March 17, 2025

By Arthur H. Gunther III

thecolumnrule.com

This being my late mother’s soon to be birthday – St. Patrick’s, March 17 – her distant Donegal heritage showing in her freckled face, the image I carry in my heart, I can no longer hear proof of her wit, nor feel the occasional wrath of her quick anger, nor witness her utterly hard toil at home after her day at work, nor see the full compassion in her eyes.

Dressed in the Irish genes does not necessarily bring any of this, of course, but for my mom, only of Gaelic DNA save her father’s Irish-English mix, this was her bent.

She would talk of old family ways when she was very young, of ancestors who came through Castle Garden in Manhattan before there was an Ellis Island. She would watch the city parade on TV and buy a ticket in the Irish lottery. My mother wore green on March 17 and in her heart all the days.

There was no forgetting her birthday because it was the very same moment when almost every kid in school sported green, no matter ethnicity nor religion.

I can no longer give my Mom a gift on her day, but I can try to paint her a scene of the old Irish countryside. So this one is for you, Patricia Bonner Lyons Gunther.

The writer is a retired newspaperman.

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