St. Patrick's Day in American History - by Jo-Ann Roberts

 

Every March 17th, the United States becomes emerald-green for a day. We wear green clothing, drink green beer and milkshakes, and eat green bagels and grits. Parades in big cities and small towns cheer on bagpipers, step dancers and marching bands. However, these traditions weren't imported from Ireland.

They were made in America.

In contrast, March 17th in Ireland had been more of a holy day than holiday. The Irish would attend church in the morning and attend modest feasts in the afternoon. There were no green-tinted foods, since blue, not green was the traditional color associated with Ireland's patron saint prior to the 1798 Irish Rebellion.

While many people believe Boston was the first to hold a St. Patrick's Day celebration in the American colonies, evidence has been unearthed that St. Augustine, Florida may have hosted America's first St. Patrick's Day celebration. Gunpowder expenditure logs indicate cannon blasts or gunfire was used to honor the saint in 1600, and that residents paraded through the town in honor of St. Patrick...perhaps at the urging of an Irish-Catholic priest living there.

Following the devastating failure of Ireland's potato crop in the mid 1840s, Irish Catholics flooded the United States. They clung to their Irish identities and took to the streets in St. Patrick's Day parades to protest the bigotry of the "Know-Nothings", a political party with strong anti-immigrants and anti-Catholics who believed these groups posed a threat to the economic and political security of native-born Protestant Americans.  

"Many who were forced to leave Ireland during the Great Hunger brought a lot of memories, but they didn't have their country, so it was a celebration of being Irish..."

Attitudes toward the Irish began to soften after tens of thousands of them served in the Civil War. They entered the war as second-class citizens but came back as heroes. Notable among them was the 69th Regiment from New York City or as Robert E, Lee called them, The Fighting 69th. As the Irish slowly assimilated into American culture, those without Celtic blood joined in St. Patrick's Day celebrations.

The meal most associated with St. Patrick's Day celebrations--corned beef and

cabbage--was also an American innovation. When ships came into South Street seaport, many women from the slums of lower Manhattan would run down to the docks hoping there was leftover salted beef they could get from the ship's cook for a penny a pound. They would boil the beef three times--the last time with cabbage--to remove some of the brine.

While St. Patrick's Day evolved in the 20th century into a party day for Americans of all ethnicities, the celebration in Ireland remained solemn. For decades, Irish laws prohibited pubs from opening on holy days such as March 17th. Until 1961, the only legal place to get a drink in the Irish capital on St. Patrick's Day was the Royal Dublin Dog Show.

The party atmosphere spread to Ireland after the arrival of television when the Irish could see all the fun Americans were having. Today, the St. Patrick's Day Festival, launched in Dublin in 1996, now attracts one million people each year.

Though the Irish have now St. Patrick's Day traditions, there is one tradition, however, that might not catch on in Ireland...green Guinness! As Mike McCormack, national historian for the Ancient Order of Hibernians says, "St. Patrick never drank green beer."

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

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In the summer of 1864 in Roswell, Georgia, widow Sofie Bishop struggles to manage the small family vineyard on her own. The War Between the States took her husband and her way of life. Now, with her home in ruins her only option was working at the Ivy Woolen Mill. Her woes go from bad to worse when the Yankees arrive on Roswell’s doorstep.

Courteous and kind, Captain Seth Ramsey is not what Sofie expects from a Union officer. However, charming he might be, she’s determined to keep her distance. Even when she finds herself branded as a traitor, arrested, and transported north to an uncertain destiny, she didn’t think she could lose much more to the Yankees.
But she was wrong.
Will his vow of love mend her wounded heart? Or would a marriage of convenience be the best she can offer?