From one of my OLD drawing tablets
I am not sure. Most of my family is of Scotch-Irish descent with a little German, French, Native American and such mixed in, so I consider myself part Irish-though not one of them lived in Ireland after the late 1700s because they had all immigrated to the US. My husband’s family is mostly German with many emigrating after 1820, so it was very interesting to find that he has some Irish in him and not too distant-not going back to the 1700s at least. He thought I was kidding when I told him, but sure enough his German born great-great grandfather married an Irish born lady. Wow! I wonder how that went over. Evidently pretty well; they had at least 7 children before she died.
You don’t have to be Irish to celebrate St Paddy’s Day. You don’t have to be Catholic. And, you don’t have to celebrate with beer and such-I know people who will disagree. We like to celebrate the good things Irish, but we don’t celebrate anything like what happens not far from here where the festivities are one of the biggest in the states. We have never gone because we don’t like huge crowds but I think everyone the world over has been (but us)-that may be an overstatement :). So, whatever your background, from wherever your ancestors came – HAPPY ST PATRICK’S DAY!
Happy Gardening and may you enjoy life’s treasures!
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Garden2day 
My ancestry is very much like yours – a little bit of everything going back a long way. When my sister was in kindergarten during WW II, she had her picture taken with a group of children – each with a name and “Greek”, “Chinese”, “Russian”, etc. My sister’s caption was “Shirley Applegate, American”. We were certainly a melting pot and proud of it.
Lillian
That is such a sweet story, Lillian. I wonder what it felt like for those other children not to be considered Americans-possibly proud of their heritage or did they feel that they didn’t fit in in a time of uncertainity of WWII? No doubt about it, most Irish are very proud people. It was passed down through my family, too. Take care!