St. Patrick's Day

Guest Post
By Dan Donnelly

St. Patrick's Day was always special at our house growing up. When I was young,  Waseca, Minnesota had an annual St. Patrick's  Day parade and we would always march in it with our grandparents. A special sign was made by my uncle Tim that had O'Leary, Callahan, and Donnelly on it with Celtic drawings. I have a picture of myself holding the sign when I was eight. I found the sign again in my mid-twenties, after I moved back to my grandparent's farm, stashed in the pump house, not nice enough to be in the house, but too sentimental to throw away.

One year my grandparent's were crowned Mr. and Mrs. Emerald Isle of the Waseca parade. This was the equivalent of being the homecoming king and queen of the event. It was a big deal. My grandfather, Bob O'Leary,  was very happy. My grandpa wore a green velvet hat and robe, and my grandma Mary Ellen wore a green cape and a crown. They truly enjoyed being Irish, and so did we. After they were crowned we ate Mulligan stew, which is really not that good, and we paraded down main street, which in Waseca, is really not that big.

The last twenty years I have attended a St. Patrick's Day party at long time family friend Jimmy McDermott's house near the edge of Austin. Jimmy has a core group of old friends who show up with their Christmas trees and have a bonfire. Depending on the number of trees it can be a pretty serious event.

One St. Patrick's Day I was in trial, at the end of the day Judge Wellmann asked me what I was doing that night.  I told him I was going to McDermott's. His eyes lit up and he said that he had attended a bachelor party there many years before while he was a county attorney. He said it was an outrageous party and he had seen things and had been offered things that he had never seen before. I invited him to come along, he declined with a smile.

 After work I stopped and bought a bottle of Jameson whiskey and went out to McDermott's with my tree. Unlike this year, there was still snow. I helped Little Jimmy shovel from around the fire pit so we could burn the trees. We started a roaring fire, we sipped whiskey and Guinness, and told stories near the row of old Volkswagen vans.

Around eight-thirty I was getting ready to go home, and then...... the leprechaun showed up, dressed in dingy green, broad grin, scraggily beard, red face, happy as can be.

Tom Donnelly

he had been partying since early afternoon. This was his day, he had dug in the morning and ended up in Geneva, where they would not let him pay for a drink. Always loyal, he had driven his dump truck to Austin to McDermott's party.  I took one look at him and laughed and shook my head. I told him you better spend the night. He smiled and nodded. I drove the back way out of Austin and crept to my home in Bancroft.

Eight a.m. the next morning. I was at my desk. The phone rang. It was a County Attorney. I answered.

" Hello"

"Hey, it's Eric"

"What's going on?"

"Do you have a relative from Blooming Prairie?"

"Yes, my dad."

"Is his name Tom"

"Yes"

"Damn, we got him last night!"

"Ohhhh, I told him not to drive."


I went and saw the leprechaun, no longer in green, but orange, and with a Baaaaad hangover.

"What happened?"

" I went in the ditch"

"When did you leave the party? "

"10:30"

"Why does the police report say you were picked up at 2 a.m?"

"What?"

" You must have been in the ditch a long time."

The next day my friend Jay Sullivan called.

"Did you have a good St. Patrick's Day?"

"Yes, I went to McDermott's, my dad got in a little trouble though."

"He did? The last I saw him he was doing shots of Jameson and dancing on the bar at Torge's"

"What?"

"Yeah, he was at Torge's until bar closing, he was having a grand time!"

I called McDermott.

"What time did Tom leave your house?"

"10:30"

I laughed.

I talked to dad.


"Hey, do you remember being at Torge's?"

"What?"

"You left McDermott's and went to Torge's!"

"Oh My!"

"Don't you remember?"

" Not really. It's all Doug and Obe's fault, they were giving me shots of Jameson!"

"Well the Mower County Sheriff's Department can't believe they caught an actual leprechaun on St. Patrick's Day. They were just bummed that they didn't get a pot of gold."

Two days later  I met with a new DWI client. He said, "I knew I had to much to drink when I woke up in jail, rolled over, and my cellmate was a leprechaun dressed in orange. I'm done going out on St. Patrick's Day."

I smiled and shook my head.

Lost three fellow Irishmen this year, all dear to me.

Tom Donnelly
Tom O'Connor
Phil Callahan

A toast to you gentlemen.

Happy St. Patrick's Day.

Minnesota St. Patrick's Day

By Molly

I have always both looked forward to and been a little apprehensive about St. Patrick’s Day yearly as a child.  It was a day that I knew needed to be celebrated and respected but I really never understood why.  It felt like a lot of pressure.  I think my parents tried to find the most authentic Irish experience for my family, but with us living in Minnesota that proved to be a bit of a challenge. 

We would wake up in the morning and find that leprechauns had been in our house making trouble in the night.  The leprechauns would hide our shoes and school clothes.  I remember pouring milk one St. Paddy’s and finding that it was dyed green.  My Dad would laugh and laugh at our reactions. As I believed him to be part leprechaun I also imagined him up in the middle of the night helping out the little guys. 

After gathering our missing belongings we would get dressed up like little Irish girls.  We would wear any piece of green clothing we had along with Irish wool sweaters; I made sure to tell everyone I met that “they actually came from Ireland.”  On the times that St. Patrick’s fell on a school day we would wear the outfits to school. I remember winning costume contests and feeling very superior to other children in school who were not as Irish as I was. 

To find the most authentic Irish experience in southern Minnesota it seems one must go to Waseca.  In Waseca they have an Irish parade that consists of Irish families marching behind a banner of their family name.  When I was very little we would march with my grandparents and an uncle or two.  One year my uncle Tim juggled in the parade.  I felt like all eyes were on us because we were real Irish with the last names of O’Leary and Donnelly.  I felt so proud and special the year my grandparents were named Mr. and Mrs. Emerald Isle.  They were adorned with crowns and robes. 

As we got older, less and less family was available to walk with us.  The last year that we walked Bridget complained and complained about having to walk in the parade.  Wanting to be accepted by Bridget, I complained too.  Timmy was a baby in a stroller that year.  As a protest Bridget brought a book along and read her book the whole time while we walked the parade route.  Following Bridget’s lead I also brought a book and placed it on the top of Timmy’s stroller to read while I pushed him.  The magic of the day was lost. 

We found that magic again after we started an Irish roller-derby team.  Mary said it best at my Dad's funeral when she said that we named the team with Dad on our minds. The team needed to be Irish themed.  We wanted to have our Dad as the mascot. In Ireland the police force is called the Garda, and with some word play our team became the Garda Belts.  

Once again we found ourselves in a St. Patrick’s Day parade every year, but this time we were on roller skates in downtown St. Paul.  Mary, Bridget, and I even competed in a contest in Minneapolis to be crowned Miss Blarney.  I got first runner up.  I still have the sash.