Honorary Irish - Happy St. Patrick's Day!

As mentioned in my profile, I have Irish blood, but probably not too much of it. I am told that I'm English, Irish, Dutch, French, German, Indian and Italian. I don't remember much of the specifics about my heritage except that one of my great, great, great grandmothers was full blooded Ohio Indian. Really! I have some other documentation somewhere about the Perkins side, but know very little about my mom's side (Crider). You see, my mom's birth mother was an orphan and I seem to recall that at some point the orphanage burned down and all the records with it. Also in those days it was very difficult to track down heritage when you didn't know your direct relatives.

Anyway, I consider myself to be honorary Irish. We have lots of red heads in my birth family on both sides and I always wanted to have a red headed child because they are so unique and beautiful. Both Amy and Kevin ARE unique and beautiful and when either of them have colored their hair in some shade of red, it looks wonderful with their complexion! (a hint at their Irish heritage, I suppose.) Also, Kevin can pull off a very convincing Irish brogue when he wants to. (It's in the genes.)

Terry has quite a bit of Irish blood (as well as had red in his beard before it turned gray - which is a sure sign). His mother's maiden name was Manion and has direct relatives from Ireland. Rumor has it, they're related to an Irish Statesman.

Did you ever hear of the miniseries in the early 80's, "The Manions of America"? That was probably their family, although I seem to remember the show being a bit racy and his family was filled with good Irish Catholics with lots of children, that I'm sure led spotless lives. I don't remember watching the miniseries due to some scheduling conflict (since we didn't have TiVo or Netflix at the time) but when I just looked it up, I discovered that Pierce Brosnan (now there's an Irishman!) was in it (well before he was famous in the U.S., I think). I checked to see if Netflix carries the miniseries, but it's not there. Maybe we should campaign to get it on there.

Terry's Mom and her 3 sisters have even traveled to Ireland to find the remains of the "Manion Castle"...which is clearly no more than a small pile of rocks. Ireland is probably at the top of the list of places that Terry and I want to go someday (soon I hope). It just seems so magical, green and lovely.

I also recently found out that our good friends, Randy and Linda will be visiting Ireland as part of their trip to England to see their daughter, Miranda who's in college over there for a semester. Needless to say, I'm so excited for them all and can't wait to hear the stories and see the photos that they bring home. Hopefully it will give us a few more folks to get tips from when we go over there ourselves.

Oh, one other little St. Patrick's Day tidbit. The pastor at our last church was from Ireland and according to him, over there the holiday isn't nearly as popular as it is here. Americans just like an excuse to get drunk, I think.

I hope you all have a tip top St. Paddy's Day...and the luck o' the Irish to ye!