St Patrick's Day Shamrock Symbol On Planes, Buildings, Stamps And Souvenirs

 Yesterday I photographed jolly balloons in green, white and orange, outside Wetherspoons pub in Hatch End, near Hatch End railway station, in NW London, England.

The colours of the balloons are the colour of the flag of Eire, the Republic of Ireland, the south, from Wikipedia which tells you more.

The main colour in the north is green, from the Emerald Isle. Green because of the abundant vegetation, like Wales (where a famous book was How Green Was My Valley). The west gets the rain which grows the abundant plants, grass, and trees. And lakes, and rivers.

Green is the colour of the shamrock. 

Shamrocks 

St Patrick used the shamrock to convey the idea of the trinity, and you can see the shamrock on a stained glass window of St Patrick holding a shamrock, in a church. 

#Shamrocks are displayed on British coins, stamps, and on Buckingham Palace, and aeroplanes. 

You can buy hats and tee shirts featuring shamrocks. to be prepared for next year, or any other Irish gathering, you can buy a dress or cardigan with green shamrocks from Amazon.

 I bought flip-flops with shamrocks from a poolside shop in Singapore, to be seasonally dressed for a Toastmasters International speakers' club.

Useful Websites

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Patrick%27s_Day

Armagh, Northern Ireland, and St Patrick

https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Armagh

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Patricks-Women-Clearance-Outerwear-Sweatshirt/dp/

Updated March 19th 2026.

Confusing flags - Can you tell the flag of Ireland from the flag of the Ivory Coast?

 The flag or Eire (Ireland) and the flag of the Ivory Coast have the same colours. But reversed right to left.

Flag of Ireland.

Green white orange. The orange is for the Protestants in the north.

So the green is on the side of the post.

The Ivory Coast flag is the other way around.

Eire on the left. Ivory coast on the right.

Please share links to your favourite posts.

St Patrick's Day green dress

 

Photo by Angela Lansbury.

I decided to wear green and orange for online meetings all through the month of March to celebrate St Patrick's day.  

The Flag of Eire

St Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland. His day fell on a Sunday this year, which is a great day since you can celebrate all day at the weekend.  But in the USA they start serving green drinks at pubs near universities before St Patrick's Day. 

I posed questions about St Patrick's Day at Toastmasters clubs in the UK and online to Asia. Many people in India have not heard of it, so I had a chance to enlighten them.

Green Colour

Why green? Ireland is known as the emerald Isle. The countryside is green. The same as other parts of the UK, notably Scotland, the lake district of England, where the water falling from the Westerlies, westerly winds, creates lakes.

St Patrick

St Patrick supposedly travelled from the mainland UK to Ireland to convert the Irish to Christianity. Now in Eire the majority are Roman Catholic, with the pope in the Vatican as the head of their church.

Snakes In Ireland

So the, story goes, had miraculous powers. He exterminated all the snakes in Ireland. Whilst it is true that there are no snakes in Ireland, and have been none since his time, researchers found that there were no snakes in Ireland earlier either. As they say, why let the truth get in the way of a good story. 

The Blarney Stone

Perhaps we should credit the famed Blarney stone. Legend says if you kiss it, it gives you the gift of the gab.

New York

The Irish Heritage Museum in New York has an exhibit about Irish dance dresses, which frequently have green, at least as a border.

The places to see Irish costumes next year include, pubs in the UK, pubs in Singapore and Malaysia, Japan and Korea,, The USA, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, especially Montreal, Moscow, 

If you want to stock up for next year, or buy second hand, look at Shein, Amazon, Temu and other places for green hats, ties, bow ties. You can also buy spectacle frames, scarves, stocks, bunting, and sleeves which look like tattoos.

Favourite motifs include shamrocks and leprechauns.

Useful Websites

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Patrick%27s_Day

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Where to see statues of Comedy Characters - A light-hearted look at London, Dublin and Paris

Traditional seaside feature of Britain. Punch and Judy.

From these shows we get two common phrases, 'that's the way to do it,' and, 'pleased as punch'.

Clowns
An early clown in the UK was Grimaldi.
He made popular the phrase, 'Here we are again,' which was used in Pantomimes, and the question to the audience, 'Shall I?'

GRIMALDI


Plaque to Grimaldi in London, England.


Joseph Grimaldi clown. Blue Heritage plaque in London, England.



Grave of Joseph Grimaldi, the clown, in Grimaldi Park, Pentonville Road, Islington, North London, England, UK.



Avenue Q, American play, which I saw in London.

CHARLIE CHAPLIN
Charlie Chaplin said, "A day without laughter is a day wasted."

Charlie Chaplin statue, London, England, UK

Charlie Chaplin said, 'All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl.'

You can see another statue of Chaplin in Vevey, Switzerland, where he lived.

OSCAR WILDE

Also look for the statue of Oscar Wilde, Witty Oscar Wilde, reclining, in London. On arriving in the USA, asked if he had anything to declare, he said nothing 'except my genius'.

Oscar Wilde in Conversation, statue in Adelaide Street, near Trafalgar Square,  London, England, UK.

Plaque on the house in Tite Street Chelsea, where Wilde lived in London, England.

During the late 1880s, Wilde was a close friend of the artist James McNeill Whistler and they dined together on many occasions. At one of these dinners, Whistler said a bon mot that Wilde found particularly witty, Wilde exclaimed that he wished that he had said it, and Whistler retorted "You will, Oscar, you will."

Oscar Wilde had been born in Dublin.

Plaque to Oscar Wilde in 1 Merrion Square, Dublin, Eire.

: "The most interesting people are men with a future and women with a history".

"I like men who have a future and women who have a past." Dorian Gray, ch. 15

Hubert ;-) 10:55, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

.... Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.

America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.

Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.

I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability.

If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you.

Those Drapes

 The quote supposedly attributed to Wilde on his deathbed, "Either those drapes go or I do."

Grave of Oscar Wilde in Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris, France.

Statue of Oscar Wilde in Merrion Square, Dublin, Eire.

Another view of this remarkable statue.

On the same fashionable square is the Jester's Chair which commemorates another comedian, Dermot Morgan, who played Father Ted in the Irish TV sitcom. Photo by NTF30 in Wikimedia commons under Merrion Square. 

I was Delighted to come across this by change when I was looking for photos of Oscar Wilde. I know that the main Wikipedia articles do not overload with a hundred shots of the same scene but simply take the best one. However, Wikimedia Commons shows you everything available which for me when researching is much more useful.

Jester's Chair commemorating Father Ted.

Pantomime
Christmas time in London (except when prevented by Covid-19).
You also see pantomime on ice at ice rinks.
See YouTube.

Useful Websites
https://www.a-speakers.com/speakers/brad-ashton-keynote-speaker/
 Brad Ashton's books on comedy: 
“How to Write Comedy”, 
“The funny Thing about Writing Comedy”, 
“The Job of a Laughtime”, and 
“Stand up and Be Laughed at”.

About the Author
Angela Lansbury is a travel writer and photographer, author of 20 books, and a speaker and speech trainer.
Her books include:
Wedding Speeches & Toasts
Quick Quotations

Writing Poetry For Fun
Angela's Alarming Animal Poems

Pantomime characters, pantomime dames create humour.

United States or Independent Countries? What's Best?

Problem
Is it better to unite, or be independent?

Answers
THE USA
At school, I had learned that the United States had united and that was a good thing. Common language. Common currency. Common laws. That made the country great.

However, when we lived in Rockville, Maryland, on the outskirts of Washington DC, as soon as we drove to The South, we travelled back in time to a different world and world view. At stately homes, we met elderly volunteer lady tourist guides wearing costumes which looked like crinolines. These ladies vociferously told us differently. I remember one comment, "They left us in the dust!"

Please don't mention the Boston tea party.

EUROPE
Italy
In Europe, Italy had united. They now speak Italian.

The UK
Long before, the Romans united Italy and Europe and more. The schoolchildren in the UK are keen on Romans. No mention of the fact that the Romans conquered us.

Actually, there is. Julius Caesar's comment on arrival, 'Veni vidi, vici' is a much quoted, popular saying. To the average eight-year-old, it would appear that the Romans were on a jolly day trip.

The Romans did leave us nice straight roads. Lots of names, Chester, Winchester, Manchester.

The United Kingdom united. The UK joined the Common Marked. We were delighted.

Now, we have voted on Brexit. Uproar.

In England we speak British English. At least I do. Am I the only one?

Conclusion
Unification and division have taken place or been promoted in Yugoslavia, Croatia, Nigeria, The Yemen, East Timor and many more places. Travel to another country to hear different views on modern problems and ancient history.

Useful Websites
HISTORY & WEBSITES
UK TV programme: What the Romans did for us.
http://blog.english-heritage.org.uk/what-did-the-romans-do-for-us/

TRAVEL
UK
visitbritain.org
visitbritainshop.com
https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/home#/
virginatlantic.com
visitengland.com
visitwales.com
visitscotland.com

Northern Ireland
Belfast, Giants Causeway, Titanic Quarter and Titanic Belfast museum, Game of Thrones
discovernorthernireland.com

Eire - Dublin and southern Ireland, Republic of Ireland
ireland.com/Tourism

ITALY
visititaly.com
umbriatourism.it (For Etruscan Perugia)
italiantouristboard.co.uk
http://www.turismoroma.it/?lang=en

USA
visittheusa.co.uk
virginatlantic.com

GENERAL worldwide
tripadvisor.com
wikitravel.org
wikivoyage.org
skyscanner.net (airlines)

Author
Angela Lansbury
See my posts on the USA and Canada, Asia including Singapore and East Timor, Europe including Umbria and the Etruscans, and many more. Please share links to your favurite posts. See my last post about Slovenia and Yugoslavia and countries splitting up.

Museums About writers in America, Ireland and England

CHICAGO USA
https://americanwritersmuseum.org/visit/ 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Writers_Museum

DUBLIN, EIRE
https://www.dublinpass.com/dublin-attractions/dublin-writers-museum.html

Britain has many museums devoted to particular authors. For example
England
Shakespeare - Stratford upon Avon
Jane Austen - Bath
The Brontes - Haworth, Yorkshire

Wales
Dylan Thomas boathouse (Two Thomas trails)
Fishguard (Scene of films Under Milk Wood and Moby Dick) See my previous posts on Fishguard.

Scotland
Robbie Burns House, Ayr

visitbritain.com

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker

Dublin's Malone Statue, Ireland's Sights: English, Irish, Scottish and American Folk Songs

Where would you see the statue of Molly Malone? Who wheeled her wheelbarrow through streets broad and Narrow? I am researching songs from the 1880s for a historical novel.

SONGS
Songs which would have been known in the 1880s and still sung today (hear them on YouTube) are:

My bonny lies over the ocean (Scottish
I used to sing this as a child and never thought about the fact that this is a Scottish song. The giveaway is the word bonny. As in bonny wee bairn (as we would say nowadays cute little kid).

My grandfather's clock
This song is from the USA. A great hit at the time and ever since.

Oh, no John (or Spanish Merchant's Daughter)

Lass of Richmond Hill

Molly Malone

These are all staple songs which are good to sing to entertain your group of friends or family if your tour bus or car is stuck in a traffic jam.

(I went on a tour guide training session led by Verity Baker, who taught us that a tour guide should keep card index cards for every sight passed on a tour, plus a few extras to bring out if the coach was delayed through a breakdown or in a traffic jam.)

The song Molly Malone has an interesting history which you can read in Wikipedia. Apparently whilst many girls were called Molly (a variation on Mary or Margaret) no one girl has been definitely associated with the song. However, because the song is the national song of the city of Dublin, capital of Eire (which used to be called and still is known to some people as southern Ireland), the city has chosen the dates of one girl called Molly Malone to be the day when the song and city are celebrated.

In Wikipedia you can see the picture of the statue of Molly Malone, with the low neck dress, because so many women of the day would be breastfeeding in public. I'd never heard that explanation of low necked dresses, always thought it was to do with the permissiveness of the age. Live and learn, as they say.

So now on my list of places to see in Ireland are:
Giants Causeway
Titanic Exhibition
Statue of Molly Malone, Dublin

The last fact which caught my attention was the English version of the song which transfers the setting to London, instead of 'as she wheeled her wheelbarrow through streets broad and narrow', the revised version is, 'As she wheeled her wheelbarrow through Wealdstone and Harrow ...' .

The local railway station is not called Wealdstone and Harrow but Harrow and Wealdstone.

The supposed Weald Stone, the stone marking the boundary of the Weald, or area, was supposedly rediscovered in the basement of the renamed Wealdstone Inn (I think it was previously a Red Lion or other name) in the 1950s. The Harrow council put up a historic heritage plaque telling the story of the Weald stone.  Is it not the real, original Weald Stone? Never mind.

Unfortunately the old Weald Stone Inn was closed and is being renovated, so you cannot see the plaque, which I hope they will preserve, nor the stone. When the new building is revealed I shall take a picture or get somebody else to take a picture to record it for you to see the before and after of the Wealdstone site story.

Many variations and later parodies of traditional songs have been made and you can read many of them online. I spent a whole day reading the words and parodies of My grandfather's clock and hearing it sung in various version by different groups on YouTube. I was astonished to read it was based on a real incident. However, if clocks were wound up on a daily basis by the eldest in the family, they would sometimes stop on the day somebody died, especially if they were ill and the exertion of getting up to wind the clock was the thing which caused their demise.

(Equally likely, the clock didn't stop exactly when the person died, but when the person was discovered dead, the time of death was recorded as being when the clock stopped, at the last time shown by the clock. The hundreds of times a clock stopped before or after somebody died would never be noted.)

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, researcher, English teacher, speaker and online tutor, writer of factual books and fiction.

Remembrance Sunday Irish Pipers in Harrow - The Glen Trew Pipers Leading the Freedom Parade

To remember the lost in The Great War (WWI) and all wars before and since, the armed forces, whether volunteers or conscripted, and civilian casualties, and celebrate the peace on Remembrance Day in Harrow, North London, England. This group look like a Scottish band in their kilts and sporrans but they are Irish, called The Trew, from the area south of Dublin on the South East coast or Ireland (Eire). Trew rhymes with true. One of them said he wanted to change their name to Harrow Pippers. They look very handsome in black and green, notice the black hats with green decorations, with pipes and a drum.

They led the parade which they do every year. They play for public events, private parties and charity events. Their repertoire includes Battle of the Somme, Irish favourites, Scotland the Brave, and Auld Lang Syne. If you want to join a pipe band, they practise on Sunday mornings and welcome new members. 

If you go to Edinburgh in Scotland, look for the bronze statue of the piper honouring the pipers in wartime who raised morale and entertained the troops and gave their lives. The statue was put up in 2014.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_public_art_in_Edinburgh

More information on the pipers I met:

https://twitter.com/theglentrew

https://www.facebook.com/The.glen.trew.pipe.band

http://glentrewpipeband.weebly.com

Battle of the Somme on Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xW2ojn5agr4

The police were out, too, protecting the performers and the public.

Piper's Memorial at Longueval.

Longueval is a commune in the Somme department in Picardie in northern France. 

Wikipedia. Photo by Weglinde.