It's finally here. Slainte.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

By Steve Janoski

What's one of the quickest ways to irritate your friends? Ask them the same question, all year long.

"Hey man, you know what's coming?"

They'll get a confused look on their faces. What could you possibly be talking about?

"No…. what?"

"Saint Paddy's Day!" I say elatedly.

They shake their heads, and say over their shoulder as they're walking away, "dude, it's July."

Generally people look at my Italian features, or my Polish last name, and wonder where this affinity for such an ethnic holiday came from.

I tell them, as I have so many times over the years, that ethnicity is more than a matter of how you look or what name you've got— it's about what lies in your heart.

Growing up, I was taught by my grandmother that St. Patrick's Day was a day of celebration, infused with a historical sense of pride at being both Irish and Catholic, and each year, we'd go into New York City to watch the parade and honor that pride.

She'd tell me never to wear orange "because it's the Protestant color," and point to the green line painted down Fifth Avenue to mark the parade route, saying how in the early days the Protestants would come douse it in orange paint, enraging the Catholics.

We would watch from near St. Patrick's Cathedral as the U.S. Army's "Fighting 69th" New York regiment led the parade off, as solemn and fierce looking as the men who made the unit famous long ago by making some of the most brutal but gloriously valiant charges of the Civil War.

Their flag, famous for its deep green background and golden harp, is still carried throughout the parade, with the regiment's motto inscribed on the bottom of it: "Riam nar druid o sbarin lann"— "Those who never retreat from the clash of spears."

We'd see the Irish wolfhounds trudge by, along with hundreds of bagpipers of various societies, and the wails of "Scotland the Brave" would flood the great boulevards.

Eventually we'd eat at an Irish pub of some sort, with a young me catching my first glimpse of the densely packed bar crowd that I'd eventually join— and after turning 21, I did so with gusto.

Of course, many St. Paddy's Days since then have turned into a Mulligan stew of rowdiness that I can't write about until I'm entirely sure that the statute of limitations has expired, but even looking at the holiday through the amber bottom of a Jameson-filled pint glass, I've tried to remember what this holiday is really for… and it's not drinking.

It's for every son of Erin who came over to this strange new land during the Great Famine, covered in fleas and dying of starvation, and built this country up by the labor of their hands and the force of their will, carving out their own little corner of the American Experiment.

It's for those who stepped off the ships and straight into the Civil War, and fought to end a form of slavery that mirrored their own brutal oppression in the Old Country.

It's for my great-grandfather, James Lynch, who left his comfortable home in Jersey City to load up on the big boats and fight in the Great War, sitting in sodden trenches in France working the artillery, unsure if he would ever see the shores of home again.

It's for Jack Dempsey and JFK and Whitey Bulger, for the Molly Maguires and Micky Ward and every O' or Mc' who ever wore a patrolman's shield in any city. It's for Brendan Behan and Paddy Murphy and the Easter Rising, for Yeats and the Dead Rabbits and the IRA.

It's for every Irish firefighter who ran into those buildings on 9/11, and whose only remains were found in the form of the countless claddagh rings found in the rubble.

It's a day for best and the worst of us, whether we came here long ago or just yesterday, who share the blood of that tough little island that defeated one empire and helped to build another, and have made the "Irish experience" in America worthy of the annals of history.

To all of you, to all of us— Slainte. Enjoy.

http://www.northjersey.com/food_dining/87304097_It_s_finally_here__Slainte_.html?page=all