Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!
When I was in elementary school, it was customary for anyone who didn’t wear green on March 17 to be pinched by their classmates. I made an effort to remember my “something green” every year, but I must have forgotten at least once, since I can recall crying as a seven- or eight-year-old on one Saint Patrick’s Day because some older children had pinched me so hard.
Still, I didn’t let myself dread Saint Patrick’s Day because I knew that John Mullen, my father’s mother’s father, was Irish. When I was a child, I believed he was born in County Cork, but later I learned Cork was where his parents were from. John was born in Tarrytown, New York. I’ve just read that this town on the Hudson River is a fancy place to live, but I doubt that was true in the second half of the nineteenth century, if it was home to recently arrived Irish immigrants like the Mullens.
At some point in his youth, John Mullen made his way south to Monroe, Louisiana, where he became a tailor, married, had children, was widowed, married again, had more children (14 in all, I believe), and died in his late forties. With their father gone, all of his children who were old enough got jobs, either after school or instead of school, and the family carried on. One of John’s daughters was my grandmother, Maude.
All of which goes to show that I’m 6.25% Irish, so perhaps that’s why I received a piece of good news on Saint Patrick’s Day:
Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine nominated Splintered Justice, along with five other mysteries published in 2025, for a Barry award in the category “Best Original Paperback Mystery.” (http://new.deadlypleasures.com/2026/03/16/barry-award-nominations-2026) Readers of the magazine can vote for their favorites between now and September 15, and the winners will be announced on October 22 at Bouchercon. This year, the huge annual mystery readers conference is taking place in Calgary.
Oh, yes. If you read my post last month about Switzerland voting on three initiatives and one referendum, you might find it interesting to know that the initiatives to ensure the country always has “enough” cash, to create a large government fund to fight climate change, and to cut back funding for public television all failed. So did the referendum against a new law that would require married people to pay their income taxes separately rather than as a couple (which has traditionally been a financial disadvantage).
I was against the cash initiative, against cutting funding for public television, and for the law that requires men and women to pay taxes as individuals, whether they are married or not. So I was happy about three out of the four decisions. However, I voted for the climate fund, and it lost by 71% of the vote. At least I could be proud that the city of Bern supported it by 59.4%, more than any other city in Switzerland.
The large picture at the start of this post is of the Old Head Cliffs near Kinsale, County Cork.
Kim Hays 
Congratulations, Kim, on the nomination for your book! And you have an interesting family history!
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Thank you, Dave, for your congratulations on my nomination. As for my family history, I’d say it’s similar to that of many Americans in my generation. Our great-grandparents or even grandparents were desperate immigrants arriving in the US between 1880 and 1920, who worked very hard in harsh conditions to give their children better lives. When their children grew up, most of them did have easier lives, and THEIR children went to college. This is the history of so many Americans that I can’t understand why anyone in the US can hate immigrants. Most of us wouldn’t exist without our forefathers/mothers being immigrants. I have enormous respect for people who can start a new life in a new country, working night and day to support their families.
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So many good points, Kim! My four Eastern European grandparents were among the millions who lived what you described after they arrived in the U.S. around 1910.
In the U.S., white immigrants (and their descendants) are generally more respected than immigrants of color (and their descendants) — which is of course a disgustingly racist view.
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Congratulations! That’s great news, and well deserved! Fingers crossed for the vote.
Thanks for the follow up on your referendums – not a bad result, but disheartening about the environmental fund loss. 😦
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Thanks for the congratulations, Ellen, and for your crossed fingers. As for the climate fund, I knew it was unlikely to pass, but I hoped. I guess the Swiss have to suffer a lot more from drought and floods for people to be willing to spend more money on saving the planet.
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PS – interesting family story, and yes, Tarrytown in those days was solidly working class. It’s relatively far from the City (about 50 miles from Midtown). By today’s standards, with real estate prices in the City being what they are, it is now considered close enough for commuters to have driven house prices way up as an alternative to utterly unaffordable lower Westchester County.
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That’s great to know, Ellen–and I’m impressed that you are familiar with Tarrytown’s history. I figured its proximity (well, relatively speaking) to NYC was why it was so expensive now. Ahhh. I’m so glad I don’t have to commute 100 miles a day, five days a week, to get to work.
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Oh, I really don’t know much about it, but I lived in Westchester for about 25 years, so have a general sense of things there.
Real estate in an around NYC pretty much follows a consistent trajectory – the farther out, the cheaper, but as “in” gets more expensive, “out” becomes a relative term, and towns that people would never have dreamed of commuting from in the 1940s and ’50s become bedroom communities. Do you remember the Dick Van Dyke Show? He commuted from New Rochelle. That was standard commuting distance in the ’50s. Nowadays, much longer commutes are routine. Of course, train service has also expanded in that time, but still, commuting is hell! I spent three hours a day commuting from CT for a while, and it was no fun.
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