Finnegan's Awake

Posted by MeganFinnegan at 3/28/2009 6:56 PM EDT

Let’s talk religion. When the powers that be at IrishCentral.com asked me to write about Catholicism on this blog, my first emotion was excitement, and my first question was, “Do I have to worry about offending people?”

I was raised as a good Irish Catholic, going to Mass every Sunday (even while on vacation), letting the gilt-edged pages of our family Bible rest undisturbed on the bottom shelf of the coffee table, ordering pizza every Friday during Lent and regarding the “CE” people (those who crowded our pews on Christmas and Easter only) with mild contempt and Jesus-sanctified superiority.

Is it too late to discuss St. Patrick’s Day 2009?

Never! (Especially considering that President Obama declared March 2009 Irish-American Heritage Month.)

Let me preface this by saying that this year, I was determined to have the most clichéd and drunken evening possible, because SPD 2008 was a sorry excuse for a holiday, spent in the upstairs room of a bar in Midtown drinking substitute Guinness (they had run out of the real stuff) from a plastic cup. I wasn’t wearing green and I was home by 11:00pm, still cringing at the memory of college kids from Pennsylvania with emerald glitter on their faces trying to line dance to a Dropkick Murphys song. Not the best time.

Posted by MeganFinnegan at 3/18/2009 2:58 PM EDT

Irish American. I get the American part. I was born here, I’m a citizen, I speak English and my passport is stamped with the U.S. seal. But what’s with the Irish part?

With a surname like Finnegan, I can’t help but be identified as a daughter of Eire. When the HR guy at my office gave me my computer password, I asked him why there’s an “IG” at the end.