Kiss Me, I'm Irish--No, Really I am Irish!

Yep, true confession time. My affinity for all things Italian is purely environmental, not genetic. I'm channeling Italian ancestors via my Italian sweetie and his dear family.

My own ancestry on boths sides is largely Irish: the Scroggins, the Barretts, the Jacksons, the McMahans, the Shelbys, and so on. The blood is thinned slightly by the English (British) and a line of German, but mostly we have the red hair, the temper and the alcoholism gene of the Irish. Don't make me mad.

That said, I was raised as main-stream American as any kid could be. No one in my family spoke a "mother tongue." No one had an accent of any kind, unless "Country" counts, and when you are in the country, "Country" isn't an accent. We have no "old country" traditions, customs, recipes, or heirlooms. Our traditions are based on making something out of nothing and being self-sustaining--farming, raising cattle, gardening, canning, sewing.

My heritage is mostly of large Protestant Irish families working and living off the land, not in a romantic, Gone With the Wind way, or even a Little House on the Prairie way, but in a poor, hungry way. Think J.R. Cash's family at the beginning of Walk the Line or Loretta Webb's family at the beginning of Coal Miner's Daughter. That's not just Hollywood, folks.

I had the terriffic fortune (Luck of the Irish) to be born to a generation of parents who decided enough was enough, and education was the ticket out. My mom managed to get a college education, have me, and start a career in the up-and-coming Information Age as a data processor. She did it at a time when being a working mother was wildly unpopular. She did it at a time when women's pantsuits were forbidden in the workplace, so guess what? She wore one! At a time when women mostly had "jobs" (which they quit to get married or have a baby) Mom carved out a career. Thanks, Mom!

So today I'm going to be Irish --Sláinte!--and hopefully one day soon I'll get to go to Ireland, and maybe one day I'll start channeling the Irish of my own ancestors. But tomorrow I'm going back to being Italian.