Raise a St. Patrick's Day glass to 'Wild Bill' Donovan, the greatest Irish American

The Feast of St. Patrick is subdued this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. Touchstone events, such as New York’s parade, were wisely postponed for the first time since 1762.

March 17 is a bigger deal in America than in Ireland. There was no doubt whom the Irish were back home: known and persecuted for their Catholic faith, Celtic ethnicity, Gaelic language (spoken out “beyond the Pale”), and rebel tendencies.

In the United States, it’s different. As English-speaking white Christians, unlike most immigrants, Irish Catholics could assimilate as much or as little as they wished into Anglo-Saxon Protestant America, the predominant culture.