Half way to St. Patrick's Day party

Subject: Half way to St. Patrick's Day party
From: Stacy
Date: 23 Aug 98 - 04:04 PM

Hello 'catters!

At a local pub, we're going to have a celebration to mark half way to St. Patrick's Day (Sept. 17th). Music, poetry, corned beef and cabbage...I am wondering if anyone else does anything special to commemorate time of the year? I guess my question is, how common is a half-way to St. Patrick's Day party?

Stacy

Subject: RE: Half way to St. Patrick's Day party
From: Stacy
Date: 23 Aug 98 - 04:16 PM

Stacy...... Methinks your custom is unique. Sounds like a hoot, though. .....Tiger

Subject: RE: Half way to St. Patrick's Day party
From: Joe Offer
Date: 23 Aug 98 - 07:29 PM

Sounds like a great idea, Stacy. I still have a corned beef brisket in the freezer, left over from the St. Pat's Day sales. I think I'll cook it up and have some people over to sing. I'll skip the green beer, though - make mine amber, please.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Half way to St. Patrick's Day party
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 23 Aug 98 - 11:32 PM

G'day Stacy,

Dare I suggest that halfway to St Patrick's Day is rather early on the 16th of September - if not rather late on the 15th? (This is due to the short month of February occuring in the other half of the year.)

Anyway, get as much out of St Patrick's Day as possible - it must be the only time the Irish celebrate an Englishman.

regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Half way to St. Patrick's Day party
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 24 Aug 98 - 02:51 AM

G'day all,

Hmmm ... I guess that is not the correct HTML switch for Bold off! ... and the go switch must have a stutter in it!

Regard(les)s,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Half way to St. Patrick's Day party
From: alison
Date: 24 Aug 98 - 02:52 AM

Hi,

One of our local pubs here in Oz celebrates half way to St Pats. We went last year, not many people turned up during the day, but heaps turned up after work.

Slainte

alison

Subject: RE: Half way to St. Patrick's Day party
From: Zorro
Date: 24 Aug 98 - 08:32 AM

WHOA BOB BOLTON!! WHERE DID YOU GET THE IDEA THAT THE GREAT SAINT WAS ENGLISH?.. I'VE HEARD FRENCH, SCOTTISH (WHICH IS PROBABLY CORRECT) BUT NEVER ENGLISH!! (DO YOU KNOW SOMETHING WE DON'T?

Subject: RE: Half way to St. Patrick's Day party
From: Barry Finn
Date: 24 Aug 98 - 10:34 AM

I can't say about St Pat's ancestory but I always understood that he hated Ireland, it's people & wished he's gone the way of the snake, I also take it that the early monks came to learn & study in Ireland, not to preach & teach, that around the 4th-6th centuries the people were well educated & from a well developed culture & with a belief & religon that was not to be supplanted by another, instead to co-exist using the benifits of both religons (unlike other areas where the missionaries replace one for the other, the Irish would not except this), Pat, I believe was of the opinion that while the rest of world thought highly of them (the Irish) he saw them as heathens. There are many of you out there with a far greater knowledge, I'd be happy to be set straight & corrected or further enlightened. Thanks Barry

Subject: RE: Half way to St. Patrick's Day party
From: Joe Offer
Date: 24 Aug 98 - 04:26 PM

Sad to say, Zorro, but Bob Bolton is quite possibly correct. I looked up St. Patrick in Richard McBrien's Encyclopedia of Catholicism, and McBrien agrees with Bob. McBrien is thought of as iconoclastic, but he usually has his facts straight. Here's an excerpt:

Patrick, St., ca. 390-ca. 461, bishop and apostle to Ireland. Born the son of a deacon and the grandson of a priest in England, he spent some years in slavery in Ireland after having been captured by border raiders. Returning to England (perhaps after spending time in Gaul), he was ordained to the priesthood and returned to Ireland to evangelize the country from his see in the north (Armagh), where he seems to have had a residence and a school...
The traditional folk tales about Patrick (e.g., his using the shamrock to illustrate the concept of the Trinity, driving snakes from the island) are all pious elaborations of a later time. Feast day: March 17.

Now, I'm wondering what was the ethnic makeup of Ireland and England at the time? If the Irish weren't Celts and the British weren't Britons at the time, does Patrick's English birth make any insult to the Irish?
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Half way to St. Patrick's Day party
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 24 Aug 98 - 06:32 PM

G'day Zorro,

I'm glad to see that Joe Offer's copy of Richard McBrien's Encyclopedia of Catholicism (not a text I have) says pretty much what my various books say.

I'll admit that Englishman would not have been the term of the day in the language of the day, which was scarcely English. I'm much happier with the term Briton, but Englishman caught the attention much quicker - did it not?

Here in Australia we spend a lot of time looking at the process of poaching material from other sources and laying (often dubious) claim to it. This is what happens everywhere but most countries did it far enough in the past to conveniently forget about it. Some people (particularly the Irish - who make up an indecently large slab of Australia's traditional base, due to the English preferring to see the back of as many Paddies as possible) just become so good at it that they keep doing it.

Regard(les)s,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Half way to St. Patrick's Day party
From: leprechaun
Date: 25 Aug 98 - 01:58 AM

Sure did catch the attention, Bob, that it did. I heard St. Pat was Welsh, which is not exactly English, but I have to agree, back in the 5th century it might not have been so offensive to be English. Maybe someday we can erase even more of that centuries old enmity. Even though those English people all talk funny. I guess we shouldn't hold that against them. So maybe the 16th or 17th of September would be a good day to celebrate. It might have kinder overtones than the 12th of July. And I have two unopened bottles of 12 year old Jameson's in my liquor cabinet. People keep giving them to me.

Subject: RE: Half way to St. Patrick's Day party
From: alison
Date: 25 Aug 98 - 07:12 AM

Hi,

St Pat, was supposed to be the son of a minor Roman official, born in Western Britain at the turn of the 5th Century. He was captured by Irish raiders (aged 16) and forced into slavery, working as a shepherd on Slemish mountain, Co Antrim. He escaped to France, trained as a cleric, where he decided to go back and convert the Irish to Christianity He returned in AD432 and preached and set up churches for 30 years.

That's what my book says anyway. I always remembered him being from somewhere in Europe. If the Irish had made me look after sheep on Slemish mountain I wouldn't have been too fussed either.....

slainte

alison

Subject: RE: Half way to St. Patrick's Day party
From: Kathleen
Date: 25 Aug 98 - 05:48 PM

My brother had to do a report on good ol' St. Paddy this past year and Joe's correct in that he was from what is now England. I'm not sure about the part of not liking the Irish; his report wasn't that in depth since he is only in 7th grade. I always want to have a half-way to 3-17 party, but it never happens. I've heard of some cities that want to have their St. Patrick's Day parades in September or inside b/c it always rains when they try to celebrate. I think it's kind of fitting, actually.

Later,

Kathleen

Subject: RE: Half way to St. Patrick's Day party
From: O'Boyle
Date: 26 Aug 98 - 01:23 AM

This discussion reminds me of a joke...

There is an old Irishman in a pub when 3 englishmen come in and decide to see if they can get him to lose his temper. The first one walks up to him and says, "The Irish are bunch of drunks." The old man just sits there. The second man walks up and says, "Saint Patrick was a bastard." Again, the man says nothing. The third englishman crosses the room and says, "Saint Patrick was a English." The Old man calmly replies, "So I've your friend tells me."

Here in southern California, my group of freinds use the Notre Dame-USC football game as an excuse to have a party about half way to St. Patrick's, even if its not really halfway.

Slainte

Rick

Subject: RE: Half way to St. Patrick's Day party
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 26 Aug 98 - 06:51 PM

G'day Alison and all,

I think that the actual birthplace (assuming it isn't one of the less likely contenders in France or Scotland) would now be Wales, but those boundaries were not there at the time. Claiming by geography has its problems, which I might illustrate with an unrelated example:

I was buttonholed by someone (slight overtones of Eastern Europe lurking in the accent) and asked; "How come the Irish claim 'Let Me Take You Home Again, Kathleen'? I started to reply that they will grab anything containing "green" ... or anything that rhymes with it when he continued; "It's not Irish - it's Polish!".

This took me aback somewhat ... it seems that our friend was laying claim to the writer (Peter?) Westerdorfer as a Pole, on the basis that the town he had lived in before going to America was now (or had been once) on the Polish side of the border. I would have to say that Westerdorfer doesn't sound terribly Polish to me ... but that's what you get when you try to construct pedigrees for the songs.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Half way to St. Patrick's Day party
From: alison
Date: 26 Aug 98 - 08:11 PM

HI Bob,

do a search of the threads in the last year for "I'll take you home again Kathleen". we had a big discussion on this one.

Slainte

Alison

Subject: RE: Half way to St. Patrick's Day party
From: Kathleen
Date: 27 Aug 98 - 02:48 PM

I have only heard one Irish performer sing "I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen" and "Too-ra-loo-ra-lay" (sp?). He was the most annoying man I've ever seen perform, wearing a bright green suit with dark green and white shirt and a hideous bow tie. His name is Cathal Dunne, and if you ever see him at a St. Patrick's Day celebration or at any festival, run while you can.

Later,

Kathleen

Subject: RE: Half way to St. Patrick's Day party
From: alison
Date: 28 Aug 98 - 12:48 AM

Hi,

There's a lot of them about Kathleen. But don't you just love the many and various ways they can come up with to murder "Danny Boy"??!!! (*Grin*)

Slainte

Alison

Subject: RE: Half way to St. Patrick's Day party
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 30 Aug 98 - 07:46 PM

G'day Alison,

Thanks for the thread on Kathleen. I had heard a fair number of the various stories over the years but it is interesting to see them threaded together. It also helps to see the correct spelling of Thomas P. Westendorf's name. I was running on 'memory' ... and my memory was apparently running on 'low'.

Of course, the point I was making was that the person who buttonholed me (why me ...?) at the Glebe Bush Dance was claiming the song for POLAND! Presumably this was on the grounds of a precise geographical location of Westendorf's birthplace and a specific historical period ... and I reckon that is dangerous, verging on dubious - like a lot of folk (in the technical, not musical sense)-etomology and derivation..

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Half way to St. Patrick's Day party
From: Kathleen
Date: 05 Sep 98 - 04:21 PM

I always thought that "I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen" was an American song that people decided was an Irish one. I'm not sure where I picked that up, though.

Kathleen

Subject: St Patrick
From: Genie
Date: 06 Mar 02 - 04:42 AM

Joe, I knew he didn't drive the snakes out, but was not aware that he didn't use the shamrock to illustrate the trinity, either.

Genie

Subject: RE: Half way to St. Patrick's Day party
From: SharonA
Date: 06 Mar 02 - 09:48 AM

I know what drove the snakes out – I saw it on a greeting card!

There it was, in the caption: "Why the Snakes Really Left Ireland" under a cartoon depicting snakes slithering away from a leprechaunish-looking guy with a fiddle under his chin who is saying, "Okay, now here's another folk song..."

Subject: RE: Half way to St. Patrick's Day party
From: JedMarum
Date: 06 Mar 02 - 09:55 AM

This year March 17 is a double holiday. It is not only Saint Patrick's Day 2002, but it is Half way to St. Patrick's Day 2004!

'tis an amazing coincidence of calendar magic, this year!

Subject: RE: Half way to St. Patrick's Day party
From: Genie
Date: 07 Mar 02 - 01:05 AM

Amazing, Jed!

Sharon, I think that cartoonist is onto something!

LOL

Genie §;-)