The Luck of the Irish
Have you ever wondered about the phrase, “Luck of the Irish”? On Saint Patrick’s Day 2023, I wondered the same question.
Per Irishcentral.com, The phrase “Luck of the Irish” is believed to have originated in America during the 19th-century gold rush years when many Irish people ventured across the Atlantic to find work due to famine in their homeland. At this time, a lot of the successful miners were Irish, and the phrase was used to imply that the miners were finding success purely based on luck, rather than based on intelligence and skill.
In the past few years, I have researched my family history. I found that my mother’s family name, Higgins, is not only English but Irish. My distant grandfather was in America during the time of the revolution. For reasons I do not know, he returned to England. His son a generation later, was migrating back to America, but landed in Dublin. There he met an Irish woman, married, and had a son. It was that son, Thomas Higgins that migrated back to America. They were part of the Irish families that inhabited the Appalachian Mountains in the 1800s. Around the time of the Civil war, they relocated to central Alabama.
As I write this article today, I look out over the same beautiful scenery they saw when they got here. It’s Spring in Alabama. The dogwoods and Ironwoods are blooming. Birds are nesting, daffodils are…
