St Pat's Day reminds me of everything that went wrong in my family--from the Catholic Church to the alcoholism and violence that went along with it. My mothers mother was Irish, had my mother out of wedlock in America and went back to Ireland. I think if she hadn't have done that she would have ended up in a Magdalene Home in Ireland.

My mother was abandoned by her mother, she in turn abandoned my sister and me, then she had another daughter who she raised. That half-sister had two out of wedlock children that she put up for adoption.

My paternal grandparents were both Irish alcoholics, my dad and his twin sister became alcoholics. There was a lot of mental illness in our family and the RCC was complicit in making matters worse instead of better.

I'm Irish descent. I have mixed, but mostly negative feelings about being Irish.