I hope you’re wearing the green and preparing to drink of the brown once the sun goes over the yardarm. Somewhere. Because it’s Saint Patrick’s Day precious and we are all, all of us Irish today.
Our quotidian labors being done – sufficient to the day the evils thereof – herself and your correspondent have every intention of taking the trolley into the Gaslamp this e’en for to partake of the festivities:
This year’s musical block party at Sixth and Market streets has Irish rock legends the Young Dubliners, DJ Marc Thrasher, DJ Brent Bartel, local Celtic bands, and traditional Irish dancers.
And I know what you’re asking yourself, constant reader: You’re wondering whether it might be possible to buy your humble scribe a Guinness on this most sacred day of the season.
The answer is yes. Yes of course you can.
Update: Thought for the day – “Work is the curse of the drinking class.”
Nunc bibendum.
A little ditty, courtesy of the Royal Navy, from a Fightin’ Irishman on this wonderful day…
A long time ago, way back in history
When all there was to drink was nothing but cups of tea
Along came a man by the name of Charlie Mopps
And he invented a wonderful drink and he made it out of hops
(Chorus)
He must have been an admiral, a sultan, or a king
And to his praises we shall always sing
Look what he has done for us, he’s filled us up with cheer
Lord bless Charlie Mopps,
The man who invented beer beer beer, tiddley beer beer beer…
The Jury’s Bar, the Clancy’s Pub, the Hole in the Wall as well
One thing you can be sure of, it’s Charlie’s beer they sell
So come on all ye lucky lads at eleven O’clock ye stop
For five short seconds, remember Charlie Mopps
One, two, three, four, five
Chorus
A bushel of malt, A barrel of hops, you stir it around with a stick,
The kind of lubrication to make your engine tick.
Forty pints of wallop a day will keep away the quacks.
It’s only eight pence ha’penny and one and six in tax
One, two, three, four, five
Oh Ireland was Ireland when England was a pup
And Ireland be Ireland when England’s time is up
I am a Roman Catholic I go to Sunday mass
And every English sonuva bi**h can kiss me Irish a$$!!!
He must have been an admiral, a sultan, or a king
And to his praises we shall always sing
Look what he has done for us, he’s filled us up with cheer
Lord bless Charlie Mopps, The man who invented beer beer beer
Lord bless Charlie Mopps!!!
All you swabs and lovely ladies really should know the following ditty:
Come messmates pass the bottle round,
Our time is short, remember,
For our grog must stop and our spirits drop,
On the first day of September.
Chorus:
For tonight we’ll merry merry be.
For tonight we’ll merry merry be.
For tonight we’ll merry merry be.
Tomorrow we’ll be sober.
I used to sing this, back when I sang folk songs for money. It’s called Farewell to Grog, and it was composed on the sad occasion, Sept. 1, 1862, when the U.S. Navy discontinued the daily liquor ration which made its sailors’ lives so much more bearable. The song was composed on August 31, 1862, naturally. You can Google it under its name, Farewell to Grog, if you should want to sob along.
Marianne
Great! Now I have to go change. Not an ounce of green on me! Does being an eighth of irish(so that’s where the red hair came from) make me somehow exempt? or should I be more ashamed for not wearing green? Oh, it doesn’t matter, guilt’s persuasion supersedes…changing! HA!
Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh!
After spending the last week in Vegas, where St. Patricks isn’t just a “Day,” I’m in blue and khaki today….
Jessica, I don’t mean to rain on your parade today… but I suggest you Google ” the Vikings” for insight as to where your ” red hair came from”. Happy St. Patricks day…
Best
Enjoy a round, Lex, for you and yours. Nary a more fittin’ day, this is.
There might be something wrong with your graphics program. Shouldn’t Uncle O’ have a mug of Guinness?
Slainte!
Wait a minute, I thought it was decreed by the Holy See that in deference to Holy Week, St. Paddy’s had been moved to Saturday, 15 March 2008. (A rare feat not to occur again for some 60 or so years)
All that Jameson’s gone to waste in false celebration. Guess I’ll just have to try again today. . .
infallible in matters of faith, yet still incapable of reading a calendar.
Done as requested.
Snakeeater- Vikings were in Ireland! I researched the following information on Wikipedia says… “Ireland has the second highest percentage; as many as 10 percent of the Irish population have ginger, auburn (red-brown) or strawberry blond hair.[8] It is thought that up to 46 percent of the Irish population carries the recessive redhead gene. Red hair reaches frequencies of up to 10 percent in Wales.[9] In England, the county of Cornwall, the far north, near the Scottish border, and the counties of Nottinghamshire and South Yorkshire also have significant proportions of redheads… Reddish-tinged hair is also found in other European populations particularly in the Nordic (lots of vikings there but they are historically known for having blue eyes and blonde hair) and Baltic countries as well as parts of the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain, Sicily (Italy), Germany, Russia and Southeastern Europe…” I am assuming since my father is Irish/English(what a combination huh?) and my mother is Maltese (Island country near Sicily) statistically I could have the red hair from any of these 3 regions! So yes, I think the Vikings may have brought the trait along to the Irish but statistically the Irish are well know for their many redheads and understandably so!
Jessica ~ right there with you on the red hair. My family (well, the part that is Irish) came from northern Ireland so technically I should be wearing orange. No one tell my dad please (he’s Irish/English as well) or he’ll be all over my case.
I’d hoist a beer for you today but the hops are not my thing. So Jameson’s it is. Lex…I’ll buy you a beer the next time I see you rather than drink one myself.
“Work is the curse of the drinking class.”
- Fortunately, we have Guinness.
Jessica; all kinds of people invaded Ireland. The Irish invaded Ireland, against the previous invaders, who’d invaded the previous invaders…n.
Anyway, I’d love to buy a Guinness for the good Cap’n, but I’ll have nothing to do with the evil PayPal, so I’ll just have to owe him one.
Hey, at least this year I did not put on my orange shirt until almost 2200!
(It was my last clean one, and I needed to go out. For beer.)
Snake,
1/2 of me Irish ancestry is what my grandma called “Black Irish”. Beyond my countenace, where do you think thast came from, o cultural antropology sage from Norwich?
Yuck. Need another rolaids- cabbage don’t “sit well” for me….
b2
B2, Ans. The original Celts… plus a dash of Rome and a genetic pinch from survivors of the defeated Spanish Armada… you mongrel goober. Best
The “Black Irish,” like myself, are supposed to be decendents of ship-wrecked Spanish Armada sailors who couldn’t go back home. They just melted into the Irish background with their dark hair and eyes.
The original Irish Celts were known as the “Sons of Mil”- Probably Milesians, related to the Hellenic Greeks. They had some fair haired genes, but as many darker, and the red hair is not original with the Celts, but rather an influx from the more Northern European stock such as the Danes and Norwegian Vikings.
Compare Irish mythology with that of the Greeks and there is quite a bit of parallel, and a particularly bright outlook as compared with the darker Norse gods. there are also som eindications in artwork and craftsmanship that the more barbaric Norse really didn’t master for a long time.
Although the population has mixed so much it’s difficult to tell anymore, the population of Irish and Scots redheads was predominantly along the North Eastearn coastlines of the Isles.
So yes, the red hair is a sassenach legacy, from far enough back that it doesn’t matter so much any more, especially given the fairly inclusive nature of Celtic tribalism, where even children born by slaves made their way as free men.
Ah, now we know where the phrase, “beat you like a red-headed stepchild” comes from.
JTD, Yes we do…and thanks for the reminder…I needed an end of the day laugh. Best
The moving of the feast had nothing to do with ability to read a calendar. It’s a fluke that last occurred in the 19th century. Since Holy Week takes precedence, the liturgical observation of St. Patrick’s Day was moved to the weekend before in the dioceses where it is normally observed. Some places still had the secular observance on Monday, others had theirs on the weekend.