Why I Wear Black


I'm Irish. I just don't believe in St. Patrick. Now in my drinking days this was a great excuse to get roaring drunk with a bunch of people who were not Irish. And in later years I used it as an occasion to fix up corned beef and cabbage. Yeah, I really like it.

But St. Patrick's Day is about celebrating the fifth century conversion of the Irish to Christianity. And there began all the problems. Ireland was a peaceful country when they were all pagans. Well, except for a marauding Scot or two. I am not exactly sure St. Patrick's "conversion" was all that peaceful. Then Henry the VIII came along and wanted the Catholics to be Church of England. And Ireland splits between the Orange or Protestants and the Green or Catholics while the pagans in the countryside continued to make Maypoles and Jack-O-Lanterns.

My Dad's Mother was a Irish Catholic with roots back to the Kennedy's and my Dad's Father was Protestant Irish with some English and Scottish thrown in from a rape during conquests. Grandmother whispered Black Irish which hinted at the Moors in there somewhere too.

Dad, who had been forced to go to Catholic school and be called John instead of Jack, married a Protestant woman, my mother, and so began the next round of religious wars on the small level.

St. Patrick or no I think I reverted to my distant pagan roots. And since I don't know whether to wear orange or green on this day I generally wear black for all those that have died in Ireland because of religion.

Comments

  1. MichaelMarch 17, 2009 at 5:30 AM

    I'm not sure that religion is/was the reason for the strife in the the north of Ireland - although it was certainly used as a reason. There never were problems in the republic until DeValera decided he wanted the republic to be a Roman Catholic country, even then, both religions were/are determined to live in peace.
    Oliver Cromwell (a Puritan) certainly has a lot to answer for in the way Irish families were treated. Despite that, many leading Irish Catholic families still have sons...and daughters who join the British Army, notably the Irish Guards (fondly referred to as 'The Micks'). To be invited to the Sergeants Mess of an Irish Guards battalion today is to test your capacity for alcohol to the limit......lol !!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. JBinford-BellMarch 17, 2009 at 9:22 AM

    I am sure like much of history there are many complications along the way. And the Puritans have a lot to answer for in this country still.

    I rather think it was more religion than countries really. There are some wonderful macabre tales about the Catholics and the pagans in Ireland and then here in the settlement of the southwest. Only then it was Spanish Catholics.

    The Christian protestants would love the US to be a theologically based country but that always leads to abuse like German and the Jewish population.

    Oh, and the Micks are heavily represented in our police forces but nobody asks if they are Catholics or protestants.

    ReplyDelete
  3. thebutlerMarch 17, 2009 at 4:33 PM

    Still and all, quite an interesting St Paddy's Day blog.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I write for me but I care what my readers think. Please be polite and no scamming.

Popular posts from this blog

Polyethylene Packaging - a Dark Times Journal entry

Image
I was in the fourth grade when our family moved from El Paso, Texas to Albuquerque, New Mexico. We moved because I could not breathe the air there. I want to say they cracked petroleum there. But what did I know beyond the sky was sometimes yellow and I could not breathe. Mom was pregnant with Debbie, and Gary and I rode in the backseat separated by a round tank full of Dad's tropical fish. Dad had a job with Sealright, Inc which made paper milk cartons. Sealright was a polyethylene packing subsidiary of Phillips 66. The petroleum company. I was rather proud of myself for learning to say that, and to not laugh when adults would stare at me not knowing what to ask about that. Albuquerque smelled better. Then. Before all the freeways were built and the shape of the valley trapped the exhaust down near the ground in the winter months. We lived in the foothills. I could breathe. I learned that if I could see the air I could not. Still it was better than El Paso though I missed our trip...
Read more

Swimming

Image
For much of my college career my fitness workout was swimming on the B squad of the swim team. I remember it as the days before heated pools and women coaches. I also remember being so exhausted and cold I could only lean against the shower wall and throw up. Not exactly warm fuzzy images but I was in awesome shape. Needless to say it did not leave me with a overpowering desire to swim laps. Point of fact for years my swimming became really informal: Swimming to shore after the canoe tipped over, challenging my sister once a summer to across the lake and back, seeing how long I could back float without moving a muscle, and a scuba course. I also played around with other ways of staying fit: aerobics, bicycling, jogging, skiing and dance classes. All of which seem to be bad for the knees, back or feet. After my ski accident my physical therapist steered me back to the pool. Damn if I was going to swim laps! However, aqua fit was just getting rather seriously taken so I took it. It r...
Read more

The Pruning the Crown of Thorns

Image
Crown of Thorns Before I am a lover of Euphorbias . They are from the deserts of Southern Africa and Madagascar. They have evolved physical characteristics and forms similar to cacti of North and South America and are often incorrectly referred to as cacti. My big Crown of Thorns was one of my first of a growing collection of these succulents from the spurge family of Euphorbiaceae. I picked it up as a 6 inch plant in a New Iberia nursery when my sister and I were touring the northern gulf coast. I believe that was 15 years ago. I made an attempt at limiting its height a few years back to allow it to devote more energy to the new branches and make it a denser plant. That failed. And the height of the plant continued to challenge the window space and soon the long branches were leaning over and leaning against the window. I googled and found the proper way to prune this treasured plant. Still it was very difficult to cut off the four longer branches. Even with a plan. The f...
Read more