A beautiful sunrise to greet St. Patrick's day!
Top o' the mornin' to you!
The small but mighty group was awash in green with our president looking quite jaunty in cap and sweater of green!
Although unbeknownst to us the best leprechaun was yet to come.
Meeting opened with Rene on anthem, Dave Beckett- are you happy Bernie H?-gave a lovely toast then Peter Thoem gave us the history of the 4 way test- it came from the crash of the markets in the 30's.
Our guests included our guest speaker- Malachy Burn and I think that was it.
Dave Beckett and Catherine shared stories of their Irish roots to set the mood.
Who knew we had our own real live leprechaun in the house? Amazing what 15.00 at Dollerama buys! Not a dry eye in the house- tears of laughter mind you! Dimitri was nailed for his hat as was Richard with is green laces
Catherine and Kathy Thomas filled the sergeants coffers by bidding on 2 Irish rugby shirts- wore mine all day! Love it!
Happy dollars:
Johanna is welcoming her 5th grand child – Mary Kathleen- doesn't get more Irish than that!
Bryce entertained us with a wonderful Irish ditty- a great lead in to our guest speaker introduced by Peter Thoem.
Malachy came to Canada on his honeymoon in 1970 and decided to stay. He worked in construction for many years and has been a woodworking teacher for 30 years.
He gave us a rambling and detailed account of the life of St. Patrick which was admittedly more folklore based that fact based!
He hails from either Wales or the southern corner of England or New France. He wrote in Latin which hedges the bets to New France. He was kidnapped by the Celts who were in control of the West Isles and was sold as a slave in Northern Ireland. He tended pigs and goats for a farmer during his indentured time. He clung to his Christian upbringing- his father was a priest- to get thorough those years. He subsequently escaped at the age of 22 and traveled over 200 miles to return home. He became a priest at home and returned to Ireland in 432. He is credited with creating and building over 300 monasteries and started the first written history of religion Ireland. Goats figured closely in his thoughts and dreams. There is no evidence of snakes in Ireland but he had a good tree trick. And this is a direct quote- he convinced the Irish that he could turn a walking stick into a tree because the Irish were so dense. Nice. He seemed to be fond of the blarney- once building a larger celebratory bonfire than the King and after being caught explained that it was a Pascal fire that only he could put out. He introduced the symbol of the shamrock by explaining that the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost were all represented in it's leaves . Malachy's closing remarks eluded to the fact that Ireland owes much of its greatness to one young man 1574 years ago today.
Lawrence thanked "Malarchy"- really he did- hopefully he didn't notice – for an incitful look into St. Patrick.
For those of you who would like a little more info follow this link!
Erin go bragh!
CB
