Saint Patrick's Day.

Saint Patrick's Window.

In the 18^th century, about 1770, there was a fella called John O'Leary in County Cork, Ireland, who had something to do with my existence.

He was married to Kathleen and one day he was caught stealing sheep and was transported to Australia; poor Kathleen had to stay behind and never saw John again.

However, she remarried and I will presume she had some kind of divorce first; although that seems hardly likely.

Divorce wasn't easy in Ireland in the 20^th Century don't mind the 18^th as it took an act of parliament for women to divorce their husbands in those days as Ireland was still governed by the British Crown.

Kathleen became Kathleen O'Sullivan and eventually some way down the line of Sullivans I arrived.

Now was John O'Leary – or was it O'Laoghaire? - hungry when he stole the sheep or was he just a rustler? Was he out drinking the night he stole into the field and made it away with the animal and did he crouch at the side of the field thinking “Will I take it? Will I? Will I?”

Or did he draw up in his horse and cart with a few friends and load them up on to the back of the cart and distribute them to the poor and was then shopped by a customer?

This was before the famine – but he might have been hungry!!

“Will I take it and will I get caught and if I get caught will I be transported which will give life to a load of Sullivans? What's it to be?”

Whatever the reason or the explanation we will never know; the fact is I'm here; I arrived and the actual act of putting his two hands around that animal was the cause of my existence. So I have been giving sheep a sheepish look ever since I found out about this fact.

But poor old John; nobody knows what really happened to him – they might have at one time but that is all forgotten; let's hope he had a wonderful life in Botany Bay.

The Irish Rebellion came about 25 years later and the famine came about 50 years after that so he was just as well living in the sunshine for the rest of his life.

The Rebellion, the famine, and all the other trials and tribulations, made the Irish a strong people and the experience of this produced an extraordinary amount of writers from such a tiny isle.

7 Million people were pared down to 4 million in no time at all and Irish writers, like the Jews, made fun of their rulers and colonists and commented further about their plight; maybe this was the reason 4 Irish writers – and I say again – from such a small country, won the Nobel Prize for Literature; and that's not counting James Joyce, Brendan Behan and a host of others.

So this week celebrate Saint Patrick's Day and think how lucky you are that the Irish are here to amuse, enlighten and maybe even educate you.

I will be doing my one man Irish show at a small private theatre here in Eastcote, Middlesex, so for the rest of this week I will be practicing my guitar to get my fingers nimble for the task – so wish me luck.