Editor’s note: A familiar saying is “Everyone is Irish on St. Paddy’s Day,” and in that spirit, members of the WhipCity Wordsmiths are sharing their favorite memories and impressions of a beloved holiday, Saint Patrick’s Day, as part of an ongoing writers’ series in the Westfield News. Today’s submission is by Susan Buffum of Westfield.
WESTFIELD-Susan Buffum is a local author and artist residing in Westfield. She is the cofounder, with daughter Kelly Buffum, of the WhipCity Wordsmiths authors/writers social and support group. She is also a director of Artworks of Westfield.
Buffum has numerous novels, story anthologies, and novellas to her credit, and is known for her pen and ink/colored pencil wildlife, black squirrel, cat and dog drawings. Her books are available on Amazon and Kindle. Prints of her artwork are available in her Etsy shop BicycleCityArtworks. She can be contacted at [email protected]
Her submission is titled “Shamrocks.”
Shamrocks
I have absolutely no Irish blood in me, but I married a man who is three quarters Irish by ancestry and we raised our daughter Kelly Meghan, who is half Irish, to embrace her Irish heritage. Her grandmother on her father’s side was a Collins.
When she was very young I began introducing her to Irish music. I danced with her in the kitchen. Neither one of us can dance a step, but it didn’t matter. When you listen to Irish music your feet just want to move and you go with it. When she was older we took her to see the Irish Rovers and the High Kings at the Calvin in Northampton.
Artist and author Susan Buffum drew these shamrocks using micron archival ink pen and Sperry watercolor brush pens. (SUSAN BUFFUM PHOTO)
I am Polish, French, and Italian with a smidge of Greek by ancestry. I have naturally pale skin with a slight yellowish cast. I do NOT look good in any shade of green. It makes me look queasy and ill. However, in honor of Saint Patrick’s Day I would wear green as would Kelly, and I’d add a shamrock pin to my shirt and later my black flat cap. If I remembered, Kelly wore a shamrock pin (a plastic Hallmark one) to school pinned to her shirt or cap. A fun activity for us when she was little was lying on the lawn, which is full of clover, searching carefully for the elusive four-leaf ones—we only found two or three among the thousands of clovers we examined.
The other day I was thinking about shamrocks. When I was a child my mother bought Dennison cardstock shamrocks and stuck them up on the doors and windows even though we weren’t Irish. It was what you did at every holiday, you decorated. In school we made green construction paper shamrocks and the teacher hung them on the classroom windows. When Kelly was little we always decorated the door to the basement with cut-outs for each holiday. The Saint Patrick’s Day cutouts included leprechauns, pots of gold at the end of a rainbow, step dancers in traditional attire, and plenty of shamrocks.
Why is the shamrock such a ubiquitous symbol of Ireland? The shamrock has been a symbol of Ireland for centuries. The druids believed that shamrocks were sacred and had the ability to keep evil at bay. The Celts believed the number 3 to be sacred, therefore they valued the shamrock because of its three heart-shaped leaves. Legend has it that Saint Patrick himself used the shamrock to illustrate the idea of a holy trinity. So, what is a shamrock really?
Susan Buffum has a collection of shamrock jewelry, pins, and ring boxes with a couple lucky four-leaf clover items. (SUSAN BUFFUM PHOTO)
A shamrock is a type of clover plant that is associated with Ireland. The word shamrock comes from the Gaelic word seamrog, meaning little clover. Consensus is that the shamrock is the white clover. A real shamrock has three leaves. The shamrock is not the lucky four-leaf clover everyone searches for. But, don’t think that the three-leaf clover is not lucky in and of itself. In Irish folklore the number three is considered very lucky. So, a plant with three leaves would be considered to have lots of luck (except for the unlucky poison ivy which also possesses three leaves!) Faith, Hope, and Love are traditionally what the three leaves represent. If you find a four-leaf clover the fourth leaf is, of course, for Luck.
Some people think that the shamrock can predict the weather while others believe it can break any curse a leprechaun casts your way. However, even if they aren’t magical, it’s fun to wear a shamrock and celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day.
