The Spirit of Our Irish Ancestors Remembered on St. Patrick’s Day

PDX HIBERNIAN INDEPENDENT Volume Two - Number Forty-Six – 13 March 2025 – Saint Patrick’s Day Special Edition 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. Four days until you’ll be saying, “Lá Fhéile Pádraig sona daoibh.” 

WHAT A WAY TO START SAINT PATRICK'S DAY - AT THE CROSS

The March meeting of the Portland Hibernian Society will take place Monday, March 17 10:30 A.M. at The Cross of the Oregon Potato Famine Memorial in Mount Calvary Cemetery. Nothing says Saint Patrick’s Day like a visit with the ancestors. We’ll place a wreath and proclaim with words from the past our indomitable Irishry . There will be no Third Thursday meeting at Kells Restaurant this month.

HIBERNIAN BANQUET - “WE’RE STILL HERE!” 

Five years ago, on March 7 , 2020, what was then the E.H. Deery Division of the Ancient Order of Hibernians hosted its annual Saint Patrick’s Day Banquet upstairs at Kells. A couple of days later, Covid crashed the party; utterly changing everything, it seems. So it was with a resilient spirit that what is now the Portland Hibernian Society (Provisional AOH) brought friends and families together for the BEST HIBERNIAN BANQUET EVER on March 8. The generosity of those who attended was exceptional, allowing us to purchase a fine wreath to place at The Cross on Saint Patrick’s Day. Check out a few photos from the proceedings. 

FINALLY. A FAMINE MEMORIAL FOR SAN FRANCISCO

Since 1990 there’s been a surge of interest in constructing memorials in America to the victims of An Gorta Mor – The Great Hunger in Ireland. Portland’s is one of many such memorials and the only major Famine Memorial west of the Mississippi. That may not be the case much longer. San Francisco seems to be on track to fund and build the San Francisco Irish Great Famine Memorial Plaza. The location is in the northwest corner of the City and will initially be a plaza overlooking the 17th hole (par 3) of the Lincoln Park Golf Course. “The view of the blue waters of San Francisco Bay set against the green Marin Headlands “capture the spirit of the Irish coast,” reports the San Francisco Chronicle. On April 2, the concept and design of the plaza will move to the Rec and Park capital committee for approval. The PDX HI will have continuing coverage of this story. 

Future site of the San Francisco Irish Great Famine Memorial Plaza at Lincoln Park Golf Course.

TRUMP AND THE TAOISEACH SPAR IN THE OVAL OFFICE 

Common ground was found when Taoiseach Micheál Martin and President Trump finally met in the Oval Office Wednesday 3.12. What brought the two sides together? Sport. "I love Rory Mcilroy. He’s a very talented person," Trump said of Ireland’s greatest golfer. Trump also expressed his admiration for the infamous former MMA fighter Conor McGregor, saying he is "great" and "has got the best tattoos I've ever seen". Speaking of fighters, someone on Trump’s staff dug up the fact that Taoiseach Micheal Martin’s da was a topflight boxer in Ireland. "I think your father was a great fighter?" he turned and asked the Taoiseach with genuine interest. "He was. You’re dead right," said Martin. “A very good defensive boxer,” was the Taoiseach’s assessment of his own father’s pugilistic style. (He might have been referring to his own rules of engagement with Trump.) "Genetically, I’m not going to mess around with you," Mr. Trump jested. Martin gave away his strategy before he got to Washington D.C., "Hold the nerve, this is a period we've got to navigate." Some blow by blow from The Irish Times and RTE. Definition of spar: to practice boxing without hitting hard, to argue. 

How many Taoisigh can you name?

SAINT PATRICK’S DAY IN PORTLAND - PLACES TO GO AND THINGS TO DO  

KELLS OF COURSE – Back in the Eighth Decade of the Twentieth Century, Saint Patrick’s Day in Portland meant Bill McCormick pitching a big tent outside Jake’s, rowdy Irish music at the Dublin Pub, Irish dancers at the AICS and Weinhard’s Pale Ale for its green bottles. If you lived on Guinness back then you’d die of thirst. AND THERE WAS NO KELLS ON SW FIRST. That was then and this is now. From Friday evening March 14 until Monday night March 17 Kells downtown and Kells Brewery on NW 21st can meet any needs you might have for celebrating the Feast of Saint Patrick.   

TC O’LEARY’S - Fast forward to the days before Covid and all of a sudden, the east side of Portland is blessed with Tom O’Leary’s “Little Irish Pub.” The year-round Irish vibe intensifies this time of year. Whether it’s Six Nations Rugby first thing Saturday morning, “fairy hair” on Sunday or Irish coffee at seven a.m. on Saint Patrick's Day, there will be plenty of action on NE Alberta.

AICS – Save some energy for the longest-running March 17 celebration in Portland. It has been hosted by the All Ireland Cultural Society since 1941. Really. Pipes and drums and dancers and plentiful food and drink are featured in the type of festive setting you’d find at a parish party. There’s also the annual Shamrock Cruise and a month worth of Irish entertainment from S and A Productions.  

It's going to be a long weekend. Don't make it a lost weekend.

REAL IRISH SODA BREAD 

Lots of things in an Irish life are complicated. But not Irish Soda Bread. Flour. Baking Soda. Salt. Buttermilk. Those are your basic ingredients. Created in Ireland in the middle of the 19th Century, it was known as “quick bread” because there’s no need to knead the dough, or “scones”, which is what a loaf cut in four produced. There’s lots that can be added to the basic four ingredients listed above. In fact, there could be as many different recipes for Irish Soda Bread as there are readers of this newsletter. And you don’t need the PDX HI to tell you where to look on the internet for recipes and such. Though this isn't a bad place to start. If it’s store-bought ISB you’re looking for here in Greater Portland, here you go: 

Trader Joe’s Blarney Scone is a round loaf with the traditional ingredients plus raisins caraway seeds and some sugar. Best Value. 

Fred Meyers’ Irish Soda Bread says Hearty & Authentic on the label. It is neither. Too much sugar. 

Grand Central Baking offers a scone size St. Patrick's Day Irish Soda Bread and the full round loaf. Best in class but pricey. 

New Seasons used to bake its mid-March offering in-house but now purchases Irish Soda Bread in big, heavy round loaves from Dos Hermanos Bakery on SE Stark. Great origin story. 

SAINT PATRICK WAS NOT A PROTESTANT  

Disregard and disrespect for the truth are not new developments in the sphere of human affairs. Liars have been lying for centuries. It was towards the end of the 1800s, “during the Gaelic revival and intense interest in Ireland’s Celtic past, various Protestant intellectuals and churchmen studied Irish as part of their quest to prove that St Patrick was a Protestant.” They made the argument that Catholicism only came to Ireland in the Twelfth Century and since Patrick lived in the Fifth Century, he couldn't have been Catholic. Wrong. That's a cockeyed notion that debunked here. "Any claims from the disgruntled that Patrick was not Catholic are just blarney." Never missing a chance to stir up some sectarian venom, one Loyalist leader in Belfast jumped in to practically claim St. Patrick as an Orangeman. Unionist politician Ian Paisley once told RTÉ News that he knew St Patrick was a Protestant, and that St Patrick's Day should be a national holiday in Northern Ireland. If you asked a bunch of grade schoolers in Ireland back in the mid-1970s who Saint Patrick was, they'd tell you “Saint Patrick was a gentleman," Lá Fhéile Pádraig sona daoibh.

MONDAY 17 MARCH - WORDS ON THE WIND AT MOUNT CALVARY 

Strong wind there may well be. And rain. At Mount Calvary this coming Monday March 17 as the Portland Hibernian Society takes some time at 10:30 A.M. on Saint Patrick's Day to remember how we Irish got here. It was on Saint Patrick's Day in 1964 that Robert F. Kennedy spoke publicly for the first time since his brother John was assassinated. Hibernian Tom Markgraf will share some of that speech to the Friendly Sons of Saint Patrick in Scranton, PA.

"In Ireland they are celebrating this day in freedom and liberty. But you and I know that life was not always this good for the Irish, either back in the old country or here in America.

There was, for example, that black day in February 1847 when it was announced in the House of Commons that fifteen thousand people a day were dying of starvation in Ireland . . .

So the Irish left Ireland. Many of them came here to the United States. They left behind hearts and fields and a nation yearning to be free. It is no wonder that James Joyce described the Atlantic as a bowl of bitter tears, and an earlier poet wrote, “They are going, going, going, and we cannot bid them stay.”

Robert Francis Kennedy - 17 March, 1964

13 March 2025