The Irish

Faith and begorrah, it's Saint Patrick's Day!

The harp is the official emblem of Ireland, not the shamrock, which Saint Patrick popularized as a symbol of the Holy Trinity.

The Irish national flag is green, white, and orange. The green represents the older Gaelic and Anglo-Norman population while the orange represents the Protestant followers of William of Orange. The white is to represent a peace between the two.

While we go to work and have a drink to celebrate Saint Patrick's Day, in Ireland it is a national holiday and all the shops and businesses are closed.

Saint Patrick wasn't an Irishman. His father was Italian and his mother was Scottish.

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THE IRISH

"You know it's summer in Ireland. The rain gets warmer."
-- Hal Roach

"If you can't get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance."
-- George Bernard Shaw

"If it was raining soup, the Irish would go out with forks."
-- Brendan Behan

"Ireland remains a deeply religious country, with the two main denominations being 'us' and 'them.'
-- Brendan Behan

Sign on a Kinsale shop: "Out for lunch. If not back by five, out for dinner also."

Sign on an Irish gate: "Farmer allows walkers across the field for free, but the bull charges."

Spike Milligan was once asked if anything was worn under the kilt. His quick comeback was, "No, it's all in perfect working order."

Did I tell you about the Irish boomerang? It doesn't come back. It just sings sad songs about how much it wants to.

[selected, with edits, from Irish Custom and Culture sites]

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WORD for YOUR WEEK: Donnybrook is a wee suburb of Dublin, Ireland, and every year an annual fair was held there ... well, up until 1855, anyway. The Donnybrook Fair became known countrywide for its alcohol-fueled street brawls. And thus it was the word "donnybrook" turned up in language as another way to say a brawl, or a fight that got out-of-control.

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