St Pat’s Day The good nature, smiles, music and camaraderie of the Irish was loud and clear at this week’s meeting of the Atlantic Highlands Mayor and Council, falling on St. Patrick’s Day.
In addition to Council president Brian Dougherty proclaiming March Irish American celebration month, and the mayor and members of council leading a rousing 16 stanza version of “The Rattlin’ Bog,” with Borough attorney Peg Schaeffer wearing green, borough administrator Rob Ferragina also wanted the mayor to know it was also the 164th anniversary of Italian Unification day.
Each year, Italy celebrates March 17 as the day Victor Emmanuel II of Savoy, Kind of Sardinia and Piedmont, became the first King of Italy.
However, it was a time when the unification was not yet completed: Veneto, Trento and Trieste were still under the Hapsburg Empire, and Lazio was governed by the Pope, who did recognize the Italian state.
There were 23 million inhabitants on the Italian peninsula at the time, but fewer than two million spoke Italian and a Sicilian and a Piedmontese could not understand each other’s language. Approximately 75 per cent of the residents could neither read nor write.
National identity continued into the 20th century primarily when the Italian sense of belonging was consolidated even further after World War II, and the news media kept the public informed of the excellence Italians brought to the worlds of sports, culinary pride, music, the arts, education, science, technology and so much more.
Even the Irish proclaim the excellence of the Italians on a daily basis!
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