The Day to Be Green!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Did you know that St. Patrick's Day this year was officially last Saturday? The Catholic church changed it this year to March 15, instead of the traditional March 17, because the 17th fell during Holy Week. The revelry that St. Paddy's Day brings apparently presents a conflict of interest with the Passion week. Regardless--I'm celebrating today, because I couldn't on Saturday. St. Patrick's Day won't fall during Holy Week again until 2160.

St. Patrick's Day has traditionally been a Roman Catholic religious holiday, and is the national holiday of Ireland, of course. America, Australia, Canada, and the U.K. have all adopted it as a popular, although unofficial, holiday in modern times. As it is a secular holiday for the most part in North America, it's a good excuse for many people to drink Guinness and wear lots of green. There's a bar in Omaha that plans to serve over 100 kegs of Guinness today, beginning with their Lucky-Charms-and-Guinness breakfast this morning!

Did you know that Ireland is actually two countries? The Republic of Ireland gained its independence from Britain in the Irish Revolution of the 1920s. The predominantly-Protestant northern part of the country chose to stay a part of the U.K., and is known as Northern Ireland. They are British subjects, use the British pound, and are subjects of the British royals. The Republic is independent and runs its own government, financial/trade system (they use the Euro and are part of the EU), etc. The Republic is almost entirely Catholic and is the part of Ireland that clings to its Celtic past. The official Irish language is Gaelic, and there are sections of the Republic of Ireland that still speaks almost exclusively Irish. There are Gaeltacht communities (where only Irish is spoken) throughout Ireland, though most of them are in County Galway. About 40% of Ireland's citizens claim to be competent in Irish.

Claiming association with the Irish is the cool thing to do. It's trendy to wear "Kiss Me, I'm Irish" clothing and "I Believe in Leprechauns" stickers. The Lord of the Rings made Celtic-looking clothing fashionable, and Enya brought Celtic music to the mainstream. For these reasons, I avoid admitting just how intriguing I find Irish culture. There are more people living outside of Ireland claiming Irish ancestry than there are people living in Ireland today.

My aunt gave me a trip anywhere in the world for my graduation (I know: whoa!). I chose Ireland because I like ruins and magic and riding horses in beautiful places (we spent a week touring the Republic and a week horseback-riding in Northern Ireland). Before going to Ireland, I had an interest in the country and its culture. It didn't take long for my interest to grow into a deep affection. I think I had tendencies toward a belief in supernatural, otherworldly things before I visited the Emerald Isle, but experiencing Ireland made me into a mystic. I rode horseback through forests that made me believe that it is really possible that leprechauns and fairies exist. Ireland is a godly place, and not just because of the deep Catholic influence there. Its people are so deeply spiritual, even if that spirituality isn't so much connected to a belief in a deity.

Last year I wrote a huge term paper and gave a presentation on the influence of Irish music on the rest of the world. Irish folk music was almost singularly responsible for American folk tradition, which had a huge impact on the country and rock music we know today. Irish musicians have a real influence on today's popular music scene (think U2, Thin Lizzy, Van Morrison, the Cranberries), and some would say that we wouldn't have punk music were it not for underground Irish punk clubs. My favorite Irish punk band is Flogging Molly.


Things I'm doing to celebrate St. Patrick's Day:

• Drinking Irish Breakfast Tea.
• Wearing green (duh).
• Listening to Irish music, including the Pogues, Flogging Molly, The Dubliners, Van Morrison, Paddy Reilly, The Cranberries, The Dublin City Ramblers, and of course, U2. "Whiskey in the Jar" is the best Irish drinking song, by the way.
  
• Watching Irish films: The Wind that Shakes the Barley is one of my favorite films of all times. It's a historical drama about the Irish Revolution. It quite nearly made me cry the first time I saw it; it's incredibly moving and makes you think about peace and war and what you'd be willing to do to be free. Tonight I'm hoping to see Once, my favorite movie ever, an Irish independent film about a Dublin singer-songwriter who meets a Czech pianist, and the music they make together.
• Looking through my Ireland trip photos; I even started scrapbooking some of them, which I haven't done in the four years since my trip there.
• And now I'm going to go downtown to walk around, just to see if anything's going on for the holiday. One of my favorite things ever was sitting in a pub in Ireland listening to traditional Irish music or Irish pub songs. Lincoln's diverse enough that I'm crossing my fingers to find someone playing "Whiskey in the Jar" or "Danny Boy" in some little coffee shop somewhere.