Goin’ Whole Hog for St. Pat’s Day Parade

It seems everybody’s a tad Irish this weekend, what with all the shamrocks, shillelaghs and spirits floating around. But if you’re not so lucky, spray your hair green and call yourself O’Somebody or other. Heck, if a green pig can pass, anyone can.

The pig, dubbed Shamhock, a.k.a. Pig O’ My Heart, usually rides in a place of honor in County Ventura’s annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade, just swelling with pride. OK, so the pig’s inflatable and designed to swell. Pride’s pride, after all, and it’s been a long time coming to the Irish, according to Patricia Clark Doerner, local lecturer on early Irish immigrants and a parade founder.

“It used to be considered a real shame to be Irish. They came to this country out of the direst poverty, poorer than the Italian or German immigrant class,” Clark said. “When their descendants looked around and decided their ancestors had done pretty well for themselves, it suddenly became respectable.”

So respectable, in fact, that Californians who claimed Irish ancestry in the 1980 U.S. Census outnumbered those in other states. More than a few boatloads ended up in Ventura County.

“There’s the Oxnard Irish and the Ojai Irish and millions of McGraths,” she said. Clark’s family has been around Ojai since 1869, and she rattles off familiar county names along with tidbits of local history.

The Mitchell brothers, for example, were innkeepers who sold wine by the barrel in 1883 and built the distinctive brick houses in downtown Ventura referred to as the Mitchell Block. John Carr ran the inn at San Buenaventura Mission in 1853 and attributed his brood of five children to the agreeable climate. And the Rev. Patrick J. Grogan was pastor of the mission until he died on St. Patrick’s Day in 1939.

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Which may prove the tenacity of the Irish mind when fixed on a notion, sort of like the one City Councilman Jim Monahan had. One day over lunch he mentioned his idea to Pat Clark, his classmate from the old school at St. Catherine by the Sea Convent.

“Jim said he’d always wanted to have a St. Patrick’s Day parade, and had been talking about it to Bob Pollioni over the years, so I guess I was sort of the catalyst,” Clark recalled. “I said, ‘Heck, let’s do it.’ ”

Monahan and Arnold Hubbard were the original co-chairs, while Pollioni--who became an honorary Irishman to preserve authenticity--was the protocol expert, handling nitty-gritty details, from legal restrictions to parking. Clark’s graduate degree in Anglo/Irish literature from University College in Dublin made her the walking library on culture and customs.

There was little in preparation time and only a few dedicated volunteers for the first parade in 1988. A hodgepodge affair limited to 20 entries, organizers got around the restriction by numbering entries 20A, 20B, 20C--you get the idea.

There wasn’t any grand marshal, but there’s been one every year since, some posthumous--like Arnold Hubbard. He fell ill while judging the ’92 parade floats, ended up in the hospital and later died--on St. Patrick’s Day.

This year’s grand marshal is actor George Kennedy, whose string of movie credits ranges from “Cool Hand Luke” to “Airplane” and the “Naked Gun” capers. Wonder how he feels about sharing billing with a pig, the official parade mascot these days.

So what’s with the pig anyway? Well, it depends on whom and when you ask. Monahan blames it on a committee member who told him there was a tradition somewhere--perhaps it was Dublin, Ireland, or possibly Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.--where the mayor carried a dyed-green pig in the St. Patrick’s Day parade. The idea didn’t appeal to Monahan, who happened to be mayor of Ventura at the time. No way was he carrying a pig, but he conceded that he might be persuaded to push it in a shopping cart.

“We called the animal shelter, told them we wanted to borrow a pig and would be using nontoxic green food coloring on it for the parade,” Monahan recalled. “Not possible,” they said, muttering something about violating the rules of animal rights activists. The story made the wire services and Monahan still gets flack over it.

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The pig idea was dead meat until Tim O’Neil, president of the Downtown Ventura Business Assn., heard about a Santa Barbara company that sold inflatables. Before you could say “ham on rye,” he had formed a committee and raised $2,500. A contest to name the pig ended in a tie and Shamhock, a.k.a. Pig O’My Heart, was born. Well, actually it was inflated.

Sounds like a happy-ending kind of story, but in that first parade year of the pig, 1991, Irish ingenuity was sorely tested.

“The pig had to be kept afloat with a leaf blower attached to a gas-powered generator that produces electricity,” O’Neil said. “But the generator went out right at the start of the parade. The pig began to collapse and everyone was grabbing parts, trying to hold it up. Quite a sight to see.”

Meanwhile, O’Neil jumped off the float and ran around town in search of another generator. By the time he found one, he was $150 poorer. And the parade was over.

Undaunted, organizers blew the pig back up and paraded it down Main Street, led by a police escort: just the pig and the cop and the ragtag remnants of the crowd. But no one really cared because Shamhock had made the cut.

To this day, the parade is more funky than formal, sort of like Santa Barbara’s Solstice or Pasadena’s Doo Dah events. Clark views it as Ventura’s alternative parade and O’Neil would like it to stay that way, but wouldn’t mind seeing more visitors from the eastern part of the county.

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Meanwhile, the crowds get bigger, the parade gets longer and new events are added.

Now there’s an Irish Festival following the parade, so people can keep partying by trekking over to Mission Park on Main Street across from San Buenaventura Mission. The festival came about after Brian Brennan and Maire O’Connell, a pair of classmates from across the sea in Galway, reconnected on California soil.

“Maire and I went to school together in Ireland. She sat in front of me five years in a row, so it’s interesting that we both wound up in Ventura,” Brennan said. “We got together and worked on the music and dance festival to give people something to do after the parade and to experience a bit of the Irish culture.”

Brennan manages the Chart House restaurant when he isn’t overseeing the food and drink concoctions for the festival’s food booths. Maire O’Connell operates the Claddagh School of Irish Dancers, who perform in the parade. You can’t get more authentic than these two.

As if to emphasis his own credentials, Brennan assures you that his accent pops right back after a cup of Guinness. He won’t verify the authenticity of the green pig story, though.

“It’s not a real Irish tradition, rather an Irish/American one,” Brennan said. “Irish folk tend to live with that a little. We give the Yanks their due.”

Did you catch the brogue?

OK, so maybe there’s a bit of blarney in the tale of the pig. Just don’t tell Shamhock. We wouldn’t want to deflate him. Irish pride, don’t you know.

DETAILS

St. Patrick’s Day Parade

Saturday’s schedule:

9 a.m.: Traditional Irish breakfast at Mission Park for early parade-goers.

10 a.m.: Parade begins at San Buenaventura Mission, winds down Main Street to Laurel Street. Grand Marshal George Kennedy will be in the lead, followed by dancers, marching bands, equestrians, famous and infamous celebrities, local and otherwise, and the pig.

11:30 a.m.: Irish Festival at Mission Park featuring music, dancers, Irish storytellers and an authentic Celtic Encampment. Also food, drink and things to buy.

* FYI: Still in a party mood? Ventura Harbor Village continues the St. Patrick celebrations Sunday with “Ireland by the Sea” from noon to 4 p.m. Events will include a Leprechaun Treasure Hunt, Irish clover face painting, food, games, entertainment. Spinnaker Drive at Ventura Harbor Village; call 644-7794 or 652-0887.