Special Days


On March 17th The Irish celebrate St. Patrick. What do you know about this day? Read, watch the videos and find out.






And this is St Patrick as seen by science!





HISTORY OF ST. PATRICK’S DAY

St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated on March 17, the saint’s religious feast day and the anniversary of his death in the fifth century. The Irish have observed this day as a religious holiday for over 1,000 years. On St. Patrick’s Day, which falls during the Christian season of Lent, Irish families would traditionally attend church in the morning and celebrate in the afternoon. Lenten prohibitions against the consumption of meat were waived and people would dance, drink and feast–on the traditional meal of Irish bacon and cabbage.


Saint Patrick, who lived during the fifth century, is the patron saint and national apostle of Ireland. Born in Roman Britain, he was kidnapped and brought to Ireland as a slave at the age of 16. He later escaped, but returned to Ireland and was credited with bringing Christianity to its people. In the centuries following Patrick’s death (believed to have been on March 17, 461), the mythology surrounding his life became ever more ingrained in the Irish culture: Perhaps the most well known legend is that he explained the Holy Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) using the three leaves of a native Irish clover, the shamrock.





Since around the ninth or 10th century, people in Ireland have been observing the Roman Catholic feast day of St. Patrick on March 17. Interestingly, however, the first parade held to honor St. Patrick’s Day took place not in Ireland but in the United States. On March 17, 1762, Irish soldiers serving in the English military marched through New York City. Along with their music, the parade helped the soldiers reconnect with their Irish roots, as well as with fellow Irishmen serving in the English army.
Over the next 35 years, Irish patriotism among American immigrants flourished, prompting the rise of so-called “Irish Aid” societies like the Friendly Sons of Saint Patrick and the Hibernian Society. Each group would hold annual parades featuring bagpipes (which actually first became popular in the Scottish and British armies) and drums.
In 1848, several New York Irish Aid societies decided to unite their parades to form one official New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Today, that parade is the world ‘s oldest civilian parade and the largest in the United States, with over 150,000 participants. Each year, nearly 3 million people line the 1.5-mile parade route to watch the procession, which takes more than five hours. Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia and Savannah also celebrate the day with parades involving between 10,000 and 20,000 participants each.
Up until the mid-19th century, most Irish immigrants in America were members of the Protestant middle class. When the Great Potato Famine hit Ireland in 1845, close to 1 million poor and uneducated Irish Catholics began pouring into America to escape starvation. Despised for their alien religious beliefs and unfamiliar accents by the American Protestant majority, the immigrants had trouble finding even menial jobs. When Irish Americans in the country’s cities took to the streets on St. Patrick’s Day to celebrate their heritage, newspapers portrayed them in cartoons as drunk, violent monkeys.
The American Irish soon began to realize, however, that their large and growing numbers endowed them with a political power that had yet to be exploited. They started to organize, and their voting block, known as the “green machine,” became an important swing vote for political hopefuls. Suddenly, annual St. Patrick’s Day parades became a show of strength for Irish Americans, as well as a must-attend event for a slew of political candidates. In 1948, President Harry S. Truman attended New York City ‘s St. Patrick’s Day parade, a proud moment for the many Irish Americans whose ancestors had to fight stereotypes and racial prejudice to find acceptance in the New World.
As Irish immigrants spread out over the United States, other cities developed their own traditions. One of these is Chicago’s annual dyeing of the Chicago River green. The practice started in 1962, when city pollution-control workers used dyes to trace illegal sewage discharges and realized that the green dye might provide a unique way to celebrate the holiday. That year, they released 100 pounds of green vegetable dye into the river–enough to keep it green for a week! Today, in order to minimize environmental damage, only 40 pounds of dye are used, and the river turns green for only several hours.
Although Chicago historians claim their city’s idea for a river of green was original, some natives of Savannah, Georgia (whose St. Patrick’s Day parade, the oldest in the nation, dates back to 1813) believe the idea originated in their town. They point out that, in 1961, a hotel restaurant manager named Tom Woolley convinced city officials to dye Savannah’s river green. The experiment didn’t exactly work as planned, and the water only took on a slight greenish hue. Savannah never attempted to dye its river again, but Woolley maintains (though others refute the claim) that he personally suggested the idea to Chicago’s Mayor Richard J. Daley.
Today, people of all backgrounds celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, especially throughout the United States, Canada and Australia. Although North America is home to the largest productions, St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated in many other locations far from Ireland, including Japan, Singapore and Russia.
In modern-day Ireland, St. Patrick’s Day was traditionally been a religious occasion. In fact, up until the 1970s, Irish laws mandated that pubs be closed on March 17. Beginning in 1995, however, the Irish government began a national campaign to use interest in St. Patrick’s Day to drive tourism and showcase Ireland and Irish culture to the rest of the world. Today, approximately 1 million people annually take part in Ireland ‘s St. Patrick’s Festival in Dublin, a multi-day celebration featuring parades, concerts, outdoor theater productions and fireworks displays.
WORLD BOOK DAY

23rd of April, apart from St. George's Day is World Book Day. Why?

World Book Day or World Book and Copyright Day (also known as International Day of the Book or World Book Days) is a yearly event on 23 April, organised by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), to promote reading, publishing and copyright. In the United Kingdom, the day is recognised on the first Thursday in March. World Book Day was celebrated for the first time on 23 April 1995.

The connection between 23 April and books was first made in 1923 by booksellers in Catalonia  as a way to honour the author Miguel de Cervantes, who died on this date. In 1995 UNESCO decided that the World Book and Copyright Day would be celebrated on 23 April, as the date is also the anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, as well as that of the birth or death of several other prominent authors.















http://www.rhymezone.com

http://www.poetry4kids.com/blog/lessons/how-to-write-a-limerick/

How to Write a Limerick

WHAT IS A LIMERICK?

Limericks are one of the most fun and well-known poetic forms. No one knows for sure where the name “limerick” comes from, but most people assume it is related to the county of Limerick, in Ireland.
Edward Lear is the most renowed limerick writer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Lear
The reason limericks are so much fun is because they are short, rhyming, funny, and have a bouncy rhythm that makes them easy to memorize. In this lesson, I’ll show you how you can write your own limericks in just a few easy steps.

THE RULES OF LIMERICKS

Limericks, like all poetic forms, have a set of rules that you need to follow. The rules for a limerick are fairly simple:
  • They are five lines long.
  • Lines 1, 2, and 5 rhyme with one another.
  • Lines 3 and 4 rhyme with each other.
  • They have a distinctive rhythm (which I’ll explain shortly)
  • They are usually funny.

RHYMING A LIMERICK

The rhyme scheme of a limerick is known as “AABBA.” This is because the last words in lines 1, 2, and 5 rhyme. Those are the “A’s” in the rhyme scheme. The “B’s” are the last words of lines 3 and 4. Let me give you an example:
Let’s take a look at one famous limerick:
There was an old man of Nantucket
Who kept all his cash in a bucket;
But his daughter, named Nan,
Ran away with a man,
And as for the bucket, Nantucket.
— Anonymous

SOME LIMERICK TRICKS

There are two more things that you will notice when you read limericks:
  1. The first line usually ends with a person’s first name or the name of a place.
  2. The last line is usually funny.
Because the first line is usually the name of a person or place, writing the first line is the easiest part. You simply pick the name of a place or person – like “New York” or “Dave” – and write a line like this:
There once was a man from New York
Or
There was and old woman named Dave
Then go to your rhyming dictionary and start looking for rhymes like “cork,” “fork,” “pork,” “stork,” or “cave,” “gave,” “wave,” and so on to find more words to complete your limerick.
Once you’ve found some rhyming words, you’ll want to start thinking about a funny ending for your poem. I find it’s easiest to write lines 1, 2, and 5 first, and then to fill in lines 3 and 4 afterward. For example, I decided to write a limerick about someone from Seattle, so I started it like this:
A talkative man from Seattle
would spend his days speaking to cattle.
I then noticed that the word “prattle” rhymed with “cattle” and “Seattle” so I wrote the last line, like this:
She said, “Why it’s nothing but prattle!”
Finally, I went back and wrote lines 3 and 4 to complete the limerick:
A talkative man from Seattle
would spend his days speaking to cattle.
When asked what he said,
one old cow shook her head,
and replied, “Why it’s nothing but prattle!”
You’ll notice that I changed the last line after I wrote lines 3 and 4.  I did this so the poem would make more sense. It’s okay to change your words at any time if it improves the poem.

YOUR TURN

Now it’s your turn to see if you can write a limerick of your own. Remember to follow these steps:
  1. Choose the name of a person or place and write the first line.
  2. Look in a rhyming dictionary for words that rhyme with your person or place name.
  3. Write line 2 and 5 to rhyme with the first line.
  4. Now write lines 3 and 4 with a different rhyme.
When you are done writing, read your limerick out loud to see if it has the right rhythm; three “beats” on lines 1, 2, and 5, and two “beats” on lines 3 and 4, as shown above. If not, see if you can rewrite some words to get the rhythm right.

LIMERICKS TAKE PRACTICE

I know that writing limericks is going to seem hard at first because it’s sometimes difficult to get the rhythm, the rhymes, and the joke to all work together. But don’t worry; with a little practice, you’ll soon be creating funny limericks of your own that will make your friends and family laugh. Have fun!
More examples:
There once was a young girl named Jill. 
Who was scared by the sight of a drill. 
She brushed every day 
So her dentist would say, 
“Your teeth are so perfect; no bill.”
I once knew a word I forgot
That means, "I am sorry we met
And I wish you the same."
It sounds like your name
But I haven't remembered it yet.


There once was an ape in a zoo
Who looked out through the bars and saw YOU!
Do you think it's fair
To give poor apes a scare?
I think it's a mean thing to do.

There once was a Martian named Zed
With antennae all over his head.
He sent out a lot
Of di-di-dash-dot
But nobody knows what he said.

There once was a hunter named Paul
Who strangled nine grizzlies one Fall.
Nine is such a good score,
So he tried for one more
But he lost. Well, you can't win them all!

Speedy Sam, while exploring a cave,
Had what I call a very close shave.
He stepped on a bear,
That had dozed off in there.
I'm glad he was faster than brave.

There once were two back-country geezers
Who got porcupine quills up their sneezers.
They sat beak to beak
For more than a week
Working over each other with tweezers.

Said a salty old skipper from Wales,
"Number one, it's all right to chew nails.
It impresses the crew.
It impresses me too.
But stop spitting holes in the sails!"

There once was a poor boy named Sid
Who thought he knew more than he did.
He thought that a shark
Would turn tail if you bark.
So he swam out to try it --- poor kid!

There was a young fellow who thought
Very little, but thought it a lot.
Then at long last he knew
What he wanted to do,
But before he could start, he forgot.

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