Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone! Even if you aren’t Irish, “Top of the Mornin'” to you as well. Today is the day where we all get out our green clothes, shamrock pins, so on and so forth. St. Patrick’s Day is also the day where the amateur drinkers will be coming out of the woodwork. Lord, help us all!

I discovered a while back in doing ancestry research, that my maiden name had serious Irish roots. The excitement was too much to bear. Here, I had celebrated St. Patrick’s Day  for years under the everyone is Irish tag on this day, when here I was, the genuine thing. Or so I thought. Problem was, I couldn’t find any ancestors who were Irish. So the plot thickens.

The seriousness of discovering my roots took off. The Irish themed jewelry starting rolling in, the tee shirts encouraging anyone who dared, to kiss me! But still, in all my searching, I could not find any relatives. Were all these websites about ethnicity and ancestry lying to me? Probably not.

I had asked my mother many years ago, where we came from. Her family was from Eastern Europe. Apparently, so was my father’s, the name with the Irish roots. Even she had said at one point, our last name really didn’t sound Eastern European. This was getting interesting. All the research I did and questions I asked other cousins, didn’t bring up Ireland at all. How funny that this name had multiple origins. Well, not funny to me, since I was more confused as ever. It got to a point where my kids were even having fun on my expense. I was basically told to just give it up, you’re not Irish anything.

I dug and dug, until there was nothing else to dig for. All I had left was the slightest chance that somewhere, in ancient Irish times, there was a family member in Ireland, who fled eastward, due to some type of persecution. That might explain the multiple origin theory. If it sounds like I was getting desperate, yes I was. But no one can still explain to me, how a surname can be so extreme in its root origins. So there was only one thing left for me to do. I just decided to run with it, no matter what!

St. Patrick’s Day will always be a holiday for the masses, Irish or not. I will always feel a little bit Irish. There is no discounting my maiden name. It is what it is. That being a surname of multiple roots, one being Irish. There are many traits that ran on my father’s side of the family, that still give me cause to think, there is Irish in there somewhere.

Unfortunately for me, I don’t wear green, so I own no clothes that color. However, I do own many pairs of shamrock earrings. I will proudly wear a pair today, and carry my Irish roots with me. After all, it’s in my heart, and my former last name!