On Knights Templar and Green Beer

Hey Bloggers,

Looks like the nasty rains of yesterday have ended, but it is so windy out now that I half expect to see flying cows and the wicked witch of the west fly by on a broomstick. The picture above is the Temple Church in London, a popular tourist attraction and Knights Templar headquarters of yesteryear. Many of you are familiar with the Templars from Dan Brown's fictional book, The DaVinci Code and the film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Well, of course they were real, established in the 12th century and and reputed exterminated by that nasty old French king several hundred years later. Some say they and the Masons are/were closely entwined. Maybe so. I don't know. But, Templars still exist. These days though, they don't patrol the Holy Land and as far as I know they don't guard the Holy Grail. They do charitable work. The 21st century Templars we know call themselves The Sovereign Military Order of The Temple Of Jerusalem. They are having their 2008 Vernal Covenant this week end and Danny and I are guests of the local Priory of The Holy Rood for their Knights and Dames service with awards, promotions, and initiation. With capes and swords and all. A chaplain in chain mail, too. Cool, huh? We're going to watch the ceremony this afternoon. They want Danny to join. I wonder if he will be the first Geek Knight? That's Geek not Greek.

Since March is sort of Irish month with St Patrick's Day and all, I am saluting all things Irish. When we think of Irish, we think of stuff like Guinness stout and Irish Whiskey, corn beef and cabbage, the great migrations to America during the 19th century potato famine, leprechauns and fairies, Celtic music, Lucky Charms cereal (which isn't really Irish), Scarlett O'Hara, Going My Way and the song Danny Boy. As well as St Patrick's day parades and green beer, of course. Below, I offer a small list of familiar names of sons and daughters of the Olde Sod who made/make America what it is today. Happy Irish month.

Partial list of notable Americans of Irish descent:
Twenty three Presidents of The United States, including Washington, Jackson, John Kennedy, US Grant, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George Bush, and Woodrow Wilson.
Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy
Sam Houston, senator and hero of the Alamo
Davy Crockett, senator and legendary pioneer
Billy the Kid, outlaw
Bugsy Malone, gangster
Pretty Boy Flloyd, crazy gangster
George M Cohan, entertainer, Broadway star, songwriter
Walter Elias Disney, entrepreneur, director, producer, animator, artist
Alfred Hitchcock, film director
Henry Ford, inventor, rich guy
Georgia O'Keefe, artist
Tom Monaghan, founder of Dominoes Pizza
Ron Howard, actor, director
August St Gaudins, sculptor
Michael Moore, director, producer
John Sayles, director
The Unsinkable Molly Brown, Titanic survivor
Eileen Collins, astronault
Michael Collins, astronault
John Dunlap, printer of the first copy of the Declaration of Independance
James Hoblan, architect of The White House
James Cagny, actor
Spencer Tracy, actor
Gracie Allen, comedienne
Buster Keaton, silent movie star
Steve Allen, writer, actor, songwriter
William F Buckley, political writer
Charles Townes, winner of the Nobel prize in Physics
Jimmy Conners, tennis star
John MCEnroe, ditto
Derek Jeter, athlete
Whitey Ford, baseball player
Connie Mack, ditto
Raymond Chandler, writer
Kate Chopin, writer
Henry James, writer
Tom Clancy, writer
George Clooney, actor, producer, director
Mary Higgins Clark, writer
Pat Conroy, writer
F Scott Fitzgerald, writer
Micckey Spillane, writer
Anne Rice, writer
Eugene O'Neill, playwrite
Anne McCaffery, writer
Flannery O'Conner, writer
Timothy Leary, acid head, writer
Errol Flynn, actor
Bing Crosby, actor
John Wayne, actor
Maria Shriver, journalist, first Lady of California
Regis Philbin, TV personality
Phil Donahue, ditto
Conan O'Brien, ditto
Maureen Dowd, journalist
Margaret Mitchell, writer
Sean Hannity, talk show host
Bill O'Reilly, ditto
Tim Russert, journalist
The Sullivan brothers, soldiers (inspired Saving Private Ryan)
Robert F Kennedy, senator
Grace Kelly, actress and Princess of Monaco

So, Erin Go Braugh. Or Erin Go Brea. Any way you want to say it and whether you think it means Ireland the beautiful or Ireland until the Day of Judgment, Ireland still rocks. I may be mostly Scots/English/German, but there's a few sons and daughters of Ireland clinging to the branches of my family tree, too. Here's to the Lowes and the McBrides, McDowells, the Jacksons, and the Derrymores. Ta for now.