Kiss Me, I'm Irish...

Well, full disclosure, I'm half-Irish. (The other half's German.) But I was raised in an Irish family, in an Irish neighborhood, in an ethnic city (Worcester Massachusetts) where there were loads o'Irish (and no Germans other than my mother, as far as I could tell), went to schools taught by Irish nuns, and a church run by Irish priests. (The lone non-Irish priest I remember was Father Cyril LeBeau, famous in our family for initially refusing to baptize me Maureen, since as far as he knew, it wasn't a saint's name. My father filled him in: Maureen is an Irish form of Mary, and Fr. LeBeau was going to see plenty more of them in our 'hood.)

By the way, preface all that Irish with American. I rarely met anyone who was an actual immigrant. We were all second-third-fourth generation. And happy to be here, thank you. (As my grandmother used to say, "If Ireland were so great, we all wouldn't have had to come over here.")

We celebrated St. Patrick's Day the American way. We wore green carnations or little green Erin Go Bragh flags pinned to our school jumpers. At school, we sang "When Paddy McGinity's Plays His Harp" and "The Kerry Dancers," and listened to the nuns extol the superiority of the Irish (a practice which was not reserved for St. Patrick's Day - we heard it all the time). For supper, we ate corned beef and cabbage. And a cake decorated with bright green icing shamrocks. Or green jello. Then we listened to a Clancy Brothers album.

Sure and I've got the Irish gift of gab here. (For blog purposes, should that be gift of blog? The gift of blab?) Well, in honor of St. Patrick's Day, here's some gab I wrote during my trip to Ireland last September, when I was a new immigrant to the blogosphere, just off the boat, as it were. A green-horn, still wet behind my blogging ears. (A couple of these posts are from Pink Slip, the others from Opinionated Marketers).

World Bread & Pastry Champion

G-Whiz

Ireland on the Move

Hold That Celtic Tiger

Happy St. Patrick's Day to you all.