Happy St Patrick's Day

Practice Random Acts of Green!

Buy a green book!
Give a green book!
Give a book on green issues!
Enjoy a green book on gardening, nature or flowers!

We're waiting for you in the Friends' Bookstore!

St Patrick's Day

Get Your Green On!

by Helen McIver

A good way to celebrate any holiday is with a good book! Stop into the Friends Bookstore for a wide selection of Celtic books.


St Patrick (born c. 387 in Wales - d 17 March, 493) was a Romano-Briton, brought Christianity to Ireland, and is recognized as a patron saint of Ireland or the Apostle of Ireland. Brigid of Kildare and Colmcille are also formally patron saints.


St. Patrick's Day is the feast day of the man who brought Christianity to Ireland. It is celebrated both in and outside of Ireland, as both a solemn church holiday and especially outside of Ireland, as a celebration of Ireland itself. There will be parades and celebrations in cities all across the world, but the holiday has always been most popular in the United States, especially in cities with large Irish-American populations.In Chicago, they dye the Chicago River green every year. And in New York City, there's a huge parade that goes up Fifth Avenue from 44th Street to 86th Street, past St. Patrick's Cathedral.


Saint Patrick (Latin: Patricius; Primitive Irish: Qatrikias; Old Irish: Cothraige or Coithrige; Middle Irish: Pátraic; Irish: Pádraig;British: *Patrikios; Old Welsh: Patric; Middle Welsh: Padric; Welsh: Padrig; Old English: Patric; ) (St Paddy, if you must use a diminuitive, but never St Patty!)

St Patrick's Day in the Bookstore!

St. Patrick's Day is celebrated on March 17, his religious feast day and the anniversary of his death in the fifth century. For hundreds of years this day was a religious holiday in Ireland. On St. Patrick's Day, which falls during the Christian season of Lent, Irish families would traditionally attend church in the morning and celebrate in the afternoon. Lenten prohibitions against the consumption of meat were waived and people would dance, drink, and feast-on the traditional of Irish bacon (now corned beef) and cabbage.

St. Patrick was born around the year 385 in a village in Wales. When he was sixteen, Irish raiders took many of the young village men back to Ireland as slaves. Patrick worked for six years as a herdsman in the Irish countryside. In his sixth year, he escaped, but soon heard a voice telling him to convert the Irish to Christianity. He spent 12 years in France studying religious texts and visiting numerous monasteries. When Patrick returned to Ireland, he founded monasteries, schools and churches, and converted much of the population to Christianity. He and his workers transformed many pagan rites into Christian traditions.


Wearing of the Green Goes Global-


St. Patrick's Day is celebrated by people of all backgrounds in the United States, Canada, and Australia, as well as further afield in Japan, Singapore, and Russia. The Irish government began a national campaign in 1995 to use St. Patrick's Day as an opportunity to drive tourism and showcase Ireland to the rest of the world. In 2006, nearly a million people took part in Dublin's St. Patrick's Festival, a multi-day celebration featuring parades, concerts, outdoor theater productions, and fireworks shows.


In the United States, the first St. Patrick's Day parade was on March 17, 1762 when Irish soldiers serving in the English military marched through New York City. For the next 35 years, the parade helped the soldiers and immigrants reconnect with their Irish roots, as well as fellow Irishmen serving in the English army. "Irish Aid" societies, like the Friendly Sons of Saint Patrick and the Hibernian Society were formed and each group held annual parades featuring bagpipes and drums (previously popular in the Scottish and British armies).

Irish Literature, St Patrick's Day, James Joyce, Edna O'Brien,William York TIndall

Continuing our Irish theme, for further understanding of James Joyce, you can read several studies by the American (Vermonter) James Joyce scholor and literary critic Willliam York Tindall : particularly A Reader's Guide to James Joyce (1959) and A Reader's Guide to Finnegan's Wake. Tindall traveled to Europe after graduating from Columbia University. In Paris, on June 16, he bought a copy of the notorious book Ulysses, and "went straight to Luxembourg Gardens and read the final chapters, and discovered that it wasn't a dirty book but a fascinating one." He became obsessed with Joyce. When he started teaching a course in modern literature at New York University, he was one of the first to assign Ulysses to his students, although the book was still banned in the U.S. at the time. The students read a bootlegged copy that was chained to a desk in the library. He went on to become president of the James Joyce Society.
One of the best biographies on Joyce is by Edna O’Brien James Joyce (1999).
I think perhaps it takes an Irish to understand an Irish: fresh eye, passionate, stern, but a tribute, with many insights about the individual and his writing. This is the Penguin Lives series, one I hadn’t read in awhile = but loved Carol Shield’s Jane Austen, Peter Gay’s Mozart, Larry McMurtry on Crazy Horse, Karen Armstrong on Buddha and David Quammen on Charles Darwin. The writers are absolutely first rate, nearly obsessed with their chosen subject. I found this series with a $1 paperback (Shield’s on Austen) in the bookstore several years ago. I wondered what else I could learn about Austen, and was astonished with the nuances, the finatics, and the writing style. So, now I have another series to read!! A rather long list.
Fyi, Joyce – matured into a man who was obsessed with home, the usual fate of self imposed exile. I have to tell Robin that some one marked the library’s copy – underlining words they didn’t know. And indeed the first two paragraphs have 15 words most Americans don't know; (but most of them are common in English academics – we decided two were made up! Need the longer version of the OED). I have to erase all the marks in this library book…it is so distracting from reading.

St Patrick's Day, Irish Literature

St Patrick's Day is March 17! Ireland has made a large contribution to world literature, in part because of their strong oral tradition of legends and poetry. I find there to be a great sense of place, a keen power of satire and wit, fascinating detail, and a wonder of nature. Four Irishmen have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature: Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Samuel Beckett and Seamus Heaney.
Perhaps now is time to read some of the wonderful Irish authors: the classics include: Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels, Oliver Goldsmith, Vicar of Wakefield, Frank O'Connor for many wonderful short stories, or Bram Stoker's Dracula (he was born in Dublin!)
Some notable current names include William Trevor, Mauve Binchy, Marian Keyes, Patrick McCabe, Colm Toibin, Sebastian Barry, Claire Keegan and Anne Enright. Enright won the 2007 Booker award for The Gathering. Barry almost won in 2007 for Secret Scripture, but won the Costa Award in 2008. Bainville won in 2005 for The Sea.

I will have additional Irish authors and books later this week!

We have had a display on Home Improvements for a week now (noting that there was the Home Improvements Event at the Mayo Civic Center last weekend). The books and magazines have been selling like hotcakes! We are very fortunate to have some creative volunteers who make our wonderful displays, normally based on donated books or library events. We change our displays twice a month, to refresh the books, replace bookstock and welcome customers.
Soon we will have a lovely display for St Patrick's day, with green books, books (fiction, poetry and nonfiction) on Ireland, the Celts, and great irish literature. And spring can't be far behind!