Great childhood memories of St. Patrick’s Day approaching in our different New York City apartments…121st, 122nd, and 96th. My Dad packing up our lone orange cooler that had been laboriously dug out of the depths of one of our coveted NYC closets, filled to the brim with the cases of Bud, Pepsi & Guinness. Cases that we had bought at the awesome wholesale beverage spot up on 125th (also one of the only places we knew of to sell an entire box of Topp’s baseball cards which my Dad would generously treat his overly excited twin boys as a reward for being his wingmen) and ice, always loads of ice. You can say a lot of things about us McGowans, but one thing you’ll never say, is that we handed you a warm Bud or Pepsi!
My Mom decorating our place with lots of festive green and shamrocks, cooking tons of corned beef throughout the night and into the day, trimming the fat away and carefully slicing each squared section, topping each batch with a yummy mustard & honey sauce, securely wrapping each one in tin foil and then keeping ’em warm in the oven, to be pulled out, one after the the other as the party roared on into the night. Irish Soda Bread. Honey Buttered Carrots. Cabbage. (Not my thing) And my Mom’s pièce de résistance…a shamrock shaped, multi-layered chocolate mousse cake!!
Dad having fun setting the bar up, selecting and lining up the albums and the 45’s to be played throughout the night. The bottle of Dewar’s, a bucket of ice, and twists of lemon close by. Rearranging the furniture. Busting out the Clancy Brothers songbook.
Welcoming Gram & Grandpa, Aunts and Uncles, cousins, families and friends that would come from near and far, with a hug and a kiss, hanging up a coat or two, serving a drink or two, getting a bite to eat, then the fun would begin…
There’d be a lot of catching up, plenty of laughing and dancing too. The corned beef flew off the plates and that bottomless orange cooler was truly tested.
Getting to hear my Dad’s beautiful voice was and still is one of my favorite and most sacred memories of St. Patrick’s Day. Depending on the night, Dad would sing his Elvis, Willie and Neil. But on St. Patrick’s Day, Dad would mix it up with some traditional Irish songs from the Clancy Brothers: Tim Finnegan’s Wake, Jug of Punch, The Patriot Game, and The Parting Glass.
Since Joe and I were about 13, there was a very special song he’d like to play at the end of the night, when things were quieting down, from The Makem and Clancy Concert album called ‘Ar Eirinn Ni Neosainn Ce Hi (Live)’ The song is in Gaelic so we didn’t even know what the words meant, but Dad loved the whole vibe of it, as do we, and Tommy Makem starts off the song by reading a poem by Austin Clarke called The Planter’s Daughter:
The Planter’s Daughter by Austin Clarke
When night stirred at sea
And the fire brought a crowd in,
They say that her beauty
Was music in mouth
And few in the candlelight
Thought her too proud,
For the house of the planter
Is known by the trees.
Men that had seen her
Drank deep and were silent,
The women were speaking
Wherever she went –
As a bell that is rung
Or a wonder told shyly,
And O she was the Sunday
In every week.
After the first few times of listening to it, my Dad turned to Joe and me and said , “Your Mother ‘is the Sunday in every week’ to me.”
The song is hauntingly beautiful, even without or especially without knowing what the words mean, but the humming from the Irish crowd gets louder after the singing stops. To my Dad, the Irish men and women humming louder at the end of the song was like a calling out from the great beyond, reverberating that ever so thin wall between heaven and earth and a mystical connection to all those that came before us.
I will attempt to share a few links here.
A link to the song ‘Ar Eirinn Ni Neosainn Ce Hi (Live)’: Ar Eirinn Ni Neosainn Ce Hi (Live)
A link to a playlist McGowan’s Irish Pavilion which has a little bit of everything: McGowan’s Irish Pavilion
And lastly a link to St. Patrick’s Day Party which is generally more upbeat: St. Patrick’s Day Party
Slainte! And Happy St. Patrick’s Day! (also lovingly referred to by my Dad as Neve’s Eve because of her March 18th birthday!)