As Irish as Paddy’s Pig!

My father, who was a good Irish Catholic, possessed the usual colorful repertoire of time-honored Irish sayings and apparently (according to Mum) exercised it regularly (although he abstained from swearing, out of deference for marital harmony’s sake; unusually for any son of Erin, he was also a life-long tea-totaler). Among those colorful phrases he was most fond of was ‘It’s as Irish as paddy’s pig’.

The name ‘Paddy’ is, of course, a contracted nickname for ‘Padraig’ (or ‘Patrick’ in its Anglicised form). One of the worst gaffes anyone of non-Irish ethnicity may make is to mistakenly assume ‘Paddy’ is a contraction of ‘Patty’, consequently, and woe be it to the bloke who gives evidence of his ignorance in this manner on Saint Patrick’s Day! As for Paddy’s pig, since the Irish were accustomed to regarding cows solely as producers of milk (and not food), pigs were about as close to red meat that any impoverished (and most Irish fell into that category) Irish family ever came and most rural families tried to have at least a pig or two on hand, most of the time. Saint Patrick was likely no exception.

Actually, Saint Patrick himself wasn’t Irish. He was British (or ‘Anglo-Saxon’), the son of Roman parents in what is now Scotland or Wales in the 4th Century AD. Of course, back then there were no nations as we now know them and borders were arbitrary, often changing and with no hard and fast or fixed demarcations. Instead there were minor and major nobles, who each had their hereditary lands and fiefdoms. Thus, a discussion of what nationality Saint Patrick actually was is essentially a non-starter. What is relevant is that he wasn’t Gaelic (or Irish).

On what has come to be celebrated as that venerable saint’s holiday these days most people in America observe the occasion merely as an excuse to overindulge in drinking, hence the frequently heard joke that ‘everyone is Irish’ on Saint Paddy’s Day (in Gaelic, the holiday is ‘Lá Fhéile Pádraig’). Originally, however, Saint Satrick’s Day in Ireland was purely a religious holiday and drinking was not condoned (as on all religious holidays). In the intervening centuries and decades, and in light of the vaunted Irish preference for strong drink, this practice changed like so many do with the passage of time and the loosening of sanctions; especially as the strict rituals and constraints of the Irish Roman Catholic Church became somewhat less draconian in more recent times.

There are a number of interesting facts associated with the legend of Saint Patrick that one would normally not know. A few of these are that the color green only became symbolic of Ireland in the 18th Century, with the rise of the Irish independence movement. Patrick’s color was actually blue, not green, according to ancient custom.

Further, the clover leaf was chosen by Patrick to represent the Christian Trinity, so we are told, when he went about his famed mission of ‘saving’ the heathen Gaels from their pagan sinfulness, and the 4-leafed clover is thus considered a symbol of luck due to its relative scarcity. In this vein, scholars have determined that one needs to examine about 10,000 clovers to be assured of finding a 4-leafed example. That amounts to a plot of only 1.3 square yards, given that clover patches contain several levels of clover growth. Actually, experts claim that spotting the rare 4-leafed specimen is an acquired talent, not at all unlike the proficiency demonstrated by fruit pickers and vegetable sorters in spotting and grading various kinds of fruit. There are individuals who are so good at scanning clover patches (with highly trained eyes) that they may actually discover as many as 10-15 such 4-leafed anomalies in the typical 1.3 yd sq. patch!

One well-known aspect of Patrick’s legend claims that he drove the snakes out of Ireland, but in actual fact, back in the 4th Century the European weather patterns (post ice-age) were so still frigid that cold-blooded reptiles couldn’t survive in such a climate. Hence, Patrick received credit for something that was actually the work of Mother Nature (or at least, the forces of ‘climate change’)! Scholars today believe that the ‘snakes’ Patrick is credited with removing were actually metaphors for sin and vice.

‘Padraig’ actually wasn’t the saint’s original name, which was actually Maewyn Succat. He changed his name to the more appropriately Latin name of ‘Patricius’ after accepting the duties of his Christian priesthood. As if that weren’t enough, many scholars insist that there were at least several ‘Saint Patricks’, all of whose actions became a conglomerate of myth & legend.

Of special note is the fact that, despite all the happy horse exhaust that marketing groups and commercial entities like the Walt Disney Company have spread around over the years about ‘Leprechauns’, there actually aren’t any cute little guys dressed in emerald-green waistcoats and derbies who sprinkle marshmallow bits in breakfast cereal. In legend, Leprechauns are mischievous, evil little guys (and all male—there are no female Leprechauns) who are obsessed with protecting their wealth from mortals. According to prevalent fables, Leprechauns spend their time toiling as cobblers and are capable of inflicting some awfully bad ‘luck’ on those who disturb or bother them. According to the same legend, if you surprise them and fix them with a steady gaze, they are compelled to share their gold with you. But if they can trick you into breaking that glance even for a split second, they vanish.

[The legend of the Leprechauns ties in with a whole wide range of traditional Irish spirits and faeries, most of whom are not very nice at all, that includes ‘Pookas’, Banshees and assorted other malevolent Gaelic spirits. In the case of Pookas, you’ll recall that in a classic James Stewart movie titled ‘Harvey’, Stewart was haunted by a benign, friendly Pooka who took the form of an invisible rabbit capable of being seen only by Stewart. In reality, there’s usually nothing benign about an ‘authentic’ Irish Pooka! And Banshees? You don’t EVEN want to go there! One thing people will tell all travelers taking Irish holidays is DO NOT discuss or joke about the Leprechauns when in Ireland. God’s truth!]

Given the rather substantial numbers of Irish who came to the United States during (and before) the Great Famine of 1845-49 (several millions), the Irish-Americans have come to represent quite an influential ethnic force to be reckoned with, both in domestic American and Irish politics, over the past several hundred years. In fact, today, some 174 years subsequent to the Great Famine of 1845-49, the Irish population is smaller than it was back then.

So many Irish came to the United States from the mid-to-late 19th century years that Irish-Americans today number in the millions themselves and have in the past several decades exerted a huge influence on Irish domestic and internal politics (in much the same manner American Jews have influenced Israeli policies and politics).

Speaking of the Jews, it surprises a great many to learn that Ireland’s culture owes much to their Jewish population. Ireland, throughout the dark years of the 30s and 40s, was one of the few nations in the world where Jews were not unduly discriminated against. There was some mild disapprobation by the Irish, owing largely to resentment over the role Jews played in banking and financing in a massively impoverished Irish nation, but no overt violence and prejudice anywhere or at any time equal to that found in both Russia and Germany during the same period, or before it.

During the years that characterise the Irish ‘Rising of Easter 1916’ (the single most well-known event in recent Irish history) and throughout the subsequent decades, Irish-American politics and the support it provided to the rebels played a huge role in internal developments in Ireland.

As for the Irish who immigrated to America as a result of the 1845 famine and its after-effects (estimated at some 4.5 million between 1850 and 1930), their lot in the United States was at first quite bleak. Settling mostly in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, they were regarded by the (white Anglo-Saxon) upper classes as somewhat primitive, wildly impassioned fighters, bawlers, hard drinkers, and ignorant wastrels, and suffered the consequences of that wide-spread bias to their utter detriment. Since so many of the Irish immigrants were desperately poor and impoverished escapees from the devastation of the rampant starvation and deprivation brought on by the failure of the potato crop in Ireland, they were by and large uneducated, unskilled and desperate to take on just about any job to survive. Given their extreme poverty and inability to find meaningful work, it’s little wonder that they favored strong spirits (if and when it was available).

Thus, the most frequently availed work undertaken by poor Irish women immigrants was washer-work, followed by household servant work (if they were pretty or just lucky), seamstress work and other common types of low-wage labor. Men, even if able bodied, were often resigned to accept brute, common physical labor (such as ditch-digging) and other forms of unskilled work in the teeming inner-urban (city) areas.

Signs regularly appeared in shop windows stating ‘No Irish Need Apply’, such was the low regard the Irish were initially held in throughout the mid-1800s. Much earlier Irish immigrants (18th Century) had generally been more highly educated, men of learning and landed members of Irish society, most of whom had, if not great wealth, useful occupations such as skilled artisans, jewelers, technicians and scholars, in considerable contrast to later Irish immigrants. In fact, there were a substantial number of Irish involved in the American Revolution and some of the more famous members of our fledgling nation were of Irish ancestry. [My own paternal grandfather, interestingly, was noted in late US Census records as occupationally being a skilled jeweler, although he had initially worked, upon entry to the US, in a wire-making factory that manufactured cable for German engineer John A. Roebling’s famed Brooklyn Bridge.]

Given the broad prejudice that initially existed against the new wave of poor Irish in mid-18th Century America, it is worth noting that they eventually overcame this popular bias through sheer determination and application of those gifts that typify the Irish that include innovation, cleverness and basic intelligence, so that even though many were formally uneducated, they quickly found ways to rise above the constraints that had been levied at them upon arrival.

Several of these areas of fruitful Irish employment were law enforcement, military service and politics. The Irish wasted no time putting their reputations as brawlers and street-fighters to good use by becoming policemen and in some large American cities the Irish established a virtual franchise on police work (notably New York City, Boston, Philadelphia and several others). Other Irish became involved in local grass-roots politics and were so successful that whole urban districts soon came under the socio-political influence of the Irish (New York, Boston, etc.). It is a little-known fact that the standard police wagon for transporting criminals (known as ‘the Paddy Wagon’) got its name from the fact that such vehicles were originally used to transport drunken and unruly Irishmen to jail. Ironically, they soon came to be manned by the relatives and descendants of those drunks (hence ‘Paddy Wagon’ from the nickname ‘Paddy’ for an Irishman).

This custom lasted up until very recent times, when the tendency for Irish families to have ‘law enforcement’ traditions yielded somewhat to accommodate later waves of ethnic diversity (Asian, Hispanic, Black) in America. [Another personal note: My own father was much earlier in his life a police officer who specialized in working with juvenile offenders and parolees. He later made a distinguished career as an Army officer, retiring with the rank of Major.]

Another area of occupational work that welcomed the Irish was the American military and during the late 18th Century, many thousands of Irish men enlisted in the Army as soldiers. So many, in fact, that the American ‘taming’ of the wild western frontier was largely enabled by Irish troopers in the US Cavalry. Some troops of cavalry, such as the famed US 7th Cavalry (including General George Custer’s regiment at the Little Big Horn), were almost all Irish and won acclaim as capable fighters in the Indian campaign (shameful, however, as the American westward expansion was, in terms of dispossessing Native Americans of their native lands and rights, regrettably overtly genocidal).

One final area of work 19th Century Irish-Americans achieved distinction in was in laying out the Transcontinental railroad that finally united both ends of the nation with a rapid means of transport. The so-called ‘Big Four’ tycoons that financed and supervised the building of this line (Crocker, Hopkins, Huntington and Stanford), relied upon large crews of Irish laborers, who along with equally large crews of Chinese, successfully cut a railroad bed through some of the most dauting American geography in existence (the Rocky and Sierra Nevada Mountains). Unlike the Chinese, who were the hardest working and most reliable railroad workers, the Irish, always quick to organise politically, soon unionized and caused no small amount of trouble with regard to wages throughout that era. That does not lessen their important contribution.

The Irish work ethic was also substantially affected by their fondness for strong drink, whereas the Chinese eschewed strong spirits, had a strong work ethic and could always be relied upon to be uncomplainingly prompt and on-time for work. [Sadly, and also ironically the Chinese suffered from a pervasive American bias against them as ‘inferior’ people back then; they were somewhat derisively known by the dismissive name ‘Charlie’s Pets’, since Charles Crocker, who managed the actual field construction and rail-laying efforts, imported and worked closely with them.]

Today, the two largest segments of ethnicity in the United States up until very recently have been the Irish and German people, both of whom generally fail to receive the full public acknowledgement of their important contributions (the Germans continue to suffer, of course, for their participation in two horrific and devastating, modern world wars) but despite the great number of Irish-Americans, few really stop to reflect on their heritage.

As I have noted in a previous blog, Irish politics are incredibly complex, given the fiery passions that typify the Irish mentality. We hear much about the deprivations of the Jewish people (largely due to their relentless efforts to continually remind Americans of their suffering over the past centuries) but seldom hear very much about the terrible suffering that Ireland experienced under the brutal yoke of colonial Imperial England. Due to its relatively close proximity to England (say, in contrast to Canada, several thousand miles distant) or Scotland (actually conjoined to the English home island), Ireland was subjugated by England many centuries ago and remained an occupied land until only very recent times (1940s). Despite their enduring and English-enforced impoverishment and subjugation by a capricious English aligned aristocracy, the Irish people have never once yielded willingly to the oppression of their Anglo-Saxon masters and remain as fiercely independent today as they have over the last several hundred years.

Although it is far in excess of my modest intentions in this blog to attempt even a brief recapitulation of Ireland’s fight for freedom from England’s domination, suffice it to say that the most recent decades that constitute the 20th & 21st Century are noteworthy in that it was then that Ireland at long last achieved near-independence. I say ‘near-independence’ due to the fact that under the terms of the 1922 Anglo-Irish Treaty that created an independent Irish nation, the 6 northernmost counties (Londonderry, Antrim, Down, Tyrone, Armagh and Fermanagh) of Ireland remained a part of the English dominion under the terms of that agreement (a situation that still exists). However, at the end of this blog I have included a brief bibliography that lists several excellent resources, one or two of which serve as excellent overall sources of information on this admittedly convoluted subject (Irish political & social history).

One fact that ties in very closely to Irish political history is that because of the English conquest of Ireland (under William III, popularly known as William of Orange, whose conquest of Ireland is generally recognised commensurate with the ‘Battle of Boyne’ in 1690), there arose in Ireland a class we know as the ‘Protestant Ascendency’. This class was initially comprised of Protestant English (Anglo-Saxon) lords and nobles who established great estates in Ireland and who, although ostensibly loyal subjects of the Crown, developed quite a distinctive and capricious manner of life in Ireland that was somewhat apart from conventional English society.

Since England had split off from the Roman Catholic Church in the 16th Century (under Henry the VIII, largely so as to indulge the King’s profligate sexual and marital desires), England became a distinctively Protestant nation (i.e. the Anglican Church of England, which closely followed the rituals and ceremonies of the Roman Catholic Church, but refused to recognise the Papal authority in Rome). Thus, the English conquerors who subsequently established themselves In Ireland constituted the highest level of Irish society under whom the subjugated and in general the indigenous Roman Catholics suffered greatly.

Over a period of several hundred years, however, the Protestant Ascendency intermarried with the indigenous Irish people to the extent that they soon constituted a unique class among the upper ruling class in Ireland known as the ‘Anglo-Irish’ and, in the manner of all conquerors living among their subjugated peoples, merged to a significant degree with them in adopting indigenous traditional customs, traditions and beliefs. Some English Protestants became almost more ‘Irish’ than the Irish themselves (this would prove itself significant in later 20th Century political events, notably in the 1916 Easter Rising, more about this later).

This major ecclesiastical schism existing between the Roman Catholic and the Protestant Church of England laid the groundwork for several hundred years of complex social and political turmoil in Ireland, most often characterised by extreme, bloody violence that even today continues to a significant extent. It is, to my mind as a ‘non-believer’ (and interjecting a personal opinion here), another excellent example of how organized religious faith has often adversely affected the humane development of modern civilization. I will readily admit that the proselytising nature of Western Christian faith has brought many good things into being, but the basic antagonism arising from the opposition between Catholic and Protestant ‘faiths’ has also brought a disproportionate degree of human suffering to the Western World. The dilemma of Catholic Ireland is but one very good example of this.

The Irish tend to be, as many know, very creative and highly impassioned people. Back in the earliest times and before the establishment of Christianity in Ireland, the ‘pagan’ Druids were a wildly superstitious race, given to a whole range of fanciful notions, beliefs and practices. Although the legend of Saint Patrick is by now understood to be largely metaphorical (with little factual information emerging from all the myths and legendary feats surrounding him), he certainly had his work cut out for him in attempting to convert those wild Gaelic ancestors!

And although he did succeed in his conversions, there remained in the newly Irish Christian Gaels a substantial degree of their original pagan tendencies. Over the succeeding centuries, that fantastical Irish imagination has been merged with the more pedestrian conventions of the Roman Catholic faith to produce a nation of believers that are truly unique and singular in their expressions of devotion to the Christian god. This applies most notably to the cults surrounding the Roman Catholic saints, whose purported miraculous deeds often make wild reading indeed and no one eulogises saints like the Irish!

Reading through some of the recorded transcriptions of ancient (monastic) manuscripts that chronicle the Irish saints, one is continually struck by this, concurrent with an awareness of exactly how completely fact has merged with fantasy to produce much of the wilder ‘conventional’ Irish catholic dogma. This leads to an interesting and noteworthy observation: Ireland’s much deserved reputation as a nation of superb and enthusiastic story-tellers, poets, writers and literary types.

The ancient (pre-Christian) Irish Gaels, given their dramatically superstitious beliefs and pagan customs, put extraordinary faith in the spoken word. This gradually (over several centuries) translated itself into a strong literary tradition, in no small part due in the 20th Century to the efforts of the descendants of the Irish Protestant Ascendency (e.g. W.B. Yeats…pronounced ‘Yates’ with a long 'A'…and others, who are responsible for what is regarded as the ‘Irish Literary Renaissance’).

In a curious but fascinating parallel, the ancient Hawaiians also regarded language and eloquence in expressing it with extremely high regard. In fact, on the Hawaiian island of Moloka’i (where I formerly had property and lived for some years), given that Moloka’i was renowned for its kahuna (priests) and the powerful spirituality (mana) that they possessed, it was a firmly established belief that kahuna on Moloka’i could actually ‘pray’ individuals to death (by casting ritualistic curses on them).

This has striking parallels in ancient Irish (both pre-Christian and immediate post-Christian) culture in that such was the power attributed to Irish poets and story-tellers in 4th Century Ireland that literary satire, well up into the 6th Century, was regarded by one and all as a form of quite serious threat.

It emerges from many accounts of that period that poetic satire, composed and delivered by an eloquent Irish poet of the period, was more feared than violent bodily harm and it is recorded that certain poems were used as an offensive (and remarkably effective) weapon against Viking coastal raiders.

Needless to say, poets of this class were greatly regarded by their fellows in Gaelic Irish culture of those times. In an interesting parallel, ordinary story-tellers imbued with knowledge of the rich panoply of traditional Irish superstitions were also highly regarded by both kings and commoners alike and every Irish court accorded its poets and story-tellers high honors and remuneration (usually expressed in grants of land, among other rewards) for their talents. Today, this tradition of the telling of fantastic yarns, stories and jokes persists among the Irish around the world and is deeply embedded in Irish customs and traditions.

Another interesting aspect of Irish history concerns what we would call ‘Irish eccentrics’, or individuals who stood out in everyday life in older times for their highly peculiar tendencies. It should be noted that there was a generally agreed-upon distinction made back in the day between those who were termed merely ‘eccentrics’ and those whom were regarded as ‘mad’.

That distinction in many cases was generally a reflection of social class and wealth, since ‘eccentricity’ was a polite convention used in referring to someone who was somewhat ‘genteel’, and whose wealth permitted scant hesitance in expressing odd or unusual preferences, habits and/or practices. Equally, those who were more apt to be described in Irish society as mad were generally poor, down-trodden and very low social class individuals (often the very bottom dregs of society). Every urban Irish setting (especially Dublin in the southeast and Belfast in the north) had its pantheon of beloved ‘eccentrics’ and ‘madmen’, and most were fondly regarded by the communities they existed in.

It is useful here to observe that the phrase ‘mad dogs & Englishmen’ arose from the fact that the English upper classes, with their often-substantial wealth, contained a great many eccentrics and of course most were fairly well-connected, some being very influential. It follows that when one is wealthy, one is usually accorded much more latitude in expressing one’s eccentricities. Although he wasn’t English, one of the best examples in contemporary America of jaw-dropping eccentricity was pop-idol Michael Jackson, whose behavior can only best be described as bizarre to an extreme. QED. [As a loyal former citizen of that zany ‘City by the Bay’…The People’s Republic of San Francisco… I wish I could say that their most famous eccentric (Emperor Norton I) was Irish, but it is a proven fact that he was actually the son of English Jews.]

Irish eccentrics therefore have a long-established history throughout the world, the Irish preference for strong drink undoubtedly contributing substantially to that tradition.

Forceful Irish resistance to English rule, as noted earlier, largely began back in the 16th Century and has continued through more or less strongly the present day. Surprisingly, a significant percentage of those whom we today regard as Irish patriots were of the landed gentry of the Protestant Ascendency (English descent). One of the most famous of these early patriots was Theobald Wolfe Tone, who with his confreres (the ‘United Irishmen’) resisted the English colonial troops armed merely with pikes in 1798 (this has become known as the ‘Rising of 1798). They were badly beaten, understandably, and Tone executed, but his legacy lives on strongly today as one of the first ‘modern’ Irish patriots.

In 1916 occurred the most famous Irish uprising, known as the ‘Easter 1916 Rising’. This began when a group of Irish patriots under the command of Padraig Pearse proclaimed an Irish Republic, occupied the Dublin General Post Office, and held off overwhelmingly superior British Imperial forces for 6 days before capitulating. Of those who survived, 16 were executed by the British forces under General Sir John Grenfeld Maxwell between 3 May and 12 May of that year. It was an incredibly stupid error on his part (and that of England as a whole) in that it incited Irish resistance to the extent that Ireland rose up to throw off British dominion (but not until after several bloody years of violence and mayhem that are shocking in the depravity displayed by both sides).

A number of heroes arose from this conflict that began in 1916 and resulted in a brief but bloody Irish civil War (1921-22). Two of the most notable among them being General Michael Collins and President of the Irish Republic Eamon De Valera. The divergent antipathy of opinion between these two men largely characterises the internal struggle that was the 2-year-long venomous and shockingly bloody Irish civil war.

The complex nuances of this conflict are best covered elsewhere in other references, but suffice it here to say that De Valera (the only leader of the 1916 Rising who survived the executions, thanks to his being American-born) believed that Ireland must pursue its freedom from English rule by uncompromisingly declaring itself an autonomous republic, whereas Collins wisely believed that Ireland must first arrange a treaty (ending the bloodshed between England and Ireland) that would create breathing space and still simultaneously grant Ireland a substantial degree of autonomy, and that from there Ireland could make rapid progress towards separating itself irrevocably from English rule entirely. From 1921 through August of 1922, Ireland was subsequently grievously torn by the proponents of both camps as Irish Republicans (De Valera and his followers) fought the new treaty-government (Collins) pro-treaty forces.

In August 22nd of 1922, Michael Collins, who has been aptly characterised as a most charismatic figure and compelling man of both intelligence and action, was murdered (‘assassinated’ is the word most usually used to describe the event) in an ambush arranged by the Republican irregulars as his small military convoy motored through the Cork countryside near the small rural village of Béal na Bláth.

Struck in the head by a single shot that was likely a dum-dum round fired by one of the ambushing Republican rebels, Collins died quite quickly on the spot and has since been immortalized as one of the most revered figures in modern Irish history for his services in furthering Irish freedom.

Ironically, Collins’ belief that a treaty should be established first, followed only later by complete separation from England, was the more reasoned and logical approach to take and this concept was subsequently vindicated when his political antagonist Eamon De Valera acted much later as President of Ireland’s Dail (parliament) to finally effect that full separation. Had De Valera succeeded in forcefully declaring a defacto Republic first and insisting upon its unqualified recognition by England, it is entirely likely that England would have responded to that uncompromising stance with overwhelming military force, thus forever closing the door on any future prospects of functional Irish autonomy. As a historian myself, it is especially illuminating to read not just of Lloyd George’s rather Machiavellian role in all of this, but of Winston Churchill’s actions and interactions throughout the peace process (this is well covered in the excellent book ‘Big Fellow, Long Fellow’ by T. Ryle Dwyer, listed in the bibliography).

Of especial interest to me, with regard to the 1916 Rising and resulting Irish Civil War, is the important role played by women in this modern-era bid for freedom. Throughout this period there were a number of extremely brave, dedicated Irish women who not only supported their men but who actively took part in the rising, often playing important roles. This subject is an area that deserves a much greater awareness, but fortunately there exist a number of excellent books (most written or edited by Irish women authors) on the topic. These have also been listed in the bibliography for the benefit of anyone who wishes to read further and more definitively on women in the cause of Irish freedom. I’ll mention just one out of many, many dozens who all deserve to be known as examples of the fortitude and strength of women in human affairs.

This individual I refer to was Constance Georgine Gore-Booth (later more well-known as Countess Markiewitz), the daughter of an Anglo-Irish father and an English mother. As a well-educated woman from a good Anglo-Irish family (her father was the well-known Arctic explorer and adventurer Sir Henry Gore-Booth, 5th Baronet of a large estate in County Sligo), Constance met her husband Casimir in Paris, where she had gone to study. There she married him, the son of a wealthy Polish family living in the Ukraine. Interestingly, there exists substantial doubt that Markiewitz was a ‘legitimate’ noble family, but as such Casimir Markiewitz has nevertheless come to be known to history as ‘Count Markiewitz’.

Both Constance and Casimir were artistic, cultivated, talented activists and became involved in the Gaelic League, an important precursor to later Irish nationalist groups. She quickly became caught up in the Irish cause, joining and working within a number of nationalist organisations. The Countess was also a committed socialist, militarist and suffragette of the period, who during the 1916 Rising was appointed third in command of the rebel socialist forces (the Irish Citizen’s Army) under their leader James Connolly. Among other things, she designed the ICA’s uniform and even composed its anthem. This is just the briefest of mentions of her many amazing and formidable resources, but as a formative figure in modern Irish history, her life deserves careful study by the largest possible audience…men and women alike. Her fashion advice to other women at the time was: “Dress suitably in short skirts and strong boots, leave your jewels in the bank and buy a revolver.” The pictures of her in that period typically show a tall, handsome woman attired in military uniform and usually shown holding that revolver she recommended all women possess!

I’ll mention one last thing here pertaining to Irish history as it relates to March 17th’s famed ‘Saint Paddy’s Day’ celebration and that is that ironically enough, the Corned Beef and Cabbage dish that so many associate with Saint Patricks’ Day celebrations is NOT at all an Irish dish! In fact, the Irish never had beef available to them, throughout past centuries since cows were too precious to eat as food. To the Irish, cows were solely to provide milk and dairy products. Beef was an English dish and although no doubt the wealthy families of the Anglo-Irish Protestant Ascendency frequently had beef on their tables, the ordinary Irish person did not…ever. The only domestic meat (aside from fowl) raised for human food in Ireland was pork and even then, it was too expensive and scarce for most families to even dream about having it for dinner.

[Potatoes in contrast, and introduced by the English to Ireland, went on to become one of the most important (and often sole) sources of nutritious food for most poor Irish in past centuries; no wonder then that widespread starvation and mortality became rife when the potato blight destroyed potatoes over a three-year period beginning in 1845 (resulting is the massive Irish diaspora that carried so many to America).]

Today, this mistaken myth has been institutionalized in America and enshrined as a solid fact, when in reality it is as Irish as green beer (no good Irishman would ever drink green beer, let alone permit it to be sold & consumed!). If one walked into an Irish pub (which typically serve some very fine meals) and asked for ‘corned Beef and cabbage’, the publican would simply stare at you as if you were mad. [The ‘corn’ in corned beef, by the way, does not refer to corn kernels, but to the large crystals of rock salt that beef was commonly preserved with, many years ago before refrigeration was available.]

In closing, I wish everyone a most pleasant Saint Patricks’ Day holiday and highly recommend that anyone of Irish ancestry do a bit of basic researching and reading in Irish history before wandering innocently into a typical Saint Patrick's Day celebration.  The Irish are an amazing people and just as interesting in their own cultural ways as the Jews, the Russians and the Germans. As for the English, well…I’ve never been a big fan of the English, given their colonial excesses and ethnic egocentrism.

Sadly enough, I have an English brother-in-law who is one of the most insufferable bores anyone could possibly be asked to tolerate. Although supposedly an Oxford graduate, he manifests a number of very English characteristics that include an unshakable conviction that he is the most informed person on the planet and that his attitudes and opinions are ascendant in all areas of concern; he has about as much basic human humility as a pathological textbook egotist. ‘Rule Britannia?’ I think not! Yuk!

PS: Ladies, the traditional (older) Irish male has a long-standing reputation for traditionally believing that sex is best employed for creating families and is not generally a big proponents of what we call ‘recreational sex’, so when considering a hook-up with an old-fashioned Irishman, keep that in mind. Despite the many Irish jokes about the ‘one eyed Riley’ or ‘one-eyed snake’, most of that is just good Irish male humor. 

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List of helpful books on Ireland and its culture:

1) Irish History, Seamus Mac Annaidh, Parragon Books, 1999, ISBN 1-405-46-820-3. This is a compact, very readable and well-illustrated 320-page hardcover book that contains the basics of Irish history anyone should find of interest.

2) Irish Miscellany, Dermot McEnvoy, Skyhorse Publishing, 2015, ISBN (print) 978-1-62914-516-7, ISBN (E-book) 978-1-63220-009-9. A fascinating, compact book (also well-illustrated) of about 154 pages length, this book explores the fun and fascinations of popular Irish culture, lore and traditions. A most enjoyable read.

3) Irish Eccentrics, Peter Sommerville-Large, 1975, Harper & Row Publishers, ISBN 0-06-013908-0. A hardcover digest dealing with a broad and diverse range of Irish eccentricities, personalities and characters/fables/legends and such, of about 286 pages. Most interesting, with much that has never been previously fully explored in terms of things that are uniquely Irish. It is sadly no longer in print, but is still obtainable through the usual on-line resources and well worth having. Highly entertaining and informative! A good read and well-worth the extra trouble to find a copy!

4) Big Fellow, Long Fellow: A Joint Biography of Collins & De Valera, T. Ryle Dwyer, St. Martin’s Press, 1998, ISBN 0-312-21919-9. A scholarly and deeply insightful modern study of the two main characters that shaped the events of the 1916 Easter Rising that eventually resulted in Irish freedom. A hardcover of 371 pages and exhausting in its detail, this is nevertheless one of the definitive modern studies of the personalities and circumstances that led to and arose from the seminal 1916 Irish Easter Rising. A somewhat slow read due to its intense detail, but extremely worthwhile and a very valuable book on Michael Collins and Eamon De Valera!

5) Markiewitz: Prison Letters and Rebel Writings, Edited by Lindie Naughton, Merrion Press (Dublin), ISBN(s) paper 9781785371615, Kindle 9781785371622, E-book 9781785371639, PDF 9781785372094. The paperback version is about 278 pages but it is packed with valuable information on this important woman who figured so prominently in the establishment of modern free Ireland!

6) Dissidents: Irish Republican Women 1923-1941, Ann Mathews, Mercier Press (Cork), ISBN 978-1-85635-995-5. A paperbound work of about 352 pages that is based upon the 2nd half of the author’s PhD dissertation, it is nevertheless quite readable and is packed with information about the key women figures who (as the Chinese like to say), ‘held up their half of the sky’ so admirably in the name of Irish freedom. Very enjoyable.

7) Women of the Irish Revolution, Liz Gillis, Mercier Press (Cork), 2014-2016, ISBN 978-178117-465-4. Superbly illustrated with many period images from the early 1900s, this is a book that deserves to be on the shelf of anyone who considers him or herself Irish. It is also an enjoyable but hugely informative book on these heroic but little-known women champions of Irish freedom.

8) No Ordinary Women: Irish Female Activists in the Revolutionary Years 1900-1923, Sinead McCoole, The O’Brian Press (Dublin), 2015-2016, ISBN 978-1-84717-789-6, 320 pages in this paperbound book that is also nicely illustrated with both B&W and colour images from the 1900-1923 period. An important further addition to the essential Irish bookshelf!