Yes, I'm wearing the Green today, in honor of my ancestors with long-ago roots in Ireland. They left the known for the unknown in 1730, when this country was still great stretches of unbroken green, wild and untrod, and those steps were taken on Faith and pure Grit. I'd rather claim those hard-working, hardscrabble farmers, leaving those smoky, humble crofts and taking only their hope and their callused hands to a new land, than anyone's born-to-the-manor family line.
And I
just discovered the most remarkable thing today, from just a tiny mention in
Donna’s blog "GATHER. I hadn’t known that the
people of the Choctaw Nation, having just undergone the tragic cruelty of The
Trail of Tears in their “banishment” to Oklahoma
in 1831, reached out from their kind, empathetic hearts to the people of Ireland. Less than two decades after their
deprivation and loss beyond imagining, those impoverished people, so
devastatingly needy themselves, gathered up and sent $170.00 in 1847, to help
the starving people in Ireland.
MY
Choctaw ancestors gave a Love Gift to strangers, and though my own Irish
relatives had already left Ireland
for America,
that money helped to nourish and sustain Blood of My Blood. What a stunning, exhilaratingly
heart-searing thought!
In Keats' A Thing Of Beauty, the first line is widely quoted, often used, and most likely the only part remembered by most folks. But the last---Ahhh, the Last. It stands beautiful head and shoulders above any lines which come before:
I send my herald thought into a wilderness:
There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress
My uncertain path with green, that I may speed
Easily onward, through flowers and weed.
I’m
joining the group at Kathleen’s Cuisine today, for all the GREENS.
I hope I can go visit Ireland one day. My first child I named Erin. I hear it is gorgeous.
ReplyDeleteHappy St. Patrick's Day
ReplyDeletewww.rsrue.blogspot.com
Happy St. Patrick's Day, visiting from Kathleen's crawl. I very much enjoyed your post with this bit of history of the Irish people. My Dad's ancestors were working people, and came to America in the early 1770s not for religious reasons, but for economic opportunities.
ReplyDeleteRita C at Panoply
Visiting from Cuisine Kathleen...I also have a daughter with an Irish name...Erin...she has green eyes, too.
ReplyDeleteWishing you a wonderful weekend.
Very interesting! So many do not know the history of the Irish and their suffering . I didn't know that about the Choctaw. Thanks for joining in the blog crawl! I hope you enjoyed visiting the others too!
ReplyDeleteHello Rachael, I didn't do a St. Patrick's Day post and after seeing your dear post I am sorry. Busy week and it sneaked up on me. I didn't even cook my usual corned beef dinner.
ReplyDeleteGarden club stuff has kept me very busy. I put together our 'yearbooks' for our 58 members and the brochures we need for the Chamber of Commerce and the Library. We print them on our printer and the brochures are a tri-fold with printing on both sides. Huge projects but I love doing them. Today I am printing our own garden club plant sale flyers for our annual plant sale in early May. We need 100 to pass our to the businesses etc. a week before the sale. They have to be ready for the April meeting. Sigh!
After that project I am trying hard to visit every one who links to Blue Monday. I am really enjoying doing this for Sally. I wish I could tell her. Maybe she knows.
I visited your previous post and I loved that post so much. I am so glad we are friends because you just plain 'rock' (some slang for you) HA! in so many ways. One day we must meet my dear sweet friend.
Much love,
Jeanne
That was a neat post my friend! I am very curious what that pretty green picture is? What do you have planned this week and has it warmed up there yet? Do you like to garden?
ReplyDeleteLovely story. That is an amazing lesson that I hear over and over. Those with the least often give so much more proportionately.
ReplyDelete