Here I sit at my dining room table this St. Patrick’s Day evening, sipping a lovely Irish cider and doing my utmost to feel as Irish as possible. Devoid of green clothing and anything resembling a shamrock, I feel I may be failing…
In place of a live Irish band, I am jittering in my chair to Mumford & Sons, who, let’s face it, are just as good. Everyone knows that a fiddle is the key to a good St. Patrick’s Day celebration!
My husband is playing at an Irish pub tonight and I, for lack of a pub-mate, am nerding it up at home, taking full advantage of ancestry.ca’s free access to Irish records. I wish to tell you that my evening has been successful, that I have solved a mystery and found a long lost relative, but each of these is a devastating untruth.
I have entered and re-entered known and far-reaching dates to no avail. I have brainstormed alternative spellings to given names and surnames, ports of arrival and departure, and every other detail I can imagine. What am I doing wrong?!?! Perhaps a bowl of popcorn will make this all better. Popcorn and cider you ask? An odd combination to be sure, but let’s not be too quick to judge.
Yes, just as I thought. Magnificent!
Okay, one final vent… I love the Irish, but if the Public Records Office had survived the Easter Uprising of 1913 I don’t think I would be facing so many unanswered questions. It’s an odd juxtaposition (ironic, really) that in fighting for Ireland’s sovereignty and unity, the very records that held the country’s collective history were effectively destroyed. Perhaps there was no going back after the conflagration- the recorded past had been destroyed and nothing could or would ever be the same again.
I find myself considering the emotions that St. Patrick’s Day evoked in my ancestors. Both Thomas Shaw and Isabella Jordan lived in Ulster and were Protestant in faith. If this statement is true, St. Patrick’s Day has little connection to the inherent Irishness of the Shaw or Jordan families; however, part of me also wonders if the religious associations that once defined St. Patrick’s Day began to change for the Irish living in North America. Perhaps they needed a day to remember family and friends back home…
I will never know if this was the case for the Shaws who settled in Collingwood Township, but I will continue to be proud of my Irish heritage on this day, and all days, and share the stories of the early Shaws who left the Emerald Isle in search of the promising future they found in Canada.
May the luck of the Irish be with you in all that you do!
The Shawking Facts 