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SOLERA DIAMOND VALLEY | MARCH 2021 5 By Dick Roppé and Theresa Rossetti, Residents Individually, we have both written previously about St. Patrick's Day. We decided to do a bit of a mash-up of our articles, let's see if you know who might have written what. One of us knows that Saint Patrick's Day is a day for all things green. How about starting off the day with green eggs and ham, a toasted green bagel, a sliced kiwi and a cup of green tea. For dinner, maybe some corned beef and cabbage washed down with pint of Guinness (Guinness can't be green). To conclude the evening, try choosing a film starring Pat O'Brien, Liam Neesen, Richard Harris, Pierce Brosnan, Barry Fitzgerald, Brenda Fricker, Peter O'Toole or the Maureens- O'Hara and O'Sullivan. Check out the movie The Quiet Man if you'd enjoy some armchair traveling to Ireland. Then curl up with a literary classic penned by Samuel Beckett, James Joyce, Bram Stoker, George Bernard Shaw or Oscar Wilde. By the way, wear something green lest you be pinched! One of us grew up celebrating St. Patrick's Day hearing tales of the Leprechauns and the Banshees, with a shillelagh in a corner of the house and knew it was St. Paddy's Day, not Patty's Day, because the Irish for Patrick is Padraic. Now some facts: St. Patrick wasn't Irish, nor did he chase the snakes out of Ireland as there never were any there. He was a Roman Britain, captured by pirates as a teen and sold as a slave in Ireland. He escaped, returned to England, became a priest and went back to Ireland as a missionary. Ireland at the time was a land of Druids and pagans. He is the Patron Saint of Ireland, but up until the Irish potato famine in the 1840s, when many Irish emigrated to England and America, March 17th was celebrated simply as a Holy Day. The Irish in the US began celebrating the day with parades. They ate corned beef, sourced from their Jewish neighbors, since it was inexpensive and easy to find. New York paints a green stripe on 5th Avenue for their parade. In Chicago, the Chicago River is dyed green for the day. Many other US cities and towns have parades as well. In folklore, leprechauns are cobblers with a pot of gold hidden at the end of a rainbow. If caught by a human, they will grant you three wishes, but beware! They are wily creatures and will fool you if they can. They carry a shillelagh, a walking stick used to steady yourself as you go across the bogs and hills of Ireland. A banshee is a female spirit who, if seen, heralds death of a family member. They are known for their shrieking or keening. Ireland is called The Emerald Isle as the mild, wet, climate, with frequent rain keeps the grass green, the heather growing, and the dandelions enormous. The Emerald Isle

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