The Ides of St. Patrick’s Day

Well, it’s that time of year. Time for my annual St. Patrick’s Day post.

Problem is, I have little to say about SPD that I haven’t said in the past about my feelings about Ireland, the Irish, and being an Irish-American:

2012: Answering Ireland’s Call

2011: St. Patrick’s Day 2011

2010: St. Paddy’s Day No More We’ll Keep.

2009: Irish Eyes Not So Smiling These Days.

2008: You Say Po-tay-to, I say Po-tah-to. Who’s Irish and Who’s Not.

2007: Kiss Me, I’m Irish.

So maybe I should just take the day off from blogging. Instead:

Maybe I should bake some soda bread.

Maybe I should boil a potato.

Maybe I should sing The Long Road and Dirty Old Town in the shower.

Maybe I should dig up my shamrock earrings so I’ll be able to do a bit of wearin’ of the green on Sunday.

Maybe I should listen to a Mary Black and/or DeDannan CD.

Maybe I should read the online Irish Times.

Maybe I should re-read The Dead. (Greatest short story ever.)

Or all of the above.

Which is what I’m going to do.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day.

Meanwhile, I am feeling a bit guilty that I end up mostly ignoring my German heritage. This is, of course, because we grew up around my father’s (Irish) family, in an Irish-American enclave, in a parish where all the nuns and priests were of Irish descent, in a city that seemed to house every possible ethnic group on the face of the earth, other than German. Maybe I’d be more German identified if we’d grown up in my mother’s home town of Chicago, where there are oom-pah bands and beer gardens. Maybe I’d be more German identified if my first name were Brunhilde rather than Maureen. Maybe I’d be more German identified if Germans weren’t so associated with things like Nazis rather than things like pots of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Anyway, I just looked up St. Boniface’s feast day, and it’s June 5th.

I was gearing up to make a note about blog celebrating my German-ness on that date, when I realized that I knew jack-shit (jack shite? jake-scheiss?) about St. Boniface, other than that he’s the patron saint of Germany.

Come to find out, St. Boniface, like St. Patrick, was born in England.

Turns out I’m not the only one with a mixed background…