With the annual Irish-for-a-Day drunk fest that is St. Patrick's day rapidly approaching, I'm feeling persnickety. Not only am I a red-haired Irish lady, I'm also married to a red-headed Irish guy. (It should be said that it was never my plan to marry someone who might be mistaken for my brother, it just kind of happened that way.)

So, with that sort of Irish street-cred, it kind of breaks my heart that the sum of our regular cultural conversation about Irish heritage is a drunken party. I love a good party, but there's a lot more to the Irish-American story. I stumbled across a great little entry at the NYTimes blog that discusses my family's hometown, Butte, Montana, a city that once had a higher percentage of Irish folks than Boston & a city that also say many people struggle with the idea of America that brought them from impoverished Irish background.

Am I the only kill-joy on this? Is this just stereotypical Irish maudlin and/or argumentative behavior? I'm guessing that there are other people, perhaps thinking of other holidays, that might feel the same way.