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To live and enjoy every day to its fullest, use my gifts to help others, I travel to wherever passion finds me.

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Monday, March 16, 2009

ST PATRICKS DAY



A Day named after St. Patrick. The image is from Mary Engelbreit.
Most of her images are kind of quirky, such as this one. Depending where you live in the world, St, patrick's Day has begun.
No, I don't think he is the elf that he looks like in the illustration of this artist. But I am counting on some of my blogger friends to give all of us the whole story on St. Patrick.
I do know though that it is not a clever thought up business invention of Hallmark, like someone thought that Valentine's Day was!

It is another day named after a saint who did something good. Of course you don't necessarily have to be a saint to do something good. Curiously some made it into a day of drinking till they see cross-eyed. I don't know if dear Patrick had this in mind.

All have a Happy St.Patrick's Day! I'll wear my sage green jeans, my forest green flowered top. Uuum, the only thing I don't have in green is shoes! Well then, I shall go barefoot that day! On second thought, it still is a little cold for that.

34 comments:

Heather said...

Being that there's a bit of Irish in me...Happy St. Patrick's Day to you too :o)

Gary's third pottery blog said...

you don't have any green shoes, my goodness you're deprived!

Jeannette StG said...

Heather,
the Irish I have met on the blogs are easy to love, because of their honesty and humility Have a great celebration of St. Patrick!

Jeannette StG said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jeannette StG said...

Gary, yeah poor underpriviledged me! May be I can form some plastic bags into those type of shoes that medical personell wears and spray them green! I may be poor, but have great imagination and problem solving- haha, Have a great Saint Paddy's day tomorrow.

SAPhotographs (Joan) said...

Hello Jeanette. My family is Scotch and Irish but we do not follow any of the traditions Im afraid. Days like this pass me by unless someone mentiones it. :) Thats a cute little fellow in the picture. :)

Jeannette StG said...

Joan,
the Scotch and the Irish have some great traditions - maybe because I live in the city and they take anything as an excuse to have a party! I hope that you have some celebrations during the year though :)

Reader Wil said...

I should like to know more about St. Patrick. As you know we don't celebrate St.Patrick's Day. Do you have to wear green? Have a great St Patrick's Day.

antigoni said...

Thanks for sharing and many wishes for the day.

Jeannette StG said...

Reader Wil,
Thank you Wil. Saint Patrick is considered the patron saint of Ireland. Blue was originally associated with this saint, but around 1750 it changed to green. Green is associated with Ireland and the Irish people. They call it (in de volksmond) St. Paddy's Day.

So on St.Patrick's day one is supposed to wear a shamrock (which is a treeleaved clover) or something green. And there is also drinking involved with this day and a dwarflike male fairy, called a leprechan (exact spelling?) - I don't know the origins of the last two.

Patrick was born in Wales, but he was 16 years old when he was captured by Irish raiders as a slave. He spent 6 years there, before he escaped and returned to his fam. But there he had a vision or dream like Paul had, to come over to Ireland as a missionary. It seemed that he was pretty successful. By the 8th century he had become the patron saint of Ireland.
If you like to know more about the Patron Saint Patrick, Wikipedia (find it via google.com)has some more info. on it.
They also celebrate it in Australia, so does your daughter celebrate this day?

Jeannette StG said...

Antigoni,
Thank you, and the same to you!

Pamela Terry and Edward said...

A green and happy day to you!

Jeannette StG said...

Pamela,
Thank you so much, you two!

Reader Wil said...

Thank you Jeannette! No, my daughter doesn't celebrate St. Patrick's Day. But there are many people of Irish origine in Oz.

Chrisy said...

There's always a street parade here in Brisbane Australia and people wear green...and of course drink green beer...a good excuse for a party...

Jeannette StG said...

Reader Wil,
I'll leave you a note on your blog :)

Jeannette StG said...

Crisy,
Parade is good - party is cool, but GREEN beer?? Thanks for the warning, I won't be in Brisbane on St. Padday's day. I don't like beer, but just the thought of green beer, makes my face turn green (just kidding).

BryM said...

*sigh...I too gave in and wore my green shirt to work today...but it was better than getting pinched! LOL

Jeannette StG said...

Brym,
Just read your post on Tax - now, parades and dyeing the Chicago river green for St. Patrick's day would be a good thing to tax :)

Anonymous said...

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Jeannette StG said...

JyLnc,
a happy green day to you too - I left you a comment on your blog!

Merisi said...

Mary Engelbreit's St. Patrick's Day card is sweet as all her illustrations! :-)
We used to go to a St. Patrick's Day parade in Washington DC and our kids had to wear something green by the time they went to preschool (otherwise they'd get pinched, they said).

Merisi said...

Somehow I managed to lose my comment.
Anyway, I hope you had a great St. Patrick's Day!

Jeannette StG said...

Merisi, thank you - as you can see, both of your comments came on - so did you first live in the USA and now in Vienna?

SAPhotographs (Joan) said...

After spending 23 years working on each and every holiday, there is none I celebrate anymore not even my birthday. :)

SAPhotographs (Joan) said...

What are you still doing up this time of the morning? :)

I see my comment is there Jeanette?

Dick said...

We don't celebrate St. Patrick's Day, I don't even know what it's about, thank you for explaining a little.

Jeannette StG said...

Dick, thanks for visiting. If you read my first comment to Reader Wil (who is also Dutch), I tell some of the origin of this day.
Can't remember if I asked before, but please click on the "Follow Me" gadget on top, then I can see right away on my bloglist when you have written something new - thanks! Have a good rest of the week.

Catherine said...

Hey Jeannette - thanks for writing about Paddy's Day (no st.paddy's when it's cut short like this!) you have shown me up a bit as I am an Irish blogger who hasn't written about it, though I did mention St. Carthage when I wrote about him as our Patron Saint in Lismore. SO I have a bit of a saintly blog covered! You have some info I didn't have, but then the prophet is never as revered in his own land as abroad or something like that.
I should write about the Paddy's days we had when we lived outside Ireland, they were always greener than here! Some day I will do it, as the only place I had green beer was in Vientiane in Laos! The Americans and the Aussies really celebrate it in style and this year the politicians kept their travels down a bit with the recession, Biffo (our Prime Minister or Taoiseach) supped with PResident Obama where they mulled over their Offaly roots! Must be said Biffo isn't exactly charisma central and is a bit too gruff for most of our liking, he was co-opted as PM when the former Bertie Ahern resigned early when tribunal woes caught up with him last year ( you can catch up on some of the whole political disillusionmnet thing on some of my blogs on "the state of the nation" and "the march of the masses" if you want background)
So thanks for writing about Paddy's Day and I love the slightly corny whimsical picture!

Jeannette StG said...

Catherine,
You're welcome! I like your sense of humor- it was too late to really do more research, so yes, the image is VERY corny, but i know many Americans like that:)
There are several idoms that I'm not sure about what they mean: "you've shown me up a bit" and "Offaly roots"?
Anyway, I thought your blog about the castle tour was very special.
Just a few nights ago, we had watched the DVD of the movie "The Duchess" (of Devonshire). One thing really got to me, was that even women of nobility were so completely controlled by their husbands - I would never have survived that time!
Your sons were probably sworn to secrecy, before they let them do their job!

Catherine said...

Ok Jeannette, maybe I was rushing the last post a bit too much to consider the cultural-linguistic divide (someone famous, maybe Churchill or Wilde or Kipling, must google who, said that about England and America - two nations divided by a common language - really has resonance here!)

Anyway - to clarify the idioms - the reference to showing me up meant that your detail on Paddy's day was impressive and that I as an Irish blogger should have been writing about it and didn't so your post highlighted my shortcomings -not seriously, in a jokey fashion.

The Offaly roots - a brief history:
Biffo (Brian Cowen, our PM/Taoiseach in Irish language, pronounced Teeshock!) comes from Clara in County Offaly in Ireland's midlands.
(Biffo is an affectionate acronym for someone from Offaly with varying interpretations depending on whether you want to be scurrilous or sycophantic! Big Ignorant F***** From Offaly if the former, or Big Intelligent Fellow from Offaly if the latter!)
The Obama connection with Offaly - here is a quote from an article in the Sunday Times...

"the genealogy site Ancestry.co.uk revealed that his great-great-great-grandfather Falmuth Kearney – who, it turns out, was Joseph the shoemaker’s son – had emigrated from Ireland to America in 1850."
So that is fact, and not disputed by anyone in the Obama camp. Many Irish emigrated to the USA and Canada in the wake of the Famine of the 1840s. So I hope this clears up any confusion caused by my rather liberal use of colloquialisms!

I have the book Georgiana,Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman, the book of the film. Haven't yet seen the film but I am looking forward to seeing it on dvd. I bought the book in the Castle Arts bookshop. I will post on the exhibition when it is up and running. You would be interested in that given your art interest.
Nice to chat, and glad you enjoy the posts. Don't worry about the corny-ness of the image - everyone does corn on Paddy's Day, it's the done thing.
As for Americans liking it and hamming it up, watch the Simpsons Irish episode when it gets shown Stateside next week. We had the premiere here last night, it is a satirical send-up of contemporary Ireland and very funny, if a bit cringe-making in places.(The worst Irish interpretation in a modern movie is generally accepted to be Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman - it is so bad that it is hilarious from an Irish perspective!)
Just hearing on the TV news that Natasha Richardson has died,her husband Liam Neeson is a much loved Irish actor and it is sad to hear of her tragic death, RIP. Life is so unpredictable, isn't it?

Jeannette StG said...

Thank you Catherine for explaining the idioms (it's okay, I'm always up for learning new things) - I had no idea that Obama had some Irish background.
I have kept myself as neutral as possible with the whole president's thing - it's different when you are not able to vote (I'm still a Dutch citizen). It's interesting that he has been hailed as the savior - around the globe - but we'll see how he does as a president for the 4 year term.
I don't know much about who plays in what movie, but I agree with you - they could have chosen more believable actors for the parts. Yes, life is very unpredictable, that's why we have to enjoy today!!! Nice chatting with you too:)

Marvin said...

I wore no green, I drank no green beer and I did not get pinched. There are advantages to being a semi-hermit.

Jeannette StG said...

Marvin,
Even though I live in the city, I actually wore no green, did not drink green beer, and did not get pinched :)If they would try, I would pinch them back LOL