March 17? Bah, Humbug!

St Patrick's Day for those of us who "do Irish culture" all year long

On February 2, the groundhog is meant to poke her head from her den. If she sees her shadow, it means there will be six more weeks of winter.

It’s six weeks later.

This morning, the bird songs are gloriously deafening. It poured over night, and the air is the best sort of heavy and damp because it’s almost a warm sort of damp.

That first famous groundhog is in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, 325 miles west of our home in the Hudson Valley, but we generally share a climate, so that prediction holds well.

But I’m not really talking about folk traditions and weather patterns of the American northeast.

I’m talking about Brigid and Patrick and the strange global phenomenon of Irishness on March 17.

Because, really, there’s got to be some connection between the way an American groundhog is meant to ask the world if she’s ready to awaken on Brigid’s Day and then almost always gets the answer by Paddy’s Day, right?

A Postcard from America on March 17

This morning, Mairéad happily crowned herself with a headband covered in huge green and white flower. Eleven is that curious age when “too cool” instantly evaporates into “of course we’re making a leprechaun house and getting dressed up for Saint Patrick’s Day.” I try my best to keep up.

She was hopeful that they’d make a bigger deal about this holiday than they did Valentine’s Day when they only had a thirty minute party. I tried to adjust expectations and point out that it was already pretty wild that so much of the world was talking about a tiny country’s patron saint - and that it happened to be “our” tiny country.

She paused and realized that it was pretty remarkable. And she maintained it was a much more important day than February 14.

Then the bus came, and Nuala and I set out on our usual walk, all wet and waking.

Nuala, the pyredoodle, does her best impression of “wet sheep” and our backroad does a decent job of mimicking “meaningful Celtic seeming stone”

The Stories I Didn’t Think to Tell (Again)

March 17 rather snuck up on me this year.

It’s been a busy stretch for me, with the launch of my new Authors’ Knot communities and all the endless family everything. Starting the new season of the podcast at the end of January has been a glorious, all out effort for months.

As I was saying to another Irish sister not long ago, Brigid’s Day is blissful, but exhausting. In this line of work, preparations for the biggest day in the Irish feminine year are intense - even when all of the celebrations are online. There’s something about the way those of us far from Ireland are in step with the spirit of the day, but out of step with the season. It’s a tremendous effort to celebrate the return of the spring when your own world is still frozen solid.

To rally again, six weeks later for the other big Irish holiday… It’s a heavy lift, I guess.

These days, I devote myself to Irish mythology, literature, and culture as much as I ever did when I was a graduate student in Dublin, it seems less necessary than ever to celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day.

I think of it this way: growing up in a Cape Cod tourist town, we never went to the beach in the middle of the day on a high summer weekend.

St. Paddy’s Day? Maybe next year… Or maybe not.

For now, here’s a story I wrote about St Patrick for the very first season of KnotWork Myth & Storytelling, performed by Kevin Michael Murphy.

Coming up March 23, for those who “do Irish culture” all year round

Announcing the new Myth Workers’ Salon!

Listening to a podcast is generally a solitary activity. It’s an intimate thing, to have people murmur into your earbuds.

At the same time, over the last three years, we’ve created a community of listeners who have grown to love the worlds we’ve woven on the podcast.

More and more listeners are telling me about the way that specific KnotWork stories, characters, and episodes have become companions in their lives.

It’s time to get together to explore these stories!

This Sunday, March 23 from 10 - 11 AM ET, we’ll gather on Zoom for a conversation about the stories we’ve told during season 6 (and any of our previous seasons).

All paid Myth Is Medicine subscribers are invited to join us.

This is the perfect time to upgrade your subscription! All the proceeds from my Sustack go toward supporting the ongoing production costs of KnotWork Myth & Storytelling. As an independent podcast without advertising, the show depends on listeners’ generosity. This Myth Workers’ Salon is my way of thanking you for keeping us on the air.