THE GREEN MACHINE
St. Patrick, Ireland’s patron saint who is credited with bringing Christianity to the Irish people, lived during the 5th century (AD 385-461). Born in Roman Britain to a wealthy Christian family (his grandfather was a priest and his father a deacon), he was kidnapped by Irish raiders and brought to Gaelic Ireland as a slave at age 16. There he spent six years as a shepherd before a religious vision led him to escape. He returned to Ireland around 432 determined to convert the pagan Irish; he established monasteries, churches and schools. Legend holds that he explained the Holy Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Ghost) using the three leaves of the shamrock, a native Irish clover. His efforts against the druids were eventually turned into an allegory in which he drove the “snakes” out of Ireland. St. Patrick is believed to have died March 17, 461.
In Gaelic Ireland, cows were sacred animals valued for their strength in the fields and for their milk and the dairy foods they enabled. While pork was raised to provide fresh meat, beef was not part of the diet of the majority of the population. The English, of course, had been beef eaters since Roman times and, after they conquered Ireland, they confiscated farmland and repurposed it to graze cattle and satisfy the well-fed English aristocracy and middle class. Beef was preserved by salting and the English coined the term “corned beef” in the 17th century to reflect the salt crystals, roughly the size of corn kernels, used to cure the meat. The Irish were relegated to less arable land where little except the potato, a new world vegetable also introduced to Ireland by the English, would grow. Potatoes became an Irish staple, in many cases the only solid food available to the Irish under English rule (see a short history of the potato).
By 1845 a potato blight reached Ireland that destroyed the food source for most of the population and resulted in the Great Famine. About a million Irish died and more immigrated on coffin ships — so named because of the number of passengers who died on the crossing — to America, where they settled mainly in urban areas, with the largest numbers in New York City. Until the mid 19th century most Irish immigrants to America were middle class Protestants, but when the famine struck, about one million poor and uneducated Irish Catholics poured into America to escape starvation. They were met with racial stereotyping and prejudice by the Protestant majority who disliked their alien religious beliefs and unfamiliar accents.
Despite the prejudice they encountered in America, the Irish could still earn more than they had in their homeland under English rule. With more money for food, the Irish could afford meat for the first time. But instead of their beloved bacon, the Irish began eating beef and often bought their beef from neighboring kosher butchers; what we think of today as Irish corned beef is in fact Jewish corned beef made from brisket, a kosher cut of meat from the front of the cow, cooked by the Irish with cabbage and potatoes. Both groups had experienced oppression, been forced to scatter world wide from lost homelands, and faced discrimination in their new homes. It is not a coincidence that James Joyce made the main character of his masterpiece, Ulysses, Leopold Bloom, a man born to Jewish and Irish parents.
St. Patrick’s Day began as an official Christian Feast Day observed annually on March 17. Since it was a religious holiday, and one that fell during the Christian season of Lent, Irish families traditionally attended church in the morning and celebrated in the afternoon. Lenten prohibitions against the consumption of meat and alcohol were lifted for the occasion, allowing people to dance, drink and feast on the traditional meal of Irish bacon and cabbage.
Over time, the holiday expanded to become a secular celebration of Irish culture and the Irish people, especially for those Irish who immigrated to other parts of the world. Boston claims to have held a St. Patrick’s Day parade in 1737, followed by a parade held in 1762 in New York City by Irish soldiers serving in the English military. Over the next decades, Irish patriotism among American immigrants flourished, and Irish Aid societies like the Hibernian Society and the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick held annual parades with bagpipes and drums. In 1848, the New York City parades were merged into one official St. Patrick’s Day Parade, now the world’s oldest civilian parade and the largest in the United States.
But as their numbers grew, Irish Americans came to realize that, if organized, their votes could bring political power, especially in urban areas where their numbers were greatest. Their voting block, known as the “green machine,” became a crucial swing vote for political hopefuls. Parade participation became a necessity for politicians including, in 1948 for the first time, the President of the United States, then Harry S. Truman. And St. Patrick’s Day accompanied the Irish as they moved to other American cities. Since 1962, Chicago has colored its river green in honor of St. Patrick’s Day. That year, city pollution control workers used dyes to trace illegal sewage discharges and realized that green dye might provide a unique way to celebrate the holiday. They released 100 pounds of green vegetable dye – enough to keep the river green for a week (today only 40 pounds are used, and the river turns green for just a few hours).
Although widely celebrated by the Irish diaspora around the world (including the United Kingdom, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Australia and New Zealand, to name a few), parades did not spread to Ireland until the late 20th century, and then as an effort to increase tourism. St. Patrick’s Day remained a religious holiday in Ireland until the 1970s, and Irish law mandated that pubs be closed on March 17th. Beginning in 1995 the Irish government began a national campaign to use interest in St. Patrick’s Day to drive tourism and showcase Ireland and Irish culture to the rest of the world. Dublin now hosts an annual St. Patrick’s Festival that features parades, concerts, outdoor theater productions and fireworks.
Corned beef and cabbage now is considered an Irish-American dish because it originated among Irish immigrants, particularly in New York City, who combined the corned beef readily available from nearby kosher butchers with cabbage. It is not a dish eaten widely in Ireland today; lamb is more common there than beef or pork on St. Paddy’s Day. But corned beef is ubiquitous on St. Patrick’s Day in the United States.
MENU: AN IRISH AMERICAN ST. PATRICK’S DAY DINNER
