March brings thoughts of pots of gold, green beer and how lucky the Irish might be. After doing a little research, I discovered that the phrase “Luck of the Irish” is actually a misnomer. Throughout their history, the Irish have had spectacularly bad luck, in terms of famine, wars and misunderstandings between Catholics and Protestants. Some trace the origin of the phrase to the US where, during the exploration for gold in the West, there were a high number of Irish people who got lucky, and found their “pot o’ gold” in the gold fields of California, or were equally prosperous in silver mining.
Luck of the Irish does owe its origin to the U.S.A. When they arrived, they were very disliked, treated badly, despised and hated. When the Irish had any kind of success, most Americans at the time didn’t believe that the Irish were capable of such successes, so they called it luck. Hence the term “Luck of the Irish.” Once a year, we can consider ourselves lucky too, lucky to not get pinched, lucky to have green beer and lucky that there are a multitude of Irish and British bars in Monterey in Monterey where we can celebrate this day with the Irish.
Favorite Local Pubs include, Crown and Anchor (ps love the British version of Chicken Curry!), Britannia Arms, London Bridge Pub (Decent Fish and Chips too).
Posted By:
stayatmontereygm 
Thu, 28 Feb 2013 
