St. Patrick's Day

If you're Irish like me, St. Patrick's Day is supposed to be a big deal. Not because its a venerable Holy Day, honoring the saint that legendarily banished snakes from the Emerald Isle (sure, if you talk to natural historians, there never were snakes in Ireland, but what Irishman would let some scientific malarkey stand in the way of a good story), but because we Irish-Americans have decided that it's "our" day.

Perhaps because I was named after a different Irish saint, I've never been as enamored of the day as others. Or, maybe its because the modern meaning of St. Patrick's Day involves the words "pub crawl" which isn't overly enticing to someone that doesn't drink very much. The one pub crawl I've been on in my life ended early when I decided it was better to go home than to start punching drunken idiots.

But, that's just me. Most of my Irish-Catholic brethren do not seem to share my apathy towards the day. In fact, every year recently, I'll get a text from my family on the East Coast from a bar...usually followed later by pictures as one group of my relatives runs into another group of my relatives.

I am actually proud of my heritage...at least most of it. Of course, that doesn't mean that I'm very effective when it comes to verbalizing that. Yesterday, as Marty and Casey were going to school to participate in their classes with the Irish-themed festivities -- which can get confusing around here thanks to freakin' Notre Dame -- I pointed out that they needed to represent since they are, themselves, Irish. They both looked at me quizzically and said, "We are?"

Last year, Marty came up with this game for St. Patrick's Day called, "Find The Leprechaun." He organized Casey and I to help him leave clues around the house to lead Amy to the spot where the Leprechaun was. On one of the clues, I put down something about Dublin. "What's that?," they both asked.

I could feel my father and my Uncle Jimmy both rolling over in their graves. When I was just a tyke, my father would send me over to my Uncle Jimmy to ask him if I were Irish. "As Irish as Paddy's pig!" he would reply.

The fact that this typically took place in a bar and that I still don't really know what that expression mean is irrelevant. I knew where I came from...something I've apparently failed thus far to impart on my offspring.

When I was growing up on the East Coast, it was a lot easier. Everyone knew their ethnicity, because no one was that far removed from a time when you lived with your own in the same neighborhood. To this day, you can tell what the population of a neighborhood used to be by what saint the local Catholic church is named after.

Where my sons are growing up, being Irish means that you are a fan of the team that plays beneath the Golden Dome. Much like my lack of affinity for St. Patrick and drinking, I've never understood why so many Irish-Catholics like Notre Dame. It's not like it's the only Catholic university in the country. There are dozens. The fact that they call their sports teams the Fighting Irish and have a brawling Leprechaun as a mascot has never been anything that I thought should make me like them better. If I were just going to pick a Catholic university to root for without having any sort of actual attachment to them, I would've gone with Gonzaga...if only because it's fun to say.

So, I have to come up with some anti-Notre Dame way of teaching my children about their Irish heritage. You'd think it would be easier, since Casey already has displayed an overabundance of the gift of blarney.

I suppose I add it to my ancestors to get them proud of whence they came. Or, at least get them to acknowledge it. I don't need them to go nuts and try to learn Gaelic or anything. Maybe just get it to the point that they can actually point to the land of my forefathers on a map.

Probably my responsibility as a father or something...you know so that they don't have to repay the sins of the father or that kind of stuff. After all, "an nì chì na big, ‘s e nì na big." (What the little ones see, the little ones do.)