Irish Trivia

  1-Where did the first recorded St. Patrick's Day parade take place?
2-What year did the first known St. Patrick's Day celebration happen in the U.S.?
3-What U.S. president was the first Irish Catholic to be elected to the office?
4-What water-loving dog breed is known for its curly coat and rat-like tail?
5-What common reptile is not naturally found in Ireland, supposedly because they were driven out by St. Patrick?
6-What meat and vegetable dish is a trademark St. Patrick's Day meal?
7-Which "Fifty Shades of Grey" star hails from Northern Ireland?
8-What North American waterway did the Irish immigrants help build?
9-What’s a "curragh?"
10-What do the three leaves of a shamrock represent according to Irish tradition?

LITERARY CORNER

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

I wandered lonely as a Cloud
That floats on high o’er Vales and Hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden Daffodils;
Beside the Lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:—
A Poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude,
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the Daffodils.
--William Wordsworth.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
--William Butler Yeats