Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Happy Second St. Patrick’s Day!

By Nicholas Stix

Happy (belated) St. Patty’s Day to all my readers. On St. Patrick’s Day, everyone is Irish. (Full disclosure: I am actually one-quarter Irish, via my late paternal grandmother, who was lace-curtain Irish—maiden name Corey—and who was born and raised in New Brunswick, Canada.)

I spoke of this being the “second” St. Patrick’s Day, because, as I explained in “The Wild Colonial Boy” at The Critical Critic, my neighborhood is so Irish, that we have our own St. Patty’s Day, replete with our own grand St. Patrick’s Day parade. That was ten days ago. And so, on both nights, you can forget about getting a taxi.

I celebrated the (second) holiday by picking up Irish soda bread at the local Italian bakery—the bakers* there otherwise make it every Friday—and watching The Quiet Man with the family, which is developing into a St. Patty’s Day tradition in the Stix household.

How Maureen O’Hara failed to be nominated for best actress for that picture for her portrayal of hot-tempered Mary Kate Danaher, remains one of Hollywood’s enduring mysteries. In fact, she was never nominated for any Oscars; not for The Hunchback of Notre Dame, How Green was My Valley, or The Miracle on 34th Street. At 86, Miss O’Hara is still with us, and still more beautiful (and in most cases, more talented) than today’s Hollywood “beauties,” no matter how much makeup they use or surgery they get.


*Funny thing about the current bakers, whom I just met for the first time a few weeks ago. They look kinda Salvadoran. They must be "black Irish."

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Now I read this article I now have an irresitable urge to do a google image search for Maureen Ohara. I also thinks she rocks

JMK said...

GREAT post!

Sadly I worked on the 8th, which is also the day Staten Island celebrates IT'S St Patrick's Day!

I also worked the 17th nigh tour and the 18th day tour....I'm not into the barroom revelry, never really was.

But it's a great day none-the-less and SI's parade is better than Manhattan's for me...because it's a neighborhood thing.

Jon-Erik Nordquist said...

Don't forget Judy Garland! Another Irish-American gal and a great talent. I love her dearly.

Anonymous said...

in the final scene of the movie the quiet man Maureen Ohara whispers something into John Waynes ear and he jerks his head around in surprise, it was a inside joke for years and my nephew who works in the industry let me in on it, they were wrapping up filming and John Ford told Maureen to say something out of character to schock THE DUKE,she ran up to him and whispered lets go into the house and ill fuck your brains out,now i know this would not pass the censors of the 50s era but not so sure about today,