Almost 90 Years of Going Green

Seniors host MSMU's President at a St. Patrick's Day luncheon in 2013.

ST. PATRICK'S DAY has been celebrated at the Mount for as long as there has been a Mount, the day when everybody gets to be Irish and Going Green isn't about the environment.

A clipping from March 8,
1955, announces the upcoming
St. Patrick's Day fun.

The Mount community in its early decades was still only a generation or two from the Old Country. Many of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet and members of the faculty were the children and grandchildren of immigrants, and more than a few were actually born in Ireland, part of the great wave of immigration of the early 20th Century.

In the 1940s and 1950s the freshman and sophomore classes hosted an annual college-wide St. Patrick's Day party, a fundraiser for various good causes. (Where Catholics and party are involved, there is always a fundraiser.)

The day typically started at 7 a.m. with Mass in Mary Chapel (mandatory) sponsored by the Sodality of Mary, followed by a bacon-and-egg breakfast for 75 cents (about $6.50 today). Sometimes the food was dyed green, of course, and entertainment was always provided by students in the form of Irish songs and dances. Sometimes a program was put on in Hannon Theater – music, a lecture, a movie or a play.

In more recent years, students of all backgrounds celebrate "Kiss Me, I'm Irish" with buttons, banners, and more green food and beverages.

In 2013, the Senior Class kept up the tradition with a St. Patrick's Day luncheon to mark the kickoff of the Senior Gift program. The students hosted guest of honor President Ann McElaney-Johnson.

So enjoy the wearing' o' the green today, knowing we are carrying on a grand old tradition at MSMU.

Mary Chapel is full of students in academic garb for the celebration of
Mass for St. Patrick's Day on March 17, 1947. Breakfast followed.