1/2 irish

stock photo of less lucky three leaf clovers

Today is St. Patricks day, and as I write this thousands if not millions of people are going wild in a bar and claiming to be Irish.  On March 17th everyone is Irish just in the same way that when you learn about the Native Americans in elementary school every kid in the class is at least 1/32 Native American.

For years I “celebrated” St. Patricks day knowing that I was half Irish.  Both of my Grandfathers were Irish, the Stuart’s and the Ghormley’s.  I insisted that I always wore green and let everyone know that I was Irish and proud.

Both of my Grandmothers were German, so after watching the Godfather I was proud to say that I was German/Irish “just like Tom Hagen in the Godfather.”  It wasn’t anything exciting and no one ever asked to know more about my heritage and honestly if they did I couldn’t have told them.  Neither German nor Irish culture was present in my family growing up, and I didn’t have any family member who was directly from either country.

My Grandpa on my Mom’s side and my Grandma on my Dad’s side were both Canadian and retained dual citizenship until their death.  In a way one could say that I am half Canadian which means about as much as saying your Irish on St. Patricks day, when your not actually from Ireland.

A few weeks ago while having dinner at my Mom’s house she told me about some exciting news she’d learned from a family member who was doing some genealogy.  She told me that while we had always thought that my Grandmothers family the Kuhlmen’s had been from Germany a discovery was made that this was not true.

She left me hanging for a moment and I imagined that I had something truly interesting in my blood, something exotic, spicy, swarthy, or romantic.  As it turns out it was none of those, because the Kuhlman’s were from Switzerland.

Just when I thought that I couldn’t get any whiter, I did.  I wanted to believe that there was something less white in me so that I could say that I was one sixth Greek, or Spanish, or Italian.  Now I’m just 1/4 Swiss.

I’m still 1/2 Irish and on a day that I’m reminded of my heritage no matter how far removed from me it is, I am also reminded of the 1/4 Swiss in me.  So you know what?  Who cares if your not Irish, drink up to that widely accepted racist stereotype!  All Irish are drunks!