You are the funniest avatar on the site. :wink:
Heeven wrote:
My point was, I grin when I hear people say the percentage of Irish they are. I had never heard it before leaving Ireland and find it amusing that people actually investigate their backgrounds to come up with a figure to put on it.
Heeven, I believe this is just another oddity that comes from what I stated above, we relish in the backgrounds that we have and the percentage of them is also an important factor. Being wholly one nationality and also having lived there makes you simply different from a social upbringing aspect such as ours and as well you might grin, so might we looking back at you. Tis the nature of things around abouts these parts.
mac11...yes, the influences of those who dramatically changes their lives is very important to us..great point.
www.stkilians.de/english/aboutus.htm just culdn't resist to do a little exploring on the webpages and found an interesting connection between the IRISH and the GERMANS - had a good history teacher in high-school; perhaps he just gave me a little reminder. who knows, there could be a little bit of irish blood in my veins (it is blood that the irish have in their veines, isn't it?). my paternal grandfather could definitely have had some irish heritage; he was known to his friends as "gipsy" for his love of life and laughter (and a few vices - but i better not go into that ...). setanta, could we be related ??? hbg ... there are quite a few more websites exploring irish/german connections for anyone interested.
setanta : just re-reading your entry of yesterday. my grand-dad surely loved to dance, sing, tell jokes and compliment the ladies -even when he was already in his eighties - much to the displearure of grandmother ! well, if i wait for a few more years, who knows what my pleasures will be. hbg.
here is another item re. german/irish connection. friends of ours belong to a group of canadian settlers that came to canada (about 1850) after their ancestors had stopped over in england and ireland (and stayed for two generations, i believe). his ancestors settled in the northern section of eastern ontario around pembroke. and there is a really interesting irish/german streak in him : german stubborness and a bit of superiority complex combined with a loathing of the royal family(even though he was a civil servant and - i'm sure - had to swear allegiance to the queen).
www.local.ie/content/28303.shtml
you know..I have this feeling that Ill end up all Normand...I mean, do have German blood but..you know..the above, then the Scotch-Irish which is actually Normand...and the Canadian French..probably Normand as well. Might get lucky and have one part true Irish, one part Normand, one part American Indian (which is still under discussion) so..who knows.
Eventually however...we're all brothers and sisters
Just lovely that thought..as long as we keep the sibling rivalry to a minimum.
quinn 1 : "eventually however ... we're all brothers and sisters" - lovely thought, quinn 1 ! hope more people will realize that. just in the process of reading "the search for zarahustra (?)"; the writer traces many of the more modern religions back to good old ZARA; while it is a scholarly book the writer did spent time in various regions of the middle east, including two years as a dental surgeon in kabul during the 60's; a very good - but slow - read; - interupted because we are going on a trip to germany/switzerland and i had to return the book to the library -. "keep sibling rivalry to a minimum" - certainly gets my vote ! hbg. re. ZARA, i've posted it elsewhere before, but can't remember where ... oh, oh !
nice thoughts always a joy in the whole family of humanity, eh?
My mother cared very much about being Irish. Her overtold joke, was What would you be if you weren't Irish? The answer was "ashamed!" Once when I was in college and a boyfriend came to pick me up, upon hearing his name was Michael Cohen, she proceded to ask if he was related to the Cohans, and I quailed that she might tell that joke. Being Irish, Irish Catholic, was a strong part of her self image.
She was born in Watertown, Massachusetts in 1901. It was from her that I learned the backgrounds of her and my father's families, and I suppose that since I was in grammar school at the time, I worked out the percentages (hmm, 15/16, whate'er percent that is.). My mother reveled in telling her Boston family anecdotes. She also told of signs, No Irish Need Apply, and of people gathering to watch or at least stare and point out windows at the family walking to Mass once they moved to California in the twenties.
My father on the other hand didn't talk much about being Irish. He was born and raised north of San Francisco and led, I think, more of a loner's life, in the sense of family ties.
In the late forties, he edited a film called "Hills of Ireland", a copy of which lay in our garage for years. Don't know what ever happened to it. (I remember that it was a beautiful travelogue, but also think it was fairly corny.) He was friends with Father Patrick Peyton, an Irish (as in from Ireland) priest who promoted the Rosary Crusade. There was a movie involving Father Peyton, called Miracle of Fatima, shown, I think, at a lot of the Catholic grade schools at the time.
Three of my uncles were among the Irish in the Hollywood film business from the thirties on - two as accountants, one as attorney.
As I grew up myself I didn't pay much attention to all this. Certainly I was American first, a girl went to grammar school
with children of irish, polish, german and other heritages, all of them Americans too, when we lived in Chicago. I grew tired of irish songs on St. Patrick's day, mostly. In Los Angeles, my world grew much much wider.
I didn't know much about Irish history (well, a little) until I married a fellow who knew more of it, and also charmed me by reciting Yeats... I didn't fall in love with him because he was irish, but for his voice and many other reasons.
As an older adult I have grown very interested in the history of the italian peninsula, in particular, but also history in general. I still think of myself as American, I still think of myself as Irish, but more and more I think of myself as a citizen of the world, as pretentious as that sounds. And also as a citizen of my small city in my beautiful Humboldt County.
I believe that i may have irish in me but im not sure how much because i dont know much about any other side of my family. But my last name is drury and i dont know if that is ireland or not.
Third generation Irish with both grandparents coming to Connecticut in the very early 1900s.
After retiring I went to Leitrim and lived there for about three years. Enjoyed it very much but not enough to stay there. Missed California too much and returned here in 1990.
