Note: For those of
you unaware, this is my natal anniversary.
Turn 74 today. Bet you wondered
how I got the name. Anyway, I am rerunning
a yearly classic. Meanwhile to the Irish and wan-a-be-Irish, enjoy the
day. Have fun, but try not to live down
to some unfortunate stereotypes. And
for Christ’s sake don’t drink the damn green beer, an abomination and insult to
the soul! Have a dram of Jameson’s with
a Guinness back for me!
Today is the Feast of St. Patrick, originally a low-key religious celebration in the Auld Sod. In the U.S. it’s St. Patrick’s Day, which is, as they say, a whole other kettle of fish. For better or worse this quasi-holiday is an Irish American phenomenon. Let’s trace the metamorphosis from religiosity, to ethnic muscle flexing, to Irish nationalism, to partisan political display, to equal opportunity public drinking festival.
Up until the mid 1960s St. Patrick's Day remained a religious festival in Ireland and the annual parade in Dublin, seen here in 1905, was mostly a religious procession, often led by the St. John's Total Abstinence and Benefit Society. Today the parade is an American style extravaganza awash in Kelly Green, dancing leprechauns, shamrocks, and scantily clad girls. General rowdiness is the rule of the day, largely due to the large annual pilgrimages to the Auld Sod by Irish Americans, now generations removed from the island.It all
began on March 17, 1762 with the very
first St. Patrick’s
Day parade anywhere in the world. Irish
soldiers in a British regiment headquartered in New York City marched behind their musicians and drew cheers from the small local Irish minority, both Catholic
and Protestant—mostly Protestant in
those days. It became if not an annual event, one which was observed most years. When the Redcoats
left the city at the end of the American
Revolution various local Irish mutual
aid societies like the Hibernians and
the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick held
often competing events which, if
they happened to intersect, sometimes devolved into brawls.
After the United Irishman uprising of 1798 was crushed
by the British imposing a harsh repression including the banning of the wearing o’ the Green, a new wave of Irish refugees
flooded New York, Boston, and
other eastern cities. They inoculated
the annual St. Patrick’s Day observances with a new political significance and wearing green (instead of the traditional Irish colors of blue and gold) became a protest
against British rule in the homeland and a call to action to overthrow that rule.
The Potato Famine unleashed yet another
wave of immigration bringing throngs of
displaced peasants to the already growing
slums of the city. Competing Irish aid societies finally decided to unite behind a single, massive
demonstration in New York in 1848.
The theme of independence for Ireland was mixed with an act
of aggressive defiance by the
now largely Catholic masses against
the nativists from Tammany Hall who controlled the city government, the Know Nothings, and street gangs who harassed and
bullied them.
In 1858
the Fenian Brotherhood was organized in the United States in
support the Irish Republican Brotherhood
(IRB), a secret oath society agitating for the establishment of a “democratic
Irish republic.” The St. Patrick’s
Day parades in New York and other cities became powerful recruiting tools for the Fenians. Social events around the day annually raised thousands of dollars,
much of it to support fantastic plots and buy arms. On more than one
occasion Fenian plots to attack Canada
brought the U.S. and Britain perilously
close to war, which, of
course was the objective.
The failure of the Easter Rebellion in 1916 in which labor leader James Connolly,
fresh from several years in America as an IWW
organizer, and an Irish-American
unit of Hibernian Rifles were both involved, led to a fresh round of frenzied
support for independence back home.
The campaign of the Irish
Republican Army (IRA), which led
to the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922 and the Irish Civil War between the Free State
government and republican rebels
were both largely financed by Irish-Americans. Even after the establishment of the Republic in 1937, Irish-Americans
continued to fund rebel groups aimed
at uniting Ulster to the rest of the
island, including support for Sein Fein and
the Provisional IRA in their armed struggle through The Troubles. All of this was reflected in the parades and other celebrations of the day which had become dominated by Rebel songs.
St.
Patrick’s Day celebrations also were important displays of Irish culture. Traditional Irish music and dance was so suppressed at home that both nearly disappeared. Irish-Americans like Chicago’s Police Chief Francis
O’Neill collected and preserved the
songs and began schools to teach it and traditional Irish step
dancing. Both were re-introduced into Irish culture as a
result of these efforts and put on display in St. Patrick’s Day parades, banquets, and concerts.
The Irish
also excelled at political organization
in this country. Unlike other ethnic groups with large concentrations like the Germans,
they were able to create viable
political organizations with alliances
with other ethnic groups that allowed them to control many city governments for decades. In Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley brought the St. Patrick’s
Day Parade, previously a South Side
neighborhood event, to the heart of the Loop and dyed the Chicago River green every year in a display of political power. Politicians of all ethnicities jockeyed to be as close as possible to Hizonor
in the front ranks of the
parade.
By the
late 20th Century St. Patrick’s Day
had spread well beyond its ethnic roots.
Everyone is Irish on St. Paddy’s
Day became a byword pushed by breweries, bars, and distilleries making
the day one of the biggest party days
of the year. Green beer and vomiting
teenagers have become new symbols
of the holiday.
The semi-legendary Saint whose feast day is the occasion of all of the hoopla. He wasn't Irish and did not drive the snakes out of the island--they never lived there to begin with.
And what
about St. Patrick? Well, what about him!
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