I always thought you got pinched if you didn't wear green.

And, yes, I am part Irish.

What's a silkie?

I know about shamrock as the Irish nuns at school used to pin a sagging bunch to their habits on the 17th. We also used to get green jelly (never quite set) for supper. I just asked an Irish girl (ex school friend) if she remembered it and all she could recall was the nuns singing "Hail Glorious St Patrick" in chapel and that she thought it was the national anthem of that country!
There are no celebrations over here . .. but then we don't 'do' anything for St George's Day either.
On the 'Irish' thing there is renewed worries about the tense situation in Northern Ireland where the 'real' IRA and another similar group have murdered a couple of young soldiers and a policeman. There were hopes that the 'troubles' were becoming a thing of the past.

Here is a link that might be useful: Hail Glorious St Patrick

I've heard that everyone is Irish on St Patrick's day.

When I was a child, in my part of the world at the time we didn't have many of Irish descent living amongst us, so I was ignorant of most Irish customs. I was in college before I knew about the wearing o' green and getting pinched if you had nothing green showing. I always insisted that I didn't have to wear green because my eyes already are. As far as I know I have no Irish ancestors.

Did you know that St Patrick himself was WELSH?

Dido

I'm a quarter Irish and I can remember getting pinched in elementary school (public, not parochial) for not wearing green on St. Patrick's Day. My own kids tell me this is no longer the case, and my DS positively rolled his eyes at me when I suggested he wear something green to school today.

Vee, the Silkie (a.k.a. Selkie) comes from Celtic folklore, particularly from Ireland and Scotland, as well as Iceland. It refers to a seal who takes the form of a human and moves on to land, mingling with other humans. According to legend, the Silkies have been known to marry other humans, but often tend to miss their home in the sea and depart unexpectedly, leaving behind the love-lorn human. A beautiful film on this theme was made that is well worth watching, set in Ireland: "The Secret of Roan Innish." Joan Baez many years ago sang of the "Silkie of Sules Kerry." (you can find the words on the Internet).

Thanks for setting me straight about the pinching. I am safely wearing bright green today, being at least one quarter Irish, from a great grandfather who emmigrated from Ireland only to be killed in the Civil War....

I think I can safely claim Irish ancestry - at least the geneticists claim that Icelanders are as much descended from the Irish as they are from Vikings. The Vikings kept Irish slaves, so it is no surprise.
St. Patrick's Day is only celebrated here in the city's three Irish pubs and privately by Irish ex-pats.

It is very likely that the similarity of many Icelandic folktales and beliefs with Celtic rather than Scandinavian folklore is due to those Irish slaves, e.g. the belief in selkies and kelpies.

It can't be so that 'everyone is Irish' on St P.'s day, as Frieda claims. I'm not, for starters, And why is it 'safe' to claim Irish ancestry?

I'm really curious to know why you all seem to want so much to be Irish. Is it that you do Fun Things on this day that you aren't allowed to do unless you are of the true blood? Please tell me what it's all about and what I'm missing by being a simple Celt of the B variety and not of the Q?

Dido, I don't claim it. It's a popular saying to include everyone who wants to be included in the St Patrick's Day festivities.

It's merely a fun thing for most people, I think -- a chance to be a bit silly, wearing green, drinking green beer, eating corned beef and cabbage, etc. As I said, I am not a bit Irish, but I've never been excluded. The US has a very large group of people of Irish ancestry and from what I understand they like to play up their Irishness on this particular day. There was a time when the Irish were considered of very low status in America; but the Irish by and large prospered in the USA, and they have been and are very much an important part of the fabric of the nation.

My mother's name was Conroy - scribes to the king of Ireland - 'tis said that battles were won by the poets not the warriors. Just a little of the Irish in me seeping out!

Ah the Side (Shee)
Numbers of fairy hills and sepulchral carns are scattered over the country, each with a bright palace deep underneath, ruled by its own chief, the tutelary deity. They are still regarded as fairy haunts, and are held in much superstitious awe by the peasantry.

The fairies possessed great preternatural powers. They could make themselves invisible to some persons standing by, while visible to others: as Pallas showed herself to Achilles, while remaining invisible to the other Greeks (Iliad, 1.). But their powers were exercised much oftener for evil than for good. They were consequently dreaded rather than loved; and whatever worship or respect was paid to them was mainly intended to avert mischief. It is in this sense that they are now often called 'Good people.'

That is a question that I am often asked and I have never been able to come up with a proper answer, even to my own satisfaction. The U.S. has had millions of Irish immigrants over the years, and I suppose we all romanticize the "old country," wherever our ancestors came from.

Personally, my parents came here from Glasgow in 1950, and they did not romanticize Scotland, at least their part of it, at all. Made for some rather awkward situations when friends would wax poetic about haggis and such, and my mother would simply look at them like they had two heads!

Frieda,

Thank you for your explanation. surprisingly, one of the barmen at my local was wearing a green, St P.'s day shirt yesterday - but on closer inspection, it was only advertising Guinness.

Siobhan, I like the sound of your mother.

Dido

"... wax poetic about haggis .."

Siobhan, I just laughed so hard I spilled my coffee!

I am a typical American mixture but the largest part is Irish (English, Scottish and Northern Spanish being the other three). I could write volumes on this interesting topic but will spare you, my cyber-friends.

My ancestors came to New York from Ireland at the time of the Famine. It was the great-greats who immigrated, altho several of the greats were young children, born in Ireland. I too have a great-grandfather who served with a New York regiment in the Civil War. He was only a teenager when he enlisted and contracted malaria near Norfolk VA. He suffered from the disease for many years and ultimately died in 1891.

My great-grandmother, with young children to support, had to fight tooth and nail for several years to receive a Civil War widow's pension. We have 149 pages of testimony from her, neighbors, and my great-grandfather's fellow soldiers and it is fascinating to read, tho it must have been terrible to live.

The Irish immigrants in my family do not seem to have looked back with much nostalgia. There was certainly no Fenian feeling that I have ever found in my research. We don't even know what counties they came from, except for one great-great who was from Meath.

The Irish met with great hostility here, due to both their nationality and their religion. A political party--the Know-Nothings--was soon formed against them. But they were not going to put up with the same nonsense here that they endured in Ireland and they are certainly one of the great success stories of American history.

Despite my many years in majority Irish-descent Catholic schools, I never heard of pinching til I read this thread. And I never heard "Hail Glorious St. Patrick" til Vee posted it--thank you! I think we US descendants of the Famine generation are long removed from certain aspects of our heritage.

ginny, thanks for telling your story. I enjoyed reading about your ancestors. "[the Irish].... are certainly one of the great success stories of American history. I agree.

St. Patrick's Day is huge drinking holiday here! Parades, bartender races with trays of green beer, menus featuring corn beef and cabbage.... A couple of Baltimore pubs even have a bagpipe band, heaven knows why, that wanders through the crowds playing on St. Paddy's Day.

Sharyn McCrumb's collection, Foggy Mountain Breakdown has a silkie short story.

Yes, I have always been curious why bagpipes are linked with St. Patrick's Day. I thought they were an instrument linked with Scotland?

I can't recall where I heard this, but recently I learned that bagpipes are part of many European cultures, not just that of Scotland. There are bagpipes in Spain and in Bulgaria, for example. It's an ancient instrument, with many variations.