LIVE FROM THE HILLS: The Meaning Of St. Patty’s Day

The clock by my window says seven o’clock, and I’m having a cup of coffee to burn off this fog that’s followed me for the past 24 hours. St. Patrick’s Day never lets you down, I’ll give it that. But now I’m tired, even exhausted. There are cans rolling around by my feet and I’m slowly beginning to think the whole world has gone crooked.

I’ve got to bust Joe out of the South Boston drunk tank in about an hour. I don’t know what he was thinking; none of us did. All I remember is bagpipes. And drums. And then Joe, yelling “Wait a minute! I’m supposed to be in the parade!” He made quite an appearance, and the people loved it when he pretended to be in a high school marching band. When I say people, I don’t mean police.

But that’s over now. I saw the morning light hit Boston at 6 a.m., and I laughed to myself. Now it has set again, and I have little to show for the last 13 hours.

What about St. Patty’s Day?, I wonder. What does it all mean?

The truth is, St. Patty’s Day means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

To me and many others, it means drinking Guinness by the pint, lining Broadway Street in South Boston, laughing with people I don’t know. It means bagpipes and drums and, always, corned beef and cabbage.

Like many other Irish, it brings me back to family stories from the old country or from the early days when Boston was an Irish town.

“Back then,” my father always says, “the streets were arranged by what counties the people came from.” Immigrants stayed with their own; entire neighborhoods were merely transplanted from one country to another. From Ireland to America. Those were the good old days, as it were. Even if they weren’t all that good.

St. Patty’s Day also brings a renewed concern for today’s Ireland.

On Saturday, March 16, a British helicopter crashed to the ground in Northern Ireland, a mile from the Irish Republic border. It fell into a county named South Armagh, where support for the Irish Republican Army runs strong. The IRA is a longtime foe of the English presence in Ireland, and although it has been outlawed, it hasn’t been dismantled. And nobody yet knows why that ‘copter crashed.

The situation in Ireland, even at its most hopeful moments, remains dangerous and volatile. Although the IRA has long been an international scapegoat for the violence on the Emerald Isle, the problem is both more complicated and deeply rooted than blaming a single entity can allow.

Here in Boston, St. Patty’s Day means it’s time for that annual political breakfast when old-timers and upcoming candidates mingle over beer and food, testing their senses of humor in public and hoping to garner a laugh.

You can usually tell who will still be in office next year by how funny they are. Ted Kennedy is always good for a chuckle, while preliminary reports indicated Jane Swift’s standup at a Lawrence luncheon on Saturday bombed. The Boston Globe reported that her audience literally groaned. See you at the polls, Jane.

St. Patrick’s Day means opportunity for politicians. Even for President Bush.

Be vocal and supportive at just the right moment on an ethnic holiday, and you leave a lasting impression on a whole section of your citizens. It’s playing the race card, pure and simple, and everybody does it.

But here’s the thing: Some do it better than others. President Roosevelt once attended the New York City St. Patrick’s Day parade, and that made a lot of people happy.

But you didn’t see Bush in Southie yesterday, did you? That’s because he’s kicking back in D.C. Which is funny, because he’s knee-deep in attempting to capture the Catholic, and especially the Irish Catholic, voting bloc. And he’s not doing a very good job of it.

Beyond inviting the Corrs to play in Washington, D.C., and beyond Bush’s sudden fascination with JFK quotes, the main bait for the Catholic vote is his recent support for Cardinal Law. “I trust the leadership of the Church,” he said. “I know Cardinal Law to be a man of integrity.”

That’s funny. I know him to be a man who knowingly assigned a pedophile priest to parishes in the Boston area.

And here’s the catch: I’m not the only one who thinks Law should resign. In fact, on the same day that Bush emphasized his support for the Archdiocese, the Boston Herald published a damning editorial that demanded Law step down. Bush, so to say, missed the boat.

And here’s the kicker: Bush’s popularity has been at an all-time high ever since Sept. 11. People rally around their leaders during times of crisis, often forgetting party divisions for a greater good. And nobody wanted to confront the specter of Al Gore, had he won in Florida, manning the war guns in Afghanistan.

Bush was our top dog, and a good politician can capitalize on that.

But he went and supported Cardinal Law. It’s dangerous to trust the “integrity” of a person when the majority disagrees. If you’re a president looking for some votes in 30-odd months, it’s downright stupid. Not forgivable stupid, either — stupid like we’re gonna tie you up and throw you off the Tobin Bridge.

Whoa. Where did we get off track? Back to St. Patrick’s Day. Just be wary: St. Patrick’s Day means opportunity for politicians. And, for the rest of us, it means a chance to laugh when that opportunity goes hopelessly wrong.

St. Patty’s Day means a lot to some people and very little to others. It means the streets will be flooded with people who think drinking makes them Irish. But what the hell; you only live once.

Sure, half the people at the parade aren’t Irish; but neither was St. Patrick.

I know one thing: It’s better now than back when “No Irish Need Apply” accompanied the job listings in newspapers. It’s better than when the Irish were portrayed in cartoons as drunken, violent monkeys. Better a parade, and hundreds of thousands of people. Better a full celebration in which lunatics try to jump in parading cars and slap high-fives with Marines in the marching corps, only to realize they’re doing it right in front of the South Boston Police Department.

Speaking of which, I’ve got to go get Joe.