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in Personal Family Stories

Don’t pinch me! I’m not Irish! Or am I? (A St. Patrick’s Day story)

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English bulldog wearing a St. Patrick's Day hat
Photo by Magdalena Smolnicka on Unsplash

Kids can be mean. When I was in elementary school, every St. Patrick’s Day meant a day of being pinched if you weren’t wearing green. I wasn’t Irish (or Catholic), so I didn’t pay much attention to St. Patrick’s Day. But I lived in a neighborhood with many Irish and/or Catholic families, and those kids did pay attention.


If I forgot to wear green on St. Patrick’s Day and kids started pinching me, I would tell them to stop because I wasn’t Irish. I was German, so I didn’t have wear green. No matter. They pinched me anyway. Thank goodness it was uncool in middle school to be pinching people for not wearing green on St. Patrick’s Day.

As a teen, I realized I wasn’t just German.

My mom’s maiden name was Martin, so I was German and English. And then I started working on my family history and discovered ancestors with surnames like Grant, Griffin, and Thomas. Now I was German, English, and Scottish. My mom said we were Scots-Irish. Well the Scots-Irish came to Ireland from Scotland, so I reasoned that I still wasn’t Irish.

A four-leaf clover among many three-leaf clover
Photo by Yan Ming on Unsplash

Then I did my DNA through AncestryDNA.

I was shocked. I AM part Irish! At first it was a big part, but as the results are refined by AncestryDNA, the amount of Irish changes. Currently I’m 53% England and Northwestern Europe, 21% Ireland, 15% Scotland, and four others that make up the rest.

This year on St. Patrick’s Day, I might wear green. We’ll see. I can say for certain that I won’t be drinking green beer or eating corned beef (health reasons for avoiding both of them), but I will make Colcannon. I’ve always loved potatoes, cabbages, and onions. Maybe that’s the Irish in me.

Here’s the Colcannon recipe I’m using.

https://www.fromvalerieskitchen.com/irish-colcannon-potatoes/?fbclid=IwAR0fmihTDy6NV52t-6v8_7rs–oKr5_ZoiCV3E_qhTv0TexZo0yF6raOiUM

Are you part Irish? If so, are you doing (or did you do) anything special for St. Patrick’s Day?

Copyright © 2021 Nancy H. Vest   All Rights Reserved

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