St. Pat’s Central

More from my travel journal…

March 17, 1985
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Up at the crack of dawn, we dressed and made our appearance at breakfast. Corn flakes and juice, followed by bacon, mutton sausage and eggs became an all-too-familiar breakfast. After loading the buses with instruments, everyone donned uniforms and boarded. To Dublin, Ho!

Conn told us of an ancient superstition about magpies, those huge crow-like birds of Europe. If you see a single magpie and wave to it, you’ll have good luck all day. If you see two, you needn’t wave, that is automatically good luck. If you wave to three magpies, you’ll have a girl child, and waving to four will bring a boy. We got caught up in the amusing Irish superstitions, to say the least—we waved at every big, black bird we saw for the rest of the week.

Entering the city, we stopped waving at magpies and started waving at the magnificent people. Everyone waved back, even some of the dignified guarde (policemen). We really got a kick out of that. With a little coaxing and much waving, we urged a peddler to come over to the bus and sell us Irish flags. Now we had flags to wave, as well as hands.

After lining up, we were in for quite a wait. A group of curious, kilted bagpipers came over to talk to us. They were intrigued by American saxophones, and we were intrigued by their bagpipes. One of the bagpipers challenged John S., and alto saxophonist, to a duel. We called it a draw.

The time finally came to enter the parade route. I swear, Dublin’s entire population must have come out to see us. They were so thick, we had to go single file at times. About 5/6 of the onlookers seemed to be under 18. I almost wished we didn’t have to march the parade—I just wanted to reach out and cuddle some of those adorable children. The little rosy-cheeked girls with ponytails in green ribbon and rosy little naughty boys were just too cute! The crowd seemed to love us too, asking as we passed if we knew their cousins in Pittsburgh or Scranton or Philadelphia.

The cord that suspends my xylophone upper keys [equivalent to the “black keys” on a piano] broke as I played the cadence, while we were squeezed into single file formation. One of the parents, Mr. F., saw my grimace, and thinking I’d hurt myself, rushed to my side. We were now two groups away from the judging stand, and I began to feel panicked. I restrung the bars, trying to keep moving and not swing my xylophone into anyone. Then Mr. F pulled the cord taut and together we tied it, hopefully well enough to make it through our routine for the judges.

At the moment of truth—the Lord mayor’s judging stand—we did our “Thriller” routine with utmost flash and precision. The crowd went wild. They’d probably never seen a drum major in a sequined glove moonwalk while colorguard and instrumentalists alike did a Jackson-esque dance routine.

We returned to Dublin Sport to unload, change, eat and relax. Karen Hearsch and her TV camera dropped in during lunch for some taping to send back to the States. A nice, restful hour after lunch, we boarded the buses as tourists now rather than competitors, and were off to a monastic site in neighboring Co. Wicklow.

The sun seemed incredibly bright because of the clear air, and though it was quite chilly, the day was splendorous. Our stop was Glendalough, an ancient monastic site. The site consisted mainly of a graveyard of very ancient Celtic cross tombstones. There were also some stone buildings—a well-preserved round tower, St. Kevin’s church and St. Kevin’s cottage, where he lived as a hermit for many years.

Conn explained that the Celtic crosses, the union of cross and circle, signified Irish beliefs—the union of new-found Christianity and the ancient druidic worship of the sun. The Irish believe that they must maintain some of their ancient heritage, or it will all be lost, Conn said. Though the modern Irish don’t worship the sun, they fell they should remember and respect the religion which preceded Christianity.

He also told a little about the construction of the buildings. The mortar they used to cement the stones together was made of a mixture of mud, blood and horsehair. Upon inspecting the buildings a bit closer, we found that the horsehair was actually visible in the mortar—even after a thousand years. That was truly mind-boggling.

The evening was spent relaxing a little and packing a lot. Tomorrow’s wake up call is six o’clock, for Limerick awaits.