Woodward: My Irish Heritage

I'm a bit late with this observance of St. Patrick's Day (or "Shamrock Day" as the culturally sensitive and/or Christophobic among us would have it), but I can plead a good excuse. My family and I were busy last evening devouring a holiday meal of corned beef and cabbage (and Guinness) in the company of some good friends.

For the occasion, I hunted up this picture of my Irish great-grandmother, Kate Murphy Hoskins.


Her parents immigrated from Ireland during the potato famine of the mid-1800s. She was born in this country, eventually married a Kentucky farmer, and bore him eleven children (the youngest of whom was my maternal grandmother -- the baby in the picture), which perhaps explains that wan half-smile on her face. And now her great-grandson, who never knew her, has put her picture on the internet. There is a kind of magic in history.

It seems wrong even to think of St. Patrick's Day, or of Ireland, without mentioning the greatest of all Irish tenors. So here he is, singing (late in his career) the song that first made him a superstar.