Author Topic: Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh!  (Read 6865 times)

Offline Shakesthecoffecan

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Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh!
« on: March 16, 2009, 09:23:19 pm »
Peace and Blessing to you all on Tuesday, the feast day of St. Patrick......

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6JbUDBfY1E[/youtube]
"It was only you in my life, and it will always be only you, Jack, I swear."

Offline southendmd

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Re: Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh!
« Reply #1 on: March 17, 2009, 09:03:01 am »
Happy Evacuation Day also!  Here in Boston, we celebrate the day the British left town during the Revolutionary War.

Evacuation Day in Boston: occurred in March 17, 1776, at 3:17 p.m., still celebrated annually as a legal holiday in Suffolk County, Massachusetts. The celebration is on March 17, coinciding with St. Patrick's Day. Celebrations are notoriously spirited.

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh!
« Reply #2 on: March 17, 2009, 09:10:48 am »
Happy Evacuation Day also!  Here in Boston, we celebrate the day the British left town during the Revolutionary War.

Evacuation Day in Boston: occurred in March 17, 1776, at 3:17 p.m., still celebrated annually as a legal holiday in Suffolk County, Massachusetts. The celebration is on March 17, coinciding with St. Patrick's Day. Celebrations are notoriously spirited.

And how's my favorite Irish boy this morning? Happy holiday, whichever one you're celebrating!  :D
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline southendmd

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Re: Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh!
« Reply #3 on: March 17, 2009, 09:24:08 am »
And how's my favorite Irish boy this morning? Happy holiday, whichever one you're celebrating!  :D

Well, thanks, Jeff, I'm doing just fine.  Wearing the green, and jealous of all the folks who have the day off in Suffolk county.

No corned beef and cabbage for this Irish boy!  :P

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh!
« Reply #4 on: March 17, 2009, 09:50:57 am »
Well, thanks, Jeff, I'm doing just fine.  Wearing the green, and jealous of all the folks who have the day off in Suffolk county.

No corned beef and cabbage for this Irish boy!  :P

 :laugh:  How about some Irish whiskey, then?  ;D

I love corned beef and cabbage! Haven't had it in years. The Venture Inn, local community institution gay bar-restaurant, has advertized that today's special is corned beef and cabbage, so I plan to check it out. Maybe try a little Irish whiskey, too. I've never had Irish whiskey.

No green in my wardrobe, unfortunately.  :-\
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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Re: Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh!
« Reply #5 on: March 17, 2009, 10:50:43 am »

http://www.slate.com/id/2213884/

St. Patrick Revealed
The man behind the green beer and myth.
By David Plotz

Posted Monday, March 16, 2009, at 1:54 PM ET


On March 17, revelers will drink green beer (and eat corned beef) in celebration of the man who, according to David Plotz, "didn't rid the land of snakes, didn't compare the Trinity to the shamrock, and wasn't even Irish." In a 2000 piece reproduced below, Plotz stripped the myth away from St. Patrick, evaluating the many different popular incarnations that have arisen in the years since his birth.

Today we raise a glass of warm green beer to a fine fellow, the Irishman who didn't rid the land of snakes, didn't compare the Trinity to the shamrock, and wasn't even Irish. St. Patrick, who died 1,507, 1,539, or 1,540 years ago today—depending on which unreliable source you want to believe—has been adorned with centuries of Irish blarney. Innumerable folk tales recount how he faced down kings, negotiated with God, tricked and slaughtered Ireland's reptiles.

The facts about St. Patrick are few. Most derive from the two documents he probably wrote, the autobiographical Confession  and the indignant Letter  to a slave-taking marauder named Coroticus. Patrick was born in Britain, probably in Wales, around 385 A.D. His father was a Roman official. When Patrick was 16, seafaring raiders captured him, carried him to Ireland, and sold him into slavery. The Christian Patrick spent six lonely years herding sheep and, according to him, praying 100 times a day. In a dream, God told him to escape. He returned home, where he had another vision in which the Irish people begged him to return and minister to them: "We ask thee, boy, come and walk among us once more," he recalls in the Confession.  He studied for the priesthood in France, then made his way back to Ireland.

He spent his last 30 years there, baptizing pagans, ordaining priests, and founding churches and monasteries. His persuasive powers must have been astounding: Ireland fully converted to Christianity within 200 years and was the only country in Europe to Christianize peacefully. Patrick's Christian conversion ended slavery, human sacrifice, and most intertribal warfare in Ireland. (He did not banish the snakes: Ireland never had any. Scholars now consider snakes a metaphor for the serpent of paganism. Nor did he invent the Shamrock Trinity. That was an 18th-century fabrication.)

According to Thomas Cahill, author of How the Irish Saved Civilization,  Paddy's influence extended far beyond his adopted land. Cahill's book, which could just as well be titled How St. Patrick Saved Civilization,  contends that Patrick's conversion of Ireland allowed Western learning to survive the Dark Ages. Ireland pacified and churchified as the rest of Europe crumbled. Patrick's monasteries copied and preserved classical texts. Later, Irish monks returned this knowledge to Europe by establishing monasteries in England, Germany, France, Switzerland, and Italy.

The Irish have celebrated their patron saint with a quiet religious holiday for centuries, perhaps more than 1,000 years. It took the United States to turn St. Patrick's Day into a boozy spectacle. Irish immigrants first celebrated it in Boston in 1737 and first paraded in New York in 1762. By the late 19th century, the St. Patrick's Day parade had become a way for Irish-Americans to flaunt their numerical and political might. It retains this role today.

The scarcity of facts about St. Patrick's life has made him a dress-up doll: Anyone can create his own St. Patrick. Ireland's Catholics and Protestants, who have long feuded over him, each have built a St. Patrick in their own image. Catholics cherish Paddy as the father of Catholic Ireland. They say that Patrick was consecrated as a bishop and that the pope himself sent him to convert the heathen Irish. (Evidence is sketchy about both the bishop and pope claims.) One of the most popular Irish Catholic stories holds that Patrick bargained with God and got the Big Fella to promise that Ireland would remain Catholic and free.

Ireland's Protestant minority, by contrast, denies that Patrick was a bishop or that he was sent by Rome. They depict him as anti-Roman Catholic and credit him with inventing a distinctly Celtic church, with its own homegrown symbols and practices. He is an Irish hero, not a Catholic one.

Outside Ireland, too, Patrick has been freely reinterpreted. Evangelical Protestants claim him as one of their own. After all, he read his Bible, and his faith came to him in visions. Biblical inspiration and personal revelation are Protestant hallmarks. Utah newspapers emphasize that Patrick was a missionary sent overseas to convert the ungodly, an image that resonates in Mormon country. New Age Christians revere Patrick as a virtual patron saint. Patrick co-opted Druid symbols in order to undermine the rival religion, fusing nature and magic with Christian practice. The Irish placed a sun at the center of their cross. "St. Patrick's Breastplate," Patrick's famous prayer (which he certainly did not write) invokes the power of the sun, moon, rocks, and wind, as well as God. (This is what is called "Erin go hoo-ha.")

Patrick has even been enlisted in the gay rights cause. For a decade, gay and lesbian Irish-Americans have sought permission to march in New York's St. Patrick's Day Parade, and for a decade they have lost in court. Cahill, among others, has allied Patrick with gays and lesbians. Cahill's Patrick is a muscular progressive. He was a proto-feminist who valued women in an age when the church ignored them. He always sided with the downtrodden and the excluded, whether they were slaves or the pagan Irish. If Patrick were around today, Cahill says, he would join the gay marchers.

Now television has invented yet another Patrick. Last night, Fox Family Channel aired its made-for-TV movie St. Patrick.  Fox's Patrick is mostly drawn from the historical record, but the producers added one new storyline. The English parent church demands that Patrick collect its church taxes in Ireland. Patrick rebels and risks excommunication by the British bishop. The fearless colonist leads a tax revolt against the villainous English. We Americans, like everyone else, think St. Patrick is one of us.
"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


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Offline belbbmfan

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Re: Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh!
« Reply #6 on: March 17, 2009, 05:53:26 pm »
My husband asked me today whether I knew what 'green beer' was. I said I didn't have a clue and it didn't sound very appealing either.  ;D

He'd met an Irish man at work who was going out later 'to have some green beers' (in an Irish pub in Brussels I presume).

The fact that you'd drink it warm doesn't sound too good to.  ???

Is it 'green' because of the colour? Yikes  :o Or is it like the Portugese vinho verde (green wine) which is basically 'young' white wine.
'We're supposed to guard the sheep, not eat 'em'

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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Re: Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh!
« Reply #7 on: March 17, 2009, 06:06:49 pm »


My husband asked me today whether I knew what 'green beer' was. I said I didn't have a clue and it didn't sound very appealing either.  ;D

He'd met an Irish man at work who was going out later 'to have some green beers' (in an Irish pub in Brussels I presume).

The fact that you'd drink it warm doesn't sound too good to.  ???

Is it 'green' because of the colour? Yikes  :o Or is it like the Portugese vinho verde (green wine) which is basically 'young' white wine.


http://www.slashfood.com/2006/03/16/how-to-make-green-beer/

How to make green beer


"No special process is involved in producing this St. Patrick's Day novelty drink. Simply add 5-6 drops of green food coloring to your beer and gently stir. Go for a bright color because a yellow-ish green is off putting no matter how fast you plan to down your drink. It is also best to go with lighter ales as opposed to a dark stout, like Guinness. To get a green color out of a Guinness, you would have to add enough food coloring to turn your teeth green when you take a sip. There are many other Irish beers available to help you get into the St. Paddy's Day Spirit, even though it might be easier to pick up a six pack of anything that comes in a green bottle to begin with."

 ::)
"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline southendmd

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Re: Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh!
« Reply #8 on: March 17, 2009, 06:22:55 pm »
If green beer isn't repulsive enough, here's what happened to President O'Bama's White House today:


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/29735206#29735206

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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Re: Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh!
« Reply #9 on: March 17, 2009, 06:27:42 pm »


European Journal-Ireland: Will the Irish Language Survive? (5:20)
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkd23pH4Eys&eurl=[/youtube]


Also:

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/irelands-language-remains-on-life-support/?hp

Ireland’s Language Remains on Life-Support
By Robert Mackey, March 17, 2009, 5:23 pm
"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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Re: Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh!
« Reply #10 on: March 17, 2009, 06:33:31 pm »


If green beer isn't repulsive enough, here's what happened to President O'Bama's White House today:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/29735206#29735206


Oy veh iz mir.

(Now that's  Irish.)
"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh!
« Reply #11 on: March 17, 2009, 08:43:17 pm »
So I had my dinner of corned beef and cabbage this evening, and I tried Jameson's on the rocks. Pretty good. It won't convert me from being a scotch drinker, but Jameson's would be good to drink on a cold night--or when you have a cold--because it made me feel warm all the way down.  ;D
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline belbbmfan

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Re: Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh!
« Reply #12 on: March 18, 2009, 03:06:40 am »


http://www.slashfood.com/2006/03/16/how-to-make-green-beer/

How to make green beer


"No special process is involved in producing this St. Patrick's Day novelty drink. Simply add 5-6 drops of green food coloring to your beer and gently stir. Go for a bright color because a yellow-ish green is off putting no matter how fast you plan to down your drink. It is also best to go with lighter ales as opposed to a dark stout, like Guinness. To get a green color out of a Guinness, you would have to add enough food coloring to turn your teeth green when you take a sip. There are many other Irish beers available to help you get into the St. Paddy's Day Spirit, even though it might be easier to pick up a six pack of anything that comes in a green bottle to begin with."

 ::)


 :laugh: and  :o

A yellow-ish green is off putting, hunh? The dark green doesn't look very inviting either!

Thanks for the explanation John.  :)
'We're supposed to guard the sheep, not eat 'em'

Offline Shakesthecoffecan

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Re: Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh!
« Reply #13 on: March 18, 2009, 07:42:58 pm »
They have been teaching Irish in the schools since independence from Britian, but they should have put effort into broadcasting at that time too, but then again they might not have all the American tourist now.
"It was only you in my life, and it will always be only you, Jack, I swear."