Happy St. Patrick’s Day: Bound for Ireland, gift of gab and all

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, everybody.

When wishing friends and acquaintances a Happy St. Patrick’s Day on social media, I often used to add, “We’re all Irish today!” I must have heard someone say that once and figured it was a wonderfully benevolent thing for an Irish guy like me to say.

Then, one year, a friend replied, “What if we don’t want to be Irish?” She was Scottish.

Well, I had never imagined anyone thinking such a thought, let alone saying it aloud on St. Patrick’s Day. Chastened, I have simply wished everyone a Happy St. Patrick’s Day ever since.

Chalk it up to my upbringing. I grew up in a household that was predominantly Franco-American, but my father emphasized the Irish part with, well, the same pride and boisterousness with which I used to declare everyone Irish for a day every March 17. Dad took that 50 percent Irish heritage handed down to him from his father and ran with it. You never would have guessed he was half French.

Growing up, we wore green on Saint Patrick’s Day. We wore shamrock pins too. We had corned beef and cabbage for dinner – something I would later learn is not exactly a cherished meal in Ireland. March 17 felt like a true holiday in my house.

My mother is 100% French. And to be sure, my family celebrated its Franco-American heritage too, though in quieter ways.

My grandmother – Memere, I called her – was born on Christmas, so on that holiday we would head to her house for dinner, where we would enjoy such Franco-American staples as pork pie and conton, a pork spread you could slather on bread.

In 1986, we traveled to Thetford Mines, Quebec, to visit where my grandparents were born and raised, until their families moved to Sanford, Maine, in the early 1920s.

And later this year, I will travel to the land from which the paternal side of my family hails. My wife, Valerie, our daughter, Madeline, and I will spend a week in Ireland. This trip has been at the very top of my bucket list practically all my life, once it was bumped up from the number-two spot after I finally made it to Disney World as a kid.

Technically, I have been to Ireland. Technically. My parents got married in June of 1971 and took their honeymoon in August because dad needed the summer to finish his classes for his master’s degree. At some point between the wedding and the honeymoon, mom and dad got the news that I would be arriving in the world in the spring of 1972.

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So, I was a speck in mom’s belly when she and dad went to the Emerald Isle. I was the reason she needed to spend half the trip battling morning sickness in bed while dad took a one-man tour of his ancestor’s old stomping grounds.

In my life I’ve had opportunities to visit such countries as India, Ecuador, Mexico, Jamaica, and, of course, Canada. When I reflect on my travels, and how blessed I have been to visit these places, I nonetheless have always thought, “Ireland, though.”

Gotta get to Ireland.

I tend to be spontaneous when traveling, so I’m unlikely to map out a detailed itinerary for our travels, like Clark W. Griswold or, ha, even my own father, would. That said, I am jotting down a few places my family and I hope to visit.

We’re going to visit Galway, which is where my family lived before they jumped the pond and came to Maine when they ran out of potatoes over there.

I want to see the River Shannon. When my parents returned to Sanford from their honeymoon, they stopped at my aunt’s house and picked up one of the puppies that her collie, Lassie, recently had. Mom and dad named him Shannon, after the river in Ireland.

I am going to visit Limerick and walk the streets where Frank McCourt, the author of “Angela’s Ashes,” one of my favorite books, had walked during his challenging and tragic childhood.

And yes, we plan to go to Dublin and elsewhere to visit pubs, castles, churches and lush, green landscapes.

Most of all, we will travel to Blarney Castle, where I will kiss the Blarney Stone. I will not leave Ireland until I do. Sometimes I think this is the only reason why I’m going to Ireland.

The reason is because the Blarney Stone figures into my own personal lore, shaped by stories told to me by my parents. Mom kissed it while carrying me and, well, it has always been the joke in the family that it’s no wonder I have the gift of gab – the very thing the stone is said to bestow upon those who kiss it.

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If you think my columns are wordy now, or if in conversation you think I use a dozen words when one will do, just imagine what I will be like once I plant my lips on that stone and bring my life full circle.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, my friends. I think I’ll trot out that old sentiment for the first time in years: On this holiday, you’re all Irish.

But only if you want to be, of course.

Shawn P. Sullivan is an award-winning columnist and is a reporter for the York County Coast Star. He can be reached at ssullivan@seacoastonline.com.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Happy St. Patrick’s Day: Bound for Ireland, gift of gab and all