From the archive: St. Patty's Day customs seen through Irish eyes

Just in time for St. Patrick's Day, I came across this article published on the front page of the Southeast Missourian on Tuesday, March 16, 1971.

In 1971 Big Bro and I would have been 10 years old and pupils at St. Mary's Grade School, when Fr. Oliver served the Cape Girardeau cathedral and school.

The Rev. Oliver Clavin...looking toward the big day. (Southeast Missourian archive)

ST. PATRICK'S DAY CUSTOMS AS SEEN THROUGH IRISH EYES

By JO NELL MILLIGAN
Missourian staff writer

The Rev. Oliver Clavin, a Roman Catholic priest who came to this country from Ireland last August, will find celebrating St. Patrick's Day a little different here than he did back home.

The associate pastor at St. Mary's Cathedral said that St. Patrick's Day in Ireland is a national religious holiday, "very similar to your Thanksgiving." He noted that everyone attends church services in the morning, and the remainder of the day is spent at family get-togethers, sports events and parties.

Father Clavin believes Americans have a few misconceptions about the day honoring Ireland's patron saint. "Everyone wears shamrocks, real ones, on St. Patrick's Day but we don't turn the lakes green or anything like that," he laughed.

Shamrocks, which grow abundantly in Ireland, are worn on this festive day in bouquets adorning coat lapels and collars of dresses. Father Clavin has some authentic Irish shamrocks for the occasion sent by his mother earlier this week.

St. Patrick's Day commemorates the life of the former slave who escape from Ireland, only to return and bring Christianity and Catholicism to the pagans of that country. The day of his feast has been celebrated by Catholics since the seventh century.

One of the many stories about St. Patrick says that he used a shamrock to illustrate the Trinity, and converted and Irish pagan king on the spot.

The 24-year-old, red-headed priest was assigned to the Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau when he came to America. He had heard of Cape Girardeau from two of his sisters who are nuns in other parts of the country and decided that this was a parish he would like to serve.

"The landscape here is very similar to Ireland," he said of Cape Girardeau.

The reason he chose to come abroad, he said, goes back to the religious traditions of the country. "St. Patrick carried his religion to another country and that is what many Catholics feel they must do," He pointed out.

"I guess you would say I come from a religious family," the priest said in his warm Irish brogue. His two sisters are members of the Dominican order and teach in Colorado and Kansas. There are eight in the family, five of whom work within the church.

In his rather new association with Cape Girardeau, Father Clavin seems to like the people he has met within the parish and city. "I've found the people here friendly and willing to help when I don't understand," he said.

The priest mentioned that he had been somewhat misled by television and had believed that many Americans were millionaires.

He said that his brogue has been an asset in meeting people. "Most people recognize my accent and it sparks a lot of conversations," he noted. "I think this gives me an advantage over other newcomers."

Some things have been somewhat hard for the young priest to adjust to here, however. "We don't eat salads in Ireland," he said, laughing and calling the ingredients "rabbit food." Ireland is a farming country, where the people eat a lot of beef and potatoes.

Some of our pastimes, such as football, the priest does not always understand but he noted those have been good ways for him to get to know people. "Someone's always willing to explain things to me, and I have found my ignorance of some American traditions an asset."

Father Clavin finds many of the American beliefs about the Irish rather amusing, but he feels that Catholics here are just as devout as those back home.

When asked his reaction to American reports f the Northern Ireland situation, the priest said that h believes the accounts are true as to what is happening at the moment, "but I believe the American reporters should point out all the history that goes with this centuries-old battle."

He is from the central part of Ireland where this problem of Catholic against Protestant does not exist. The priest said that no one carries guns in the southern part of the country, and "I myself have never shot a gun in my life."

The love and honor that Irish Catholics have for St. Patrick is strong, and it has been said that no other national saint has been so well remembered.

Many Americans of Irish descent will be dressed in green Wednesday, and maybe a few of us will indulge in corned beef and cabbage, (although that's not Irish eat on that day), but Cape Girardeau's own Irish Catholic priest will be one of the few who authentically honor St. Patrick Wednesday.

Twenty-four years later, the Missourian visited with Fr. Oliver again.

Published March 17, 1995:

KELSO PRIEST FROM IRELAND PLANS MELLOW ST. PATRICK'S DAY

By BILL HEITLAND
Staff writer

KELSO -- His kind Irish eyes are framed in fashionable brown-rimmed glasses. His hair, still as thick and even-flowing as the River Shannon, has traveled the course of auburn to a distinguished gray.

But some features and habits still persist when the Rev. Oliver Clavin, 48, celebrates St. Patrick's Day.

Clavin, who was transferred from a parish in Lebanon to St. Augustine Church in Kelso, will talk to his mother and family in Westmeath, Ireland, by telephone as he has done for 24 years.

His family will tell him the latest on the cease-fire in Northern Ireland. He will tell about Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams' visit with Bill Clinton at the White House.

They might talk about Irish celebrities, but not Sinead O'Conner.

"My two older brothers still won't forgive Sinead O'Connor for tearing a picture of the pope on 'Saturday Night Live' a few years ago," Clavin said. "I still can't believe she did that."

The Clavins will talk about the St. Patrick's Day feast.

"They have corned beef and cabbage here, but you won't find that anywhere in Ireland," he said.

And, Clavin will likely thank his mother, Mary, for the wool sweater she knitted for him.

After talking to his family, he will go about the business of being a parish priest in a town known more for its German heritage than its Gaelic descent.

"It doesn't matter whether it's German or Irish or whatever," Clavin said. "People around here seem genuinely friendly and that makes us all the same."

Through his years in America, Clavin's brogue has mellowed.

"The brogue isn't nearly as thick as it used to be," he said, recalling when "Father Huels at St. Mary's Cathedral in Cape Girardeau told me when I first came here that if I wanted the people to understand me I would have to try to work on my dialect." Because there was no H in the Gaelic alphabet, Clavin would try to say "thanks" to someone and it would end up like "tanks."

And, he won't forget one of his first experiences away from the old sod.

"When I landed in Chicago, I told someone I was headed to St Mary's Cathedral in Cape Girardeau," Clavin said. "He asked me how to spell Cape Girardeau. I said, 'Doesn't everybody know that?'"

The "vastness" of the United States was one of the first discoveries he would make when he traveled from Chicago to Cape Girardeau in 1971.

"Ireland is only 300 miles long," he said. "Here, it seems like there is just an endless amount of land and opportunity."

He is fortunate to have obtained a college education at St. Patrick's College in Calow, Ireland, and to move closer to his sister, May, who is with a Dominican order in Durango, Colo. Only about 10 percent of the Irish get the chance to attend college.

He has used his education to spread the word of God and meet as many people along the way as possible. After leaving Cape Girardeau in 1972, he transferred to Joplin, where he spent two years, then to Willow Springs for five years. Then, on to Lebanon.

"I heard they really get excited about St. Patrick's Day in Rolla, which is pretty close to Lebanon, so I decided to see what they were talking about," he said.

What Clavin saw was something much different than what he would have witnessed in Ireland.

"In Ireland St. Patrick's Day is treated like a religious holiday," he said. The bars and pubs are closed -- the opposite of here.

He visits Ireland annually, usually in the summer.

As a youngster, his town had one telephone and one television, and the road was so narrow a truck couldn't be driven on it.

That's changed. There are highways there now, but the past fostered an appreciation of a traveling storyteller.

People would gather around these "shanckies," or storytellers, at night to listen to limericks and tales of other cities.

"I think the reason Ireland is so famous for the short story is because of the shanckies developing the art from one generation to the next," Clavin said.

He continues that tradition Sundays, telling stories wrapped in the wit and wisdom of the land that welcomed St. Patrick.

"St. Patrick was actually from Scotland, but he was brought to Ireland as a slave," Clavin said. "When he learned to speak Gaelic, they finally accepted him as one of their own and he began to preach Christianity and Catholicism to the pagans."

While Clavin learned to drop a wee bit of his Gaelic 24 years ago, he has continued the tradition of St. Patrick.

"I met with some bankers today," Clavin said. "Now that's where the real green is."