Where falcons build their nests
Siver winged they fly,
They know the call of freedom in their breasts
Saw black head against the sky
With twisted rocks that run down to the sea
Living on your western shore,
Saw summer sunsets, asked for more
I stood by your atlantic sea
And sang a song for ireland

Talking all the day with true friends
Who try to make you stay
Telling jokes and news,
Singing songs to pass the night away
Watched the galway salmon run
Like silver dancing darting in the sun
Living on your western shore
Saw summer sunsets, asked for more
I stood by your atlantic sea
And sang a song for ireland

Drinking all the day in old pubs
Where fiddlers love to play
Someone touched the bow,
He played a reel
It seemed so fine and gay
Stood on dingle beach
And cast in wild foam we found atlantic bass
Living on your western shore,
Saw summer sunsets asked for more
I stood by your atlantic sea
And sang a song for ireland

Dreaming in the night I saw a land
Where no man had to fight
Waking in your dawn
I saw you crying in the morning light
Lying where the falcons fly,
They twist and turn all in you e'er blue sky
Living on your western shore,
Saw summer sunsets asked for more
I stood by your atlantic sea
And sang a song for ireland
IRELANDTODAY_zpsa80ce7fd.jpg



 

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