The Wearin' O' The Green

Most people don’t get St. Patrick’s Day. Sure, they might have a vague idea about parades or corned beef and cabbage, and they all know about green beer. But even in Boston and New York, where Irish blood flows like a river and massive parades mark the 17th of March, most people just don’t get it. They don’t know what it’s about, they don’t know why it’s important, and they certainly don’t know why we Irish folk get worked up when ads that market a day of boozing spell it “St. Patty’s Day.”

In Ireland St. Paddy’s Day is a nationwide holiday, a huge tourist draw, and a giant display of national pride. To us, the descendants of Irish immigrants, the holiday is a vital affirmation of our culture and our place in America.

Hungry and trapped in distressing poverty, our ancestors fled their homes for a strange new land. Persecuted for their religion, considered by nativists to be something less than human, the first Irish to arrive in large numbers on American shores showed their defiance on the 17th of March. They filled the streets with green to show their numbers and their unity, and they marched to remember the political martyrs who had given their lives for their people. Every St. Patrick’s Day, we call to mind their struggle for a place in this country and honor their memory.

After a while, the Irish began their slow rise to power in the urban centers of the Northeast. There wasn’t a ward boss or local politician in New York that didn’t march up Fifth Avenue on St. Patrick’s Day. So the American Irish continued to march, but this time to show their joy at gaining some measure of acceptance in their adopted land.

As time passed, the oppression and persecution of the Irish began, for most, to dissolve. An Irish Catholic could become a mayor, a governor, or a congressman, and in 1960 a man named Kennedy even became the President of the United States. As the Irish began to flee their urban strongholds in places like the South Bronx, Hell’s Kitchen, and South Boston, the vital need for unity—the force that had driven the Irish to show their strength and argue for their right to exist—began to dissolve as well.

And so St. Patrick’s Day became more important than ever.

On March 17, Byrnes and O’Gradys, Cohans and O’Briens, McCarthys and Fitzgeralds who don’t give a thought to their heritage during the rest of the year are happy to remember the path that brought them comfort and security. At the sound of the bagpipes, we call to mind those thousands of martyrs, on both sides of the Atlantic, who died to make a better life for their people. For one day, we become once more the Irish immigrants who marched to show their pride in their culture and their adopted country. We celebrate the achievements of those who came before us, who slowly but eventually pushed the anti-Catholic, anti-Irish bias out of the mainstream of American thought.

In my senior year of high school, members of our Gaelic Society marched with the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH) in the great parade up Fifth Avenue. We stood in the biting cold for hours—and then marched for hours more—as an awful mix of rain and snow blew south into our faces. Despite the terrible weather, hundreds and hundreds of AOH members turned out to walk behind their banner, smiling despite the cold and the stinging wind. As I joined the thousands who marched and saw the countless spectators who cheered us on, I realized we all knew what the fuss was about. On this one day, Irish-Americans throng the streets and fill the air with pipes and drums to let everyone know: we’re proud to be Irish, we’re proud to be American, and we’re proud that we stand together.

So on March 17 I put up with the fools who get drunk on green beer and shout “Kiss me, I’m Irish!” I can put up with the leprechaun costumes and green plastic baubles that miss the point entirely. And when I see someone wearing a green bowler with glittering plastic clovers, I remember my grandfather’s simple grey hat with fresh shamrocks in the hatband. Because it isn’t about the parade, it isn’t about the green clothes, and it certainly isn’t about the alcohol. It’s about proclaiming Erin Go Bragh—Ireland, and the Irish, Forever.



—Tá Maitiu A. Ó Ceallaich ina chonaí i gCabot House. Foghlaíonn sé Stair agus Litríocht.