It Is A Great Day For The Irish...

It goes that since I am three quarters Irish with blood in my family from both Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland, and only one quarter French despite my father bearing a French name, I do think of myself as more Irish than French though both originally European cultures occupy a place within my Celtic heart. So on St. Patrick’s Day I feel a sense of pride in the knowledge that I am Irish, and I do celebrate by cooking a good Irish style meal.

I found myself this morning remembering back to when I was a child and a student in a parochial school in Lynn, Massachusetts called St. Patrick’s where I attended the first through the third grades. St. Patrick’s Day was a ‘big deal’ back then for my family. On the Friday evening before the ‘big day’ my school put on a special St. Patrick’s Day song and dance program at the auditorium of the local junior high school. Things were different back then when a parochial school could ask for and use the auditorium of a junior high that was not a parochial school.

Many people from cultures other than Irish/Celtic are not aware that being Irish includes not just having family blood relatives from Ireland but also includes family blood from Scotland, and in particular the Highlands of Scotland. Appropriately so, St. Patrick, who is the Catholic Patron Saint of Ireland was born in Scotland near a place called Dumbarton in the year 387, and the day we celebrate as St. Patrick’s Day is actually the celebration day of his death, which was in a place called Saul, Downpatrick, Ireland the seventeenth (17th) of March in the year 461.

When Patrick was a young boy he was captured by pagens, and sold as a slave to tend sheep in Ireland. Patrick turned to God in his time of captivity, and he prayed to God to deliver him from slavery. After six years in captivity he had a dream one night where God told him to go to the seacoast, and once there he was rescued and returned by ship to his homeland where he was reunited with his family. In time, Patrick realized that his connection that he had made with God during his captivity meant that God was calling him into service to spread His Word. Patrick studied and was ordained as a priest by St. Germanus, who was the Catholic Bishop of Auxerre.

In time Patrick became a Bishop himself, and shipped off to preach in Ireland, which was the place where he had been enslaved as a young man.

He arrived in Ireland on March 25, 433 at a place called Slane.

Ireland was still populated by pagans and druids at this time, and it was not easy for Patrick to win over the people. Patrick preached the Holy Gospel for forty years, and died at Saul, where he had built the first church in Ireland. By the time of Patrick’s death his preaching and converting the people had caused hundreds of Catholic Churches to be built all around Ireland. Today the population of Ireland is over eighty percent Catholic thanks to the sacrifice of St. Patrick giving his life to God, and preaching His Gospel..

When I was a child I remember asking my mother why the Irish often, not always, but often had the prefix of Mc before their sur names, and many Scots had the prefix of Mac before their sur names. My mother told me that both the Mc and the Mac meant the same thing. Both meant ‘son of’. So a Mc Neil or a Mcneil, and a Mac Neal or a Macneil all meant ‘son of’ Neil. How a family spells their sur name depends on which spelling they prefer to use. I have also seen an 'a' used in place of the traditional 'e', too, in the spelling of Neil, which may be a throwback to the old name of Niall or Nial. My mother told me that both the Irish McNeil (Mcneil) and the Highland Scottish MacNeil (Macneil) families were related by blood. It is always the Highland families or at least they originated from the Highlands, who are the ones, who will have the prefix of Mac before their last name. So here today you can witness the connection between the Irish of Ireland, who use the Mc prefix, and the same blood in the Highlands of Scotland where the same family uses the Mac prefix.

If you want to eat a real Irish style dinner in the old country tradition on St. Patrick’s Day then you would want a nice, rare roast beef. Yes, roast beef and not corned beef. Corned beef is an American Irish tradition that was started after the Irish left Ireland back in the nineteenth century because of the great potato famine, and moved to the ‘new world,’ here in America. Once the Irish people got here they soon learned that the streets in the ‘new world’ were not paved in gold as they had been told, and work was scarce for them because many of the Irish that came here at that place in time were not educated. Many had been farmers in their homeland. They came, and it was a struggle for them once they were here much as it has been a struggle for other peoples, from other lands, whom have relocated here in America!

How corned beef became an American Irish tradition was because butchers in America sold corned meats at a lower price than fresh meat so buying a ‘real’ beef roast for a special Irish style dinner became impossible for many families. As a result of this hard fact new Irish Americans started buying corned beef, and cooking it for many hours to tenderize it then putting cabbage, potatoes, onions and carrots in the pot. This became the new American Irish traditional dinner that is still cooked in celebration of St. Patrick's Day, today.

So celebrate St. Patrick's Day in the ‘old tradition’ of a rare roast beef or in the ‘new world American tradition’ of a corned beef dinner. Which ever way you celebrate, it is all for St. Patrick’s Day, and it is a glorious day for the Irish, whereever they be.

Carol Garnier Dutra


Copyright © 2011 by Carol Garnier Dutra





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