[pyrnet] St Patricks Day!, Begorrah!!!! !! Long

["ARIEGE" <ARIEGE@xtra.co.nz>]

A  Happy Saint Patricks Day to you all and may all your troubles be small
ones as you don the green in the mornin'!!!! I have many memories of Saint
Patricks day!! The the odd one I was too young to recall! (Let's forget the
ones I do remember! and remember the ones I don't recall!). That's Irish for
you!

I have the Irish music a hummin' on the CD player here. "You know who" in
the lounge has turned the telly up. You see he's Welsh born and it's not
"Saint Michael's Day!"  No sense of humour there!!

I think of my old Grandad, Irish born but with a Scots accent. The Family
owned a pub in Ireland but were asked to "leave" during the troubles and
their sympathy for the wrong faction during the Easter rebellion. The
Great-Granny had them all hidden under her bed!!   Some bed!

 My Father sang "Kevin Barry" for the rest of his life and even more on
Saint Paddy's Day!! My Mother would leave the house on Saint Patrick's Day,
(she is Scottish and it wasn't Saint Andrew's Day!). She'd leave the house
the minute he started singing "Kevin Barry" no matter the day! She travelled
a lot.

One Saint Patrick's day my Uncle was visiting a patient next to the local
hotel and he came out of the house and saw a pram next to the hotel.  Inside
the pram were a pair of twins and a Boxer dog tied to the handle bar.  On
further inspection he realised the twins were his nieces, on top of their
blanket was a fortune in half crown coins, the Boxer was my father's UK Dog,
Major,  (he had chosen the dog after the war and had him shipped to New
Zealand)  and the person in charge of the twins was his Father in law
singing Irish songs inside drunk!!!  Uncle took the twins and dog home (and
the money!) and then went back and got the Grandad!! Uncle was devasted to
think the twins he had delivered had been "abandoned" like that!! (He adored
us from our birth to his death, we could do no wrong and we did try! ).
Apparently he had warned my Mother about letting the "auld man"  out loose
in control of anything less than his legs.   The old devil tried to get out
of saying why he had left us out there, apparently twins were a sign on
goodluck and if you threw a coin in the pram of twins on Saint Patrick's Day
then you would have goodluck for ever.  What he forgot to mention was that
he didn't get back out in time to get the "drinking money!!"

God only knows how often us twins had been left outside a pub , he always
used to offer to take us for a "promenade", he was a smart dresser and what
my Mother called "A real toff" and the ladies loved it when John
MacGlade-Kerr tipped his hat to them as he wheeled his twin grand-daughters
past ! You could hear them say "There goes Doctor's father in law, such a
gentleman and still standing!".  Well he ran a mental hospital for years so
he must have been a gentle man!!  Ronda and I went to visit it a while ago!!
My Father had told me so much about "Seacliff" and how he would as a boy
sing to the inmates to help calm them down!  His Father took him along for
company and then a week would pass before they could leave due to the
weather and the roads!  This was the Hospital for the "Criminally Insane".
Our bedtime stories were based on  those times.  Grandad had many of New
Zealands' notorious Killers to bed down for the night!! He had to strap them
in so we were told. We were always tucked securely into our pram!


 The Grandad  got our "twin pram" shipped out from the UK, nothing was too
good for us.  ( His wife, our Grandmother had died having twins so we were
special)  and he had a seat built for our older sister at the front. He
couldn't leave her outside a pub though, she would have been able to "tell".
She'd do anything for a chocolate Teddy!!

 "Top of the morning to you colleens" was one of his favourite expressions
to the ladies.  A "colleen" could have been 80!    But another time when an
Aunt lifted us out of our pram she found bottles of whiskey under the
mattress!  He was a grand old Irishman,(with a Scots accent!)  he had his
Border Collies and plenty of money and many lady friends!!  We know why!
When he took my Aunts out (I had many Aunts who weren't "Aunts" by blood or
marriage)  he bought them fur coats and fox stoles to wear.  For years after
I could be found patting ladies fur coats !! My Mother was horrified!  This
child would be stroking the shoulders of strangers on public transport!
Loved those little glass eyes on the fox stoles.

Oh to know  all this history and know why you love dogs and Irish music and
have a real taste for whiskey and cigars too!  It's in the genes. I only
smoke a cigar though  with my twin sister on her trips back to New Zealand!

So have a great Saint Patrick's day if you have a wee drop of the old Irish
in you!!  Be it in your blood or down the throat!

Jan
Jan Chaplin
Ariege-Roussillon Pyreneans
http://www.geocities.com/janellachaplin or
http://ariegeroussillonpyrenean.homestead.com/
Visit here!! http://www.geocities.com/pyrworld
Jan's Ebay Auctions http://showcase.auctiva.com/janella
ariege@xtra.co.nz


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