Mae's Real Stories

Next Saturday is a special day called Saint Patrick's Day. All over America and in some other countries people have parties or go out to lunch and dinner. Many Americans' ancestors came from Ireland, but everyone is welcome to celebrate with them. In New York a big parade celebrates Saint Patrick's Day.




Ireland is a beautiful country. Because it is rather warm there, with a lot of rain, the land is very green because there are so many plants. The most special green plant is called the shamrock. This is the special plant for Saint Patrick's Day, and is supposed to make you lucky. On Saint Patrick's Day, a lot of people dress in green clothes. Some restaurants color their food green. The silliest green food is green beer.

People have lived in Ireland for a very long time, and have built many kinds of buildings. When you drive around, you can see some buildings that are hundreds of years old, and other stone buildings that are thousands of years old. The first three pictures show stones that were put there by people thousands of years ago. The fourth picture shows a stone doorway from several hundred years ago. Arny and Tracy and I took these pictures a few years ago when we were all together in Ireland.

Many stories tell about various kinds of magic in Ireland. The round stone wall in the second picture is a very old well where people still come to take a drink of water. The well water is supposed to be magical.

Little men called leprechauns are part of the magic stories about Ireland. When it rains, sometimes you see a rainbow -- and remember, it rains a lot in Ireland. One story says that at the end of the rainbow the leprechauns hide a pot full of gold coins. They hope that someday they will find this pot of gold and be rich.