Chuck Wants To Be Irish in the Worst Kind of Way

   

  

         Every year, about a week before St. Patrick’s Day, my rascal cat, tries his darndest to assume a different identity.

No longer content to be Chuck, he abandonS his Anglo Saxon name in favor of the more Irish sounding Cathal, which is Irish for Charles and means, “mighty,” “a great warrior.”                        .  

He insists that the dried food he loves to snack on be died a putrid color green.

He dons a most ridiculous leprechaun looking hat because he thinks it makes him look more Irish.

He demands fish and chips for dinner.

And he dances around the house, practicing what he thinks is the Irish Jig.

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, I thought I would cobble together some little known facts about St. Patrick and the day that we celebrate in his honor, just in case you’re invited to a party and need some trivia to share to appear intelligent.
         And, of course, I want to keep Chuck HAPPY:

FACT #1

     Although many Americans spend St. Patrick’s Day drinking and carousing around, traditionally the Irish spent the day quite sober because of the Lenten season.  In Ireland as recently as 1975, the bars and public houses were closed on St. Patrick’s Day. It was only after the Irish saw how the Americans celebrated St. Patrick’s Day, that they clamored for a change.  

FACT #2

     St. Patrick was first brought to Ireland as a slave when he was sixteen years old in the fifth century. He escaped to Europe, became a priest, returned to Ireland and converted the people to Christianity.  

FACT #3

     The first parade to honor St. Patrick took place in New York City on March 17, 1762, not in Ireland.  Irish soldiers serving in the English military marched through the streets.  Over the next 35 years Irish patriotism flourished, giving rise to “Irish Aid” societies, which sponsored more annual parades, featuring for the first time bagpipes until in 1848 several “Irish Aid” societies decided to unite their parades and form one official New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade. 

FACT #4

     More than 100 St. Patrick’s Day Parades are held across the United States.  

FACT #5

     Up until the mid 1800’s, Irish immigrants to the United States were middle class Protestants.  When the potato famine hit Ireland, over 1,000,000 poor and uneducated Irish Catholics flooded into the United States.  The newspapers portrayed them as drunk, violent monkeys. They soon began to organize, however, and the St. Patrick’s Day Parade became a show of strength.  In 1948 President Harry S. Truman attended the parade in New York City.  In 1962 Chicago began to die it’s river green on St. Patrick’s Day, starting another Irish tradition.  

HAPPY ST. PATRICK’S DAY! 

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