St. Patrick’s Day Through the Pages Cracking open a piece of history By Mallory Arnold
In the heart of Dublin, Ohio, down in a nook of the Dublin Police Station, a piece of history sits. President of the Dublin Historical Society Tom Holton sits in front of a massive, 20-pound scrapbook, pieced together with laminated pages the size of posters. The book dates back to the 1980s when the city was still a village. Holton is quite the history expert, and even though he’s been around for 35 years, he considers himself “the new guy” compared to other members of the historical society. We cracked the book open, cultivated and kept safe by Linda Stephens, and explored its pages. A Challenge In 1979, Dublin Mayor Catherin Headlee received a call from a Michigan broadcaster asking how the Village (Dublin was not yet a City) was going to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. She told them there were no plans in place, but challenged him to call back next year. “She was known for taking on challenges,” Holton says. “When she said she was going to do something, she did it.” Thus, began an organized group of Dublin community members called the Shamrock Shenanigans. Seeing Stripes The Dublin St. Patrick’s Day Parade used to consist of a special tradition of painting a bright green line on the road to mark what path the parade would take. Green stripers, as they were called, took to the street and painted a line right in the center. “Do you see that?” Holton asks, pointing to a photo taken in the 1980s. “There’s not 20 • February/March 2020
one car. No traffic. We can’t really continue this tradition now, with all the traffic.” However, there still are remnants of the tradition on parts of Post Road. See if you can spot a green stripe on your next drive around town. A (Large) Piece of Cake A.shamrock cake is pretty selfexplanatory.–.a cake.decorated with..shamrocks to..celebrate..the holiday..However, Dublin folks took this a step further with the traditional Shamrock Cake Contest. Every year these cakes became bigger and bigger, until 1988 when Cardinal Foods donated the biggest shamrock cake in history, recorded at 850 pounds. The cake was enjoyed by an unnamed Dublin couple, who married during the celebration of St. Patrick’s Day and used the cake for their wedding.
Miss Colleen Every year a Miss Colleen was elected to lead the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. En-
“It’s important to me because it reminds us about where we came from,” Holton says. “Our roots make us stronger today.” trants had to be between 16-21, single and without children. A noted pageant winner in the scrapbook is 17-year-old Erika O’Brien, Dublin’s 1985 Miss Colleen. In 1984, George Eger was named the first Grand Leprechaun. This soon became the tradition, and Miss Colleen was phased out.
Blarney Stone The Blarney Stone is a block of bluestone made of the same material as the stones in Stonehenge. The original Blarney Stone is in Cork, Ireland, built into the battlements of Blarney Castle. According to the legend, the stone has magical powers. Kissing it gives you the gift of eloquence. The Dublin, Ohio, Blarney Stone is located in front of Indian Run Elementary School. www.dublinlifemagazine.com
