Rose of Tralee

Reading roundup et al.

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Thank you all for your prayers for the mama I wrote about earlier! I don’t have any update — I will let you all know when/if she lets me know.

Otherwise today has been wonderful — autumn cool and sunny and I’m wearing green, which always makes me happy. 🙂

I have some fun things to share from here and there:

I was mentioned by Catholic Hipster Tommy Tighe recently in his The Chimney podcast (Episode 047)! I publish under Katherine Morna Towne because I love my full name, but I always go by Kate (or Sancta Nomina sometimes, which I also love 🙂 ), so it was funny to hear myself mentioned as Katherine Morna Towne. But so cool too! (And really, Grace deserves the kudos, because she was the one who told me the particular factoid that Tommy referenced!)

Ireland’s annual Rose of Tralee International Festival, which seeks to connect “the global Irish Diaspora in an international celebration of Irish culture in Co Kerry, Ireland,” finishes today. The highlight of it is the selection of the International Rose of Tralee — a girl chosen from among those representing all the parts of the world that have a concentration of those with Irish ancestry (tonight on live TV!). The names are always amazing — this year there’s:

Dearbhladh (the Abu Dhabi Rose)
Meabh (Armagh) and Meabhdh (Kildare)
Eimear (Derry)
Fainche (Down)
Mairead (Fermanagh)
Sile (Luxembourg)
Fionna (Mayo) and Fiona (Tipperary)
Treasa (Meath)
Aisling (Newcastle/Gateshead) and (Roscommon)
Blathnaid (Scotland)
Niamh (West Meath)

As well as the more manageable Ciara (Arizona), Sheena (Florida), Shannon (New Orleans), Kathleen (Ohio), Brigid (Philadelphia), Erin (South Carolina), and Molly (Western Canada). I also loved seeing Zoe (Donegal), Lorna (Dublin), Caroline (Longford), Petra (Toronto), Genevieve (Tyrone), and all the Marys and Annes: Annmarie (Leitrim), Marie (Limerick), Hannah (New Zealand), Anna (Newfoundland & Labrador), and Anne-Marie (Yorkshire). And all the Kates/Katherines 🙂 : Kate (Laois), Kathleen (Ohio — mentioned previously),  Katie (Sligo), Katherine (Texas). And I haven’t even mentioned everyone! Head on over and check them all out! (And as I’m writing this, the 2016 Rose has been selected: Maggie McEldowney from Chicago! A big congratulations to her!!)

Anyway, I’ve mentioned before that I had the great privilege of being the 2001 New York Rose (and one of you readers let me know that you, too, are a former Rose! So fun! 🌹), and my mom’s been posting pics of my time there on her Instagram (which follows the adventures of Finney the Leprechaun) this past week, so if you want to catch a glimpse of what the festival and I looked like fifteen years ago, see here (a Tralee street [Denny Street?] strung with lights for the parade), here (me signing autographs for the little girls), here (different day, different girls, more autographs), here (me and the Dublin Rose on our parade float — I’m wearing black), here (a mama in the crowd handed me her baby for a photo, one of my favorite moments), here (another of me and Dublin with some lovely bagpipers), here (me onstage with former MC Marty Whelan live on TV), here (the bit from the song The Rose of Tralee that sums up a Rose), and here (today’s my birthday so Mom posted a collage 🎂 — the two in the middle on the bottom are Rose pictures). It was an amazing experience, for sure!

I’ve also been bustling around the blog recently — I set up a Nicknames page where I list all the unusual/offbeat nicknames I’ve heard of or thought of for various names, and I also started a Sancta Nomina Pinterest account for (so far) the consultation posts, birth announcement posts, and my CatholicMom and Nameberry articles — I’m working on pinning them all there. I’m also working on adding the T(h)eresa bit to the Sibling Project page — hopefully I’ll have that added soon.

I think that’s all I have for now — have a wonderful rest of today!! ❤

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Gettin’ my Irish on

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It’s St. Paddy’s Eve, y’all! ❤ 😀 ❤

I’m really excited to be speaking tonight at a dinner for Irish Catholic women on the usage of the name of Mary by the Irish in Ireland and America — I’ll be sharing a little history, a little language, and some really cool names (like my fave Miles that I’m always pushing on all of you!), and the comments you all left on this post were tremendously helpful! Go raibh maith agat! (“Thank you” in Irish!)

One of my college roommates sent me this article, which I thought was pretty great: Irish Names: Here are 17 unusual ones to give your baby by Nameberry cofounder Pamela Redmond Satran. Some of my personal faves are on there, like Emer (one of the co-founders of the student pro-life group at the university I attended in Ireland was Emer, so I have all good feelings for the name) and Nuala and Senan, and I’ve been crushing on recently on Fia/Fiadh. (Kind of reminds me of Fiat … hmmm …)

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, I’ve also got a special treat lined up tomorrow — a bonus consultation for an Irish name for the seventh baby/sixth boy of this mama colleen (who’s an actual Mama Colleen)! I can’t wait! I’m also totally cracking up over the in-utero nickname she says they have for the Little Mister:

“Enda Dunn. It’s an Irish name that means “Mom and Dad are really, really tired.” 🙂 “

Finally, I think you’ll probably all enjoy this article: Staunchly defending second-hand blarney. It’s an Irish Times piece from 2001, when I was the New York Rose in the Rose of Tralee Festival in Tralee, Co. Kerry, Ireland, and while it doesn’t paint the greatest picture of the Festival (the author was definitely snarky before snarky was even a word), it says quite nice things about me. 🙂 I was doing some paperwork this morning and came across it and it made me laugh out loud. 😀 (I’ve actually tried to figure out who the author was, so I can thank him — he says some of the nicest things about me anyone’s ever said. Am I just missing his name? Can anyone help me out?)

If you’re finding all this greeny green tiresome already, I apologize, because I’m kind of a handful about all this. 😀 But if you love all things Irish as I do, be sure to look back over my old posts tagged “Irish names” and I ‘ll even repost this video, because I love it:

And for all of you who love to read to your little ones, check out Finney the Leprechaun and his faith-filled story-rhymes (the drawing of the church in this post may or may not have been drawn by my oldest boy ((proud mama face)) ).

That’s all I have for now, but I’m not promising I won’t be back again later today with more! We’ll see! 😉