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St. Patrick’s Day Through the Pages
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.
20 • February/March 2020 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 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 . s h a m r o c k 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.
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.
www.dublinlifemagazine.com 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.
Better be Green
A tradition no longer held in the community but captured in photos, articles and memories, are the Keystone Cops. If anyone was found not wearing green at the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, he or she was put behind Kelly green bars, or, “jail.”
“The Village was so small then, remember,” Holton says, “so, when the Keystone Cops caught you not wearing green, you most likely knew one of them and it was all in good fun.”
The Keystone Cops wore long green caps, police-style hats and bright stars on their chests.
Mallory Arnold is an editor. Feedback welcome at marnold@cityscenemediagroup.com.
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Q&A with the Dublin Lions Club Answered by Lions Club Secretary Scott Pape
Are the Dublin Lions excited to present the pancake breakfast?
This is our biggest event of the year for the Dublin Lions Club. We spend some time in every one of our meetings throughout the year doing some type of organization and planning related to the pancake breakfast. We appreciate our part in making St. Patrick’s Day in Dublin a great event for families and friends. This is also our largest fund raising event of the year and provides us the financial ability to support charitable causes in our community like free eye exams and eye glasses for needy families, Ohio State School for the Blind, and Pilot Dogs to name a few.
Is there a secret to making the PERFECT pancake?
We’ve done a great deal of research over the years to get the right combination of batter mix, eggs and milk to produce the optimal taste and consistency of our pancakes. The exact mixture is a closely guarded secret. Green syrup always helps the pancakes taste better on St. Patrick’s Day.
What’s the best part of the pancake breakfast?
We enjoy seeing the families stop by for breakfast before going to the parade. It has become a tradition for many families and we see many familiar faces year after year. We also conduct a raffle drawing during the breakfast. There are numerous prizes donated from local businesses, which creates a great deal of excitement as well.
How has this become such a staple to the St. Patrick’s Day celebration? Why do people look forward to it?
The Dublin Lions Club has been hosting the pancake breakfast for over 45 years. People can always look forward to a warm and dry place to meet before the parade, which is sometimes a valuable asset in the middle of March. It’s also convenient for people to come down to Sells Middle School early, park their cars, set up some lawn chairs along the parade route and then come in the school for breakfast.
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