An Irish American on St. Patrick’s Day

To read my last name you would never guess that I am primarily of Celtic descent. Welsh and Scots, certainly. More than anything else, I am of Irish descent. I think that’s what makes us Americans such a wonderful people. We’re a bit of this, a dash of that and a whole lot of something else. We really are a melting pot.

Like almost all of my grade school classmates, I considered myself to be an Irish American. Moving away from my hometown in high school I was struck by the realization that all of those strangers in this strange new town had no idea what my real last name was. I had always thought that in reality it was the same as my mother’s family, not my father’s family.

Our Irish family all lived within a few miles of our home. The adults called each other daily. We were constantly back and forth to visit. If my grandmother didn’t spend at least half of Sunday with us, something was horribly wrong.

My father’s family? They were strangers to us.

We’re Irish Americans. Ignore that paternal last name you read. When Cillian Murphy won his Oscar for best actor, that was one of our boys.

Growing up I knew Murphy’s Law. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

Any good Irishman can carry a grudge in one hand and a drink in the other.

A positive mindset was knowing the adults would be drinking beer while we had milk with our meat and potatoes.