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