Here, there, everywhere on St. Patrick’s Day
PDX HIBERNIAN INDEPENDENT Volume Two - Number Forty-Seven – 20 March 2025
More than an email. Less than a newspaper. Delivered early on the first and third Thursday morning of every month.
Published by The Portland Hibernian Society.
A chara. There are 362 days until Saint Patrick’s Day 2026. Today is the first day of Spring 2025.
ELEVATING IRISH RESILIENCE AND HONORING IRELAND'S PATRON SAINT
“Tis I’ll be here in sunshine or in shadow.” Sung by a loved one to Danny Boy, that line could have applied to the dozens who showed up Monday, March 17 at the Oregon Potato Famine Memorial to celebrate Saint Patrick and commemorate An Gorta Mor – the Great Hunger. Deeply overcast (in shadow) when we arrived, the clouds cleared (in sunshine) midway through our tribute to Irish resilience. “Ye’ll come and find the place where I am lying and kneel and say an Ave there for me.” Photos from our gathering. SAVE THE DATE: Tuesday, March 17, 2026. 10:30A.M. We’ll meet at The Cross at Mount Calvary.
Members of the Portland Hibernian Society and friends dressed for the weather on St. Patrick's Day at Mt. Calvary Cemetery then basked in the sunshine.
SNAP SHOTS FROM HERE, THERE AND EVERYWHERE ON MARCH 17
It’s almost like we travelled to celebrations all over Ireland – Dublin, Cork, Belfast, Tullamore, Galway, Limerick, Armagh, Maynooth and Daingean Uí Chúis (A Gaeltacht town in West Kerry) - and brought back these snap shots (compliments of RTE). Then we got a look at goings on in London, Montreal, Washington D.C., Del Ray and Ponte Vedra Beach FLA, Savannah GA, Eastchester and Tarrytown N.Y. and Springfield IL from USA Today https://www.usatoday.com/picture-gallery/news/world/2025/03/17/st-patricks-day-2025-celebration-parade-photos/82496288007/
St. Patrick's Day in Dublin. Nice sweater!
BREAKING NEWS – OREGON-IRELAND SISTER STATE BILL ADVANCES
Oregon may be lacking any Sister City set-ups with Ireland (example: Seattle-Galway, San Francisco-Cork, San Jose-Dublin), but there’s a good shot at striking a Sister State relationship with the whole country. SB 961, which would create the Oregon-Ireland Sister State Committee, won approval from the first committee in the Oregon Legislature to consider it. With luck and lobbying SB 961 will have a hearing in May. The PDX HI will have information about which legislators in Salem to contact in future editions.
WHITE HOUSE “COULDN’T THINK OF A BETTER GUEST ON ST. PATRICK’S DAY”
There’s no longer any such thing as a “slow news day” in Washington D.C. So, you may have missed the news from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Monday while you were celebrating Ireland’s patron saint. “It’s high time that America is made aware of what is going on in Ireland,” said Dublin native Conor McGregor, a retired martial arts-style fighter with a record of reported bad behaviour as long as both his tattooed arms. WHITE HOUSE CELEBRATES SAINT PADDY’S DAY WITH FIGHTER FOUND GUILTY OF CIVIL RAPE read the 42-point headline in Rolling Stone. March 17 is traditionally the day the media pays more attention to Ireland than usual. “Irish Americans need to hear this. There will be no place to come home and visit. The country is losing its Irishness,” he said from the podium in the White House Briefing Room. The Guardian had the official push back, The apparently off-the-cuff comments were immediately condemned by Micheál Martin, the taoiseach. “Conor McGregor’s remarks are wrong, and do not reflect the spirit of St Patrick’s Day, or the views of the people of Ireland,” the Irish prime minister (Taoiseach) said on X. “St Patrick’s Day around the world is a day rooted in community, humanity, friendship and fellowship.” Not only that, Ireland's Association of Catholic Priests was livid. Fox News carried McGregor’s comments live. He’s supposedly considering running for President of Ireland in November. With the backing of Elon Musk.
Left to Right. Dee Devlin, McGregor's partner, with their four wee ones, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, unknown, and Conor McGregor in the Oval Office.
PINTS OF GUINNESS 51 CENTS
The Dubliner is an Irish bar in Washington D.C. Green beer on March 17? No. Cheap Guinness? Yes. A pint would cost you just two quarters and a penny BUT ONLY BETWEEN 9 A.M. AND 10 A.M. ON SAINT PATRICK’S DAY. Why 51 cents? Something to do with the Canada discussion? A reference to Ireland as the 51st of the United States? The PDX HI isn’t sure but will look into it.
BRITS DEEP SIX MAKING SAINT PATRICK’S DAY A NATIONAL HOLIDAY
They are called Bank Holidays: somewhat random national holidays in the UK and Ireland, that often fall on Mondays. A proposal to make March 17 a Bank Holiday, as it is in Ireland and Northern Ireland, failed recently.
"IRELAND'S LEADER SURVIVES SAINT PATRICK'S DAY; WAS NOT ASKED TO PERFORM LUCKY CHARMS LEPRECHAUN JIG"
It seems like it was weeks ago that Taoiseach Martin was Trump’s guest in the Oval Office. It was one week ago.(See PDX HI of March 13) No news out of that meeting – no Zelensky-style tag team tactics – was good news for a worried nation wondering what’s in store for them. Andrew O’Hehir has an interesting piece in Salon. “...the Irish economy has become far too dependent on high-tech and pharmaceutical exports to the U.S. and is almost uniquely vulnerable to Trumpian tariffs. Martin’s measured, deferential, responsible-adult performance — in his previous career he was a teacher — was understood back home as critical to the nation’s future.”
TRUMP’S TARIFFS: IRISH WHISKEY WORLD IS WORRIED. HOW MUCH FOR A FIFTH?
Some back-of-the-cocktail-napkin math when it comes to the latest proposed US tariffs on spirits from Europe might give you sticker shock. The Associated Press reported that with the 200% tariff, a previously untariffed $15 bottle of Proseco would jump to $45 should the 200% tariff be imposed. Apply just a portion of that 200% to Irish whiskey and you’re looking at switching to Kentucky bourbon. Which is why the good people of Middleton in County Cork might be keeping one eye on reports like this one. As a Cork TD (Representative), Taoiseach Martin will be well aware of the huge damage the tariffs could do to one of Cork's biggest exports - Midleton's Jameson whiskey. Jameson employs 800 people at its six distillery sites in Co. Cork. Its market share of the $1 billion US market for Irish whiskey is close to 75%. Here in Oregon, word is that even with higher tariffs, the OLCC has a two-month supply of Jamesons and Paddys etc. So, no need to stockpile. Yet.
CORRIB THEATER - FROM IRELAND WITH LAUGHS
For one night only in Portland – April 28 – Irish performer Tom Moran will tell some lies. Actually, if this piece is any indication he’ll be talking about telling lies. In his own words via RTE. “All of us lie. We just pretend that we don't. And while this show doesn't necessarily endorse telling lies, it doesn't demonise lying either. I think that's why lying feels so exciting. As a topic, it's taboo. We don't talk about it, really. And even when we do, we demonise it often. But rarely is lying black and white. So, in my show, Tom Moran is a Big Fat Filthy Disgusting Liar (and sadly for my Mam, yes, that really is its name) it's about my relationship with lying as a child and how it's evolved as an adult.” You may as well book your seats now. It’s one night only after all.
RORY MC ILROY AT THE TOP OF HIS GAME THREE WEEKS BEFORE MASTERS
"I'm unbelievably proud and happy to win my second Players Championship. It's the third time I've won on St Patrick's Day, so it's been a good luck charm for me." Rory McIlroy, the greatest golfer ever to come from Ireland, had notched his play-off win Monday morning just as Saint Patrick's Day festivities were getting underway here on the West Coast. Rory’s greatness is such that hole-by-hole coverage of his win took a back seat to coverage of his love life in the tabloids. The Masters begins Thursday April 10. Rory’s not won a major golf tournament in a very long time.
Rory McIlroy and his wife Erica Stoll.
SOME SUPER CUTE IRISH SCHOOL KIDS FROM THE 1970S
A busted link in the Saint Patrick’s Day issue of the PDX HI deprived valued readers of this segment from RTE archives. So here’s a make-good. Kids in Ireland talking about Saint Patrick the Missionary.
WHEN RFK CAME TO OREGON AND LOST AN ELECTION
SAVE THE DATE. April 17. Portland Hibernian Society Third Thursday Meeting at Kells Restaurant on SW Second. TOPIC: RFK in Oregon. How Bobby Kennedy came and saw Oregon. But didn’t conquer Eugene McCarthy in the 1968 Primary. PRESENTER: Tom Markgraf. Dinner at Kells Restaurant 6 P.M. Talk 6:45 P.M. (Please note earlier start time.)
MARCH 17, 1964. RFK speech to the Friendly Sons of Saint Patrick in Scranton, PA. His first speech since November 22, 1963.
"Indeed, Ireland’s chief export has been neither potatoes nor linen but exiles and immigrants who have fought with sword and pen for freedom around the earth . . .
So on this St. Patrick’s evening, let me urge you one final time to recall the heritage of the Irish. Let us hold out our hands to those who struggle for freedom today— at home and abroad— as Ireland struggled for a thousand years."
RFK with some Friendly Sons of Saint Patrick on March 17, 1964 in Stanton, PA.