Happy Saint Pats, OBers!

[Skye]

[size=1][color=green]Happy Saint Patricks Day, everyone!

Who all follows the 'wear green or be pinched' tradition? Any stories to tell?

One year, in elementary school, I picked out the only thing I had that was even slightly green. All day people said it wasn't green, so I stayed near a teacher. ^_^; The next year the teachers had to put a 'No pinching' rule up. That was funny. This year, though, I have a nice green sweatshirt.

So, any stories about Saint Patricks day? Oh, and what is your favorite part? Getting to wear green whether it matches or not, or the pinching? And what's your favorite green piece of clothing?[/size][/color]

[Gravy Train]

Where I am it is "wear green or be ***** slapped".

I do enjoy having a day named after me for all of my fantastic accomplishments.

[_Hikaru_]

Yay St.Pattis day stories!!!Well this one kid at my school thought it would be fun to have a 'Wear green or get PANTSED' rule and while my bestestbuddypal was doing chin ups in PE he pantsed her :animestun

[Roxie Faye]

[color=green]Today was a great day. I looked really good with my green t-shirt and my green sweater. I also wore my hair in a ponytail with a green ribbon.

I'm also Irish, by the way, that's why I had to dress up. I love the Irish and I think they rock! (They also have rotten luck, which I have acquired. V___V)

I don't have any specific stories, per se, but I can give you a bit of an Irish history lesson.

Alright, I'm sure you've all seen Irish stepdancers, including those [u]amazing[/u] people on Riverdance. If you noticed, they don't move their arms, and usually keep their back straight.

This goes way back to the time when the British were persecuting the Irish (thus some of the hostilities today, along with OTHER reasons). The English wouldn't let the Irish do anything - even dancing was forbidden.

That's a dumb thing to tell the Irish. So instead, they would tap their beat to the rhythm of the music - technically not dancing. Gradually, it evolved into the step dance with those crazy feet movements.

At least, I think that's the story (my mom may be lying to me - she does that ALL the time. V_V)[/color]

[Semjaza]

I'm part Irish, but I don't care for the holiday much. I absolutely loathe Irish dancing. Living in Chicago I feel like this holiday is a bigger deal here than it is in much of the US... we have such a large Irish population.

I did have a good cheeseburger and my Mick Ronson CD came in the mail, so it was better than a lot of days.

[Kitty]

[COLOR=Blue][SIZE=1]I never looked forward to it, to be honest. I would always forget to wear green and end up getting pinched. St. Patricks day also meant green food. When I lived with my mother, she was so obsessed with celebrating it that she even dyed the milk. I was 6, the milk was green, and I had no idea what was going on.

So I dumped it out, then got screamed at for wasting a fresh carton.

I've always had a small "problem" with green liquids after that. o.O;; The green cupcakes, cookies, candies, etc. I'm fine with. I eat them all the time. But the milk?! I mean, come [i]on[/i]. Leave it alone!! At least.. at my house, anyway. I like white milk. ;_;

I didn't wear green today to spite everyone. :^P And if there was any green on my body at all today, I blame it on not owning a full-length mirror.[/SIZE][/COLOR]

[Panda]

I am not Irish but I have always worn green on St. Patrick's Day. While in school it was for self preservation. It was easier to wear green than fend off the pinchers. I too have never been a fan of foods that have been dyed green. It just seems kinda icky. Salads can be green but eggs, milk and apple sauce shouldn't be green.

Happy St. Patrick's Day all. :D

[Miss Pikachu]

I wore a shirt that said "You Pinch I Punch" over a green clover.
Someone pinched me, so I punched them in the arm.
Unfortunately, I almost got a referral for doing it.

[Corey]

[QUOTE=Miss Pikachu]I wore a shirt that said "You Pinch I Punch" over a green clover.
Someone pinched me, so I punched them in the arm.
Unfortunately, I almost got a referral for doing it.[/QUOTE]

[size=1]Beautiful!

I'm about %30 Irish, so of course I dressed up.
A green hoodie and an orange shirt.
Plus I had my Irish Flag tattoo displayed all day.

I hope everyone that took to the drink is feeling ok.
I abstained.[/size]

[elfpirate]

[b]Well, I wore what I had been wearing for days on end, but since most of my clothes are olive green, black, and grey, I did just happen to be wearing green... just not on purpose.[/b]

[b]I went out for St. Pat's not just because I'm Irish ([u]McClary[/u] is actually Scotch-Irish) but to watch the bagpiper's and drummers, to dance a sprig with me brother, and to down a couple o' cheap pints o' Guinness.:beer: Oi, Oi ![/b]

[b] My family was part o' the "snakes" that St. Patrick drove out o' Ireland... and more accurately, he made it impossible for my family to hold on to their traditional religious beliefs and more or less forcefully converted them into the Irish Christians o' the time.[/b]

[b]Because o' this, a lot o' my Druidic history and many o' the Druidic traditions were lost.:( [/b]

[b]So, I don't celebrate St. Patrick himself or his holiday, particulary- [/b]
[b]I celebrate my ancestry, which is something I do every day o' the year. My bro an' I have been known to burst out in song and to spontaneously dance an Irish jig in the middle of any week of any month of the year.[/b]

[QUOTE=MistressRoxie][color=green]
This goes way back to the time when the British were persecuting the Irish (thus some of the hostilities today, along with OTHER reasons). The English wouldn't let the Irish do anything - even dancing was forbidden.

That's a dumb thing to tell the Irish. So instead, they would tap their beat to the rhythm of the music - technically not dancing. Gradually, it evolved into the step dance with those crazy feet movements.

At least, I think that's the story (my mom may be lying to me - she does that ALL the time. V_V)[/color][/QUOTE]
[b]She's not lying, but one of you has it a little bit mixed up. [/b]

[b]The Irish had [i]all[/i] their instruments taken away and music itself was forbidden, as well as dancing...basically, everything Celtic, Druidic, and inherently "Irish" was forbidden.[/b]

[b]With no instruments to be had, the Irish (the wonderfully stubborn ***** that we are) decided that they were going to make music anyway, creating the beat with their stomping and tapping-- and the melody with their voices... [/b]

[b]I believe (though I'm not[i] entirely[/i] sure about this) that the stiff-back, arms- rigid way of performing the dance was to avoid the attention of the Brits... after all, from a distance, they appeared to barely move...so it wasn't likely for them to be accused o' dancing. :animesmil Yay, sneaky, stubborn, Irish folks![/b]

On a side note, Irish dancing was the inspiration for the birth of tap-dancing. An African American man (sorry, but I've forgotten his name for the moment) watched the Irish immigrants in America celebrating and dancing. He thought it was really cool that such wonderful rhythms could be created with just the feet, but he thought it looked retarded to not move the upper body and arms-- thus, he came up with what is now tap-dancing.

[Lacuna Coil]

[QUOTE=Miss Pikachu]I wore a shirt that said "You Pinch I Punch" over a green clover.
[/QUOTE]

[size=1]I own that very same shirt, although I forgot to wear it on Saint Pat's day. ><'

But I figured i'd get the point across anyways and wore a nametag that said the quote instead. Other than that, one of my best friends dressed up as a leprachaun and gave us all 4 leaf clover springer thingers, I forgot what they were called. >>[/size]

[Sol-Blade]

[COLOR=DarkRed]A little late to be posting this, but ah well.

I spent my entire St.Patty's day listening to Flogging Molly on my iPod. Ironic? Well I even slapped on a green case just for the occasion. :D[/COLOR]

[Roxie Faye]

[color=green]Ohh. Thank you elfpirate for clarifying it. Yay, my mom wasn't lying! (She does that sometimes. Like the time she told me my grandfather walked from Beijing to Bangkok - WHICH HE DIDN'T!!!)

Yeah, Catholics and even more broadly, Christians have a lot to answer for "convert to my religion or I shoot." Which is one of the reasons I don't like religions, but that's an entirely different and off-topic debate. :/

I think there's something wrong with me - I've never EVER heard of this pinching thing. But then, I've always worn green, so... heh? But really, I have never heard of it. I'm definitely missing something. >_>

By the way, I'm always wearing green. I have a shoelace decoration, and it's a green foot. So I'm always in green! ^_^[/color]

[elfpirate]

[quote name='Corey][size=1] I hope everyone that took to the drink is feeling ok. [/size'][size=2][/quote][/size]
[size=2][b]Thanks- and the same well wishes to you...[/b][/size]
[size=1][size=2][quote name='Corey][/size']I abstained.[/size][/quote][b]Uh huh... sure ya did...:smirk: ... and my name's Wallace.[/b]


[b]@ MistressRoxie--[/b]
[b]Hey, no prob-- I'm glad your mom wasn't lying, as well...:animesmil [/b]

[Gavin]

[SIZE=1]I thought I might meander in here at some stage, though I meant to actually do so on Saint Patrick's Day. I just noted a few mistakes in some of what people have posted in regard to Saint Patrick and Irish history and myths, so I'll correct what I can to set the picture straight. [/SIZE]

[QUOTE=elfpirate][b][b] My family was part o' the "snakes" that St. Patrick drove out o' Ireland... and more accurately, he made it impossible for my family to hold on to their traditional religious beliefs and more or less forcefully converted them into the Irish Christians o' the time.[/b]

[b]Because o' this, a lot o' my Druidic history and many o' the Druidic traditions were lost.:( [/b][/QUOTE]

[SIZE=1]Patrick himself actually never advocated violence in his conversion of the Irish people from Paganism to Catholicism. What happened was that when an Irish Chief was converted [the Chief of a family clan], all his family would convert to the same religion as him. The same practice happened with Constantine and the Roman Empire, Catholicism spread like wildfire in Ireland after that and the Druids as a faith were extinguished. As per his driving of the snakes from Ireland, I'm not sure how accurate that is, perhaps like wolves in Ireland the climate changed and they could no longer survive. [/SIZE]

[QUOTE=elfpirate][b]The Irish had [i]all[/i] their instruments taken away and music itself was forbidden, as well as dancing...basically, everything Celtic, Druidic, and inherently "Irish" was forbidden.[/b]

[b]With no instruments to be had, the Irish (the wonderfully stubborn ***** that we are) decided that they were going to make music anyway, creating the beat with their stomping and tapping-- and the melody with their voices... [/b]

[b]I believe (though I'm not[i] entirely[/I] sure about this) that the stiff-back, arms- rigid way of performing the dance was to avoid the attention of the Brits... after all, from a distance, they appeared to barely move...so it wasn't likely for them to be accused o' dancing. :animesmil Yay, sneaky, stubborn, Irish folks![/b]

On a side note, Irish dancing was the inspiration for the birth of tap-dancing. An African American man (sorry, but I've forgotten his name for the moment) watched the Irish immigrants in America celebrating and dancing. He thought it was really cool that such wonderful rhythms could be created with just the feet, but he thought it looked retarded to not move the upper body and arms-- thus, he came up with what is now tap-dancing.[/QUOTE]

[SIZE=1]I've dealt with this in reply with Mistress Roxie.[/SIZE]

[QUOTE=MistressRoxie][color=green]This goes way back to the time when the British were persecuting the Irish (thus some of the hostilities today, along with OTHER reasons). The English wouldn't let the Irish do anything - even dancing was forbidden.

That's a dumb thing to tell the Irish. So instead, they would tap their beat to the rhythm of the music - technically not dancing. Gradually, it evolved into the step dance with those crazy feet movements.[/color][/QUOTE]

[SIZE=1]Most of this is correct, the English themselves were actually invited into Ireland by King Diarmuid of Leinster, who being denied the title of [I]Ard Rí[/I] or High King [[I]Ard[/I] = High, [I]Rí[/I] = King] sought aid from King Henry II of England to defeat the other Kings in order to control the country. King Henry dispatched Richard de Claire [later known as Strongbow] in order to aid Diarmuid, who promised Strongbow his daughter as a reward for his aid [thus seeding him as the next King of Leinster].

Diarmuid never succeeded in becoming High King, however as King of Leinster himself, Strongbow did, this lead to English rule over Ireland as Diarmuid had sworn his allegiance to Henry II, and Strongbow was a Norman Knight who served Henry. This pretty much lead to the whole English being in control of Ireland, although there is much, much too much history for me to go through. Suffice to say the English established their power base in Dublin, and defeated Irish rebellions on a fairly regular basis because of superior arms, tactics and numbers. However that in itself is a gross simplification, and actually in Henry II time it was the Normans who ruled England [I think], and it was them who forbade Irish activities [again I think].

The English began to persecute the Irish after Henry VII came to power, mainly because much of the Irish remained Catholics and the English were Anglicans. Later the English introduced the Penal Laws which stripped Catholics of a lot of their rights as citizens, which along with general persecutions and hangings, and in the 1920 the introduction of the infamous Black and Tans. Again this has been a huge simplification of Irish History, if you're interested in the subject there are plenty of books on the subject that go into fair greater detail. [/SIZE]

[elfpirate]

[size=2][quote name='Kane'] Patrick himself actually never advocated violence in his conversion of the Irish people from Paganism to Catholicism. Catholicism spread like wildfire in Ireland after that and the Druids as a faith were extinguished. [/quote][/size]

[b][size=1]That was what I was protesting- the mass conversion and the extincting of a faith.[/size][/b]
[size=1][size=1][/size]
[/size]
[size=2][quote name='Kane'] As per his driving of the snakes from Ireland, I'm not sure how accurate that is, perhaps like wolves in Ireland the climate changed and they could no longer survive. [/quote][/size]

[b][size=1]The "snakes" of Ireland were the Druids, as their world's spirit (similar to "mother earth") was depicted as a giant snake... thus, they were referred to as "snakes".[/size][/b]
[b][size=1]It had nothing to do with the actual reptile.[/size][/b]