My girlfriend Yvonne called me yesterday to say,
"Erin go brahless"!
Pretty cute, huh?!? OK, Yvonne & I certainly thought it was cute! I hope you and yours had a relatively uneventful St. Patty's Day... I remeber when my children were little, I would always make green dinner on St. Patty's Day... green mac & cheese, green applesauce, green milk, green jello, green grapes... you get the idea... I think I liked it better than they did... we even made green pancakes... That's about as good as my kids got it, with me for a mom, as far as imaginative celebrations go. Just like this year, the holidays always seem to sneak up on me and I'm caught totally unprepared... so I'm celebrating St. Patrick's Day a day late... wait, almost two days late! Yikes!
I remember as a kid, seeing my dad come to the breakfast table, one St. Patty's Day, wearing an orange tie, and nothing green... I really had a hard time wrapping my head around that one... all I knew was we were Irish... and now I understand that the color orange is associated with Northern Irish Protestants because of William of Orange (William III), the King of England, Scotland, and Ireland who in 1690 defeated the deposed King James II, a Roman Catholic, in the fateful Battle of the Boyne near Dublin. William III's victory secured Protestant dominance over the island, to the enormous benefit of the 17th-century colonizers of northern Ireland — the English (mainly Anglicans) and Scots (mostly Presbyterians). Sometimes called Orangemen, Protestants in Northern Ireland celebrate the anniversary of the battle each July 12th.
So, in honor of my pappy, the bottom left hand square in the image above, is for him... Erin go brahless, Dad!
So cool. Now I understand the wearing of orange.... that is what we always wore...
Hope spring has sprung in your neck of the woods!
xoxo
Posted by: Jill | March 20, 2008 at 08:58 PM
that was some wonderful commentary and history of the Irish... I'm Irish descent too... Dublin & Ulster to be exact... good ol' celts.. potato famine exodus... Our friend history prof.O'leary is always filling us in on our Orangeman roots... great post...
Posted by: gwen buchanan | March 19, 2008 at 11:09 AM
Love your squares, Kathy!
Posted by: Marion | March 19, 2008 at 09:19 AM
That is beautiful! I like the little nod to the Protestant community, it works really well. I have a friend that wears orange on St. Paddy's every year.
Posted by: Carrie | March 19, 2008 at 08:31 AM