The Luck of the Irish

Oh yes, I’ve been Lucky. Winning a trip to Ireland definitely makes me lucky.
But is it really true, that the Irish are blessed with luck?

You hear the word luck & you automatically think of gold & riches. But the irony of the phrase ‘the luck of the Irish’ is that it actually relates to poor fortune rather that good, bad times not happy times, & centuries of losses not winnings. 

How many of us as kids, spent hours on the front lawn, looking for that elusive four leaf clover?  Hoping to find that one 4-leaf amongst 10,000 3-leafs, knowing that if we did find it, we’d have ‘the luck of the Irish’ forever.

 

I did find the elusive 4-leaf & looking for a heavy book so as to press it flat, I placed it, like a treasured keepsake, between the pages of a Bible.  And therein lies another irony, because the 3 leaf clover was the inspiration that St Patrick received from God, to explain the Trinity to a people who commonly believed in Druids & magic.    Superstitions around the 4 leaf clover are many.  One being that it symbolises God’s melting of the Druids beliefs with those of the Trinity & Christianity.  Druids apparently believed that the 4 leaf clover could heal the sick & ward off evil.

 

Irish soldiers conscripted into the Bristish Army, began wearing the Shamrock on their uniform lapels because they had been Blessed by St. Patrick & believed they were on God's side & therefore safely protected by Him.

Whatever your beliefs, the superstitions surrounding the Shamrock are many and varied, from providing you with faith, hope, love & luck, warding off evil, giving you good fortune & even enabling those who wear it to see fairies!

 

I'd like to think of my shamrock as a Blessing, because it helped me find my 'pot of Gold at the end of the rainbow'..... & surprise, surprise!... I found that 'pot of gold'  in Ireland.

 

P.S. I Love You



At my desk... Upstairs @ Griffins Bakery, Galway 2011

I have to confess Ireland.... I’ve got a little bit of a crush on you  [*blushing*]

Maybe it’s the spirits of my Irish ancestors pulling me back to you or maybe it’s just that you were such a ‘beaut’ [kiwi colloquialism] place to be [travel] around .

 

Whatever it is that has drawn me in, ‘hook line & sinker’, I can’t stop thinking about you.  Most days I‘m all a twitter over you or just plain stalking you.

 

Seriously though, it’s been  10 months now since I returned from Ireland & still I can’t seem to stay away from the place... in a virtual sense, that is.

 

After winning my trip to Ireland I was encouraged by Tourism Ireland NZ to start Blogging & Tweeting while I was on my road trip there.  So I have them to ‘thank’ for unleashing me onto Blogspot & Twitter, both of which I’d never ventured into before or felt in the least bit inclined to go near.     But it has been through both these social mediums that I’ve met [in a cyber sense] some super people & I’m loving the connections you can make, more recently those I’ve made via Twitter.

 

Hello to my friends @

 

 iSLE magazine

GotIreland

IrelandTravelKit,

Irish Fireside

Emeraldsire

There for a Reason
In Hand Guides  

 

Like me, they love Ireland too. 

 

I'm going to try to keep Paddy’s Wagon relevant to Ireland, despite living 18.000km away from each other.  I've been told long distance relationships can be difficult but we're going to give it go.

 

Back Soon.... I promise J
 

P.S. If you are interested in heading off to the Island of Ireland in the near future & need a helping hand with your itinerary, then back track to Paddy’s Wagon “Ireland at Last”, the start of my Ireland road trip.