McGinty

Well, if I'm not very much mistaken it is St. Patrick's day today. Difficult to ignore here really, they even have special green beer to celebrate. Bizarre, bizarre. St. Paddy would turn in his grave. After being taken to Ireland as a slave from England or Wales, then escaping, returning home and entering the priesthood he went back to Ireland to bring them Christianity and arguably the start of all their troubles, although that may be from reading Edward Rutherford the writer and historian who depicts Ireland as being fairly comfortable with their religious practices pre-conversion.
He was accused of driving the snakes from the Emerald Isle (St. Pat, not Ed Rutherford)- presumably he had some proxy to drive them out of New Zealand - then died, fortunately without any of the horrible martyring Saints freqently had to suffer, so he must be perplexed at the strange goings on in his name.

And why is St. Paddy the Saint of choice? I mean, possibly a Welshman, just like St. David, not to mention a Bishop just like St. David, but I was a lone daff wearer on March the first.

Ok, true there are a lot of Irish folk here, but then there are a lot of Scots and no-one even mentions St. Andrews day, although maybe that's because they think the Rabbi Burns is their patron saint.

I guess it's because the Irish are notorious carousers and drinkers, despite St. Pat's best efforts. That kind of appeals to most people.

However. On 'Life on Mars' this week, the theme was Irish, and realistic too, because I remember this time. The story was that a car bomb had gone off, but it had been blown up with dynamite and although the IRA were immediately and universally blamed, Sam knew his history and knew that the IRA weren't using either dynamite, nor Semtex at this point. The 1973 squad wanted everyone in the phonebook whose name began with O' questioned and eventually they brought in a man called Patrick O'Brien.
Now this kind of thing really happened in the seventies, everyone with an Irish name or accent was suspect.
Pat O'Brien gave up the name of someone he said was responsible, Paddy McGinty and got a good kicking for it. Of course it turned out to be, exactly as Sam Tyler had said, not an Irishman at all. And I had to explain Paddy McGinty to Kevin. I can only remember two verses, but they pretty much say it.

'Now Patrick McGinty, an Irishman of note,
Fell in for a fortune and bought himself a goat,
Says he, 'Sure of goat's milk I'm going to have me fill,'
But when he brought the nanny home he found it was a bill,
All the young ladies who live in Killaloo,
Are all wearing bustles like their mothers used to do,
They each wear a bolster beneath their petticoat
And they leave the rest to Providence and Paddy McGinty's goat.

Now Auld Paddy's goat had a wondrous appetite,
And one day for breakfast he had some dynamite,
A big box of matches he swallowed all serene,
And then he went and swallowed up a quart of parrafeen,
He sat by the fireside, he didn't give a hang,
He swallowed a spark and exploded with a bang,
So if you go to Heaven you can bet a dollar note
That the angel with the whiskers on is Paddy McGinty's goat.'