In honor of St. Pat's Day - show us your Irish walking hats

[Pduck]

I'll go first:

This hat was my father's. It is an honor to wear it now that he's gone.

 

[Goose.]

My very first "real" hat was just that...an Irish hat I picked up in Boston as I was freezing. Sent there for work in 1984 and had no idea how cold cold could be.
Really liked that lid. Alas, long gone.
And while I also worked in Ireland for three months after that, I look back and am disappointed that I never bought another.
But I always will remember that tweed hat of mine fondly.

All The Best...

 

["Skeet" McD]

This hat was my father's. It is an honor to wear it now that he's gone.

And you do it proud: may your father rest in peace! Perhaps you know these songs....they are certainly appropriate. The first was written by an Irish exile in Canada:

The Hat My Father Wore

I'm Paddy Mills the Irish chap, I'm just across the sea,
For singing or for dancing, boys, I think I can please ye;
I can sing or dance with any man as I did in days of yore,
But on St. Patrick's Day I love to wear the hat my father wore.

Oh, it's old but it's beautiful the best you've ever seen,
It has been worn for more than 90 years in that little isle serene;
From my father's great ancestors it descended with a lore,
It's the relic of old decency, it's the hat my father wore.

I bid you all good evening, good luck to you I say,
And when I cross the ocean, I hope for me you'll pray;
For I'm going to my happy home in a place called Ballamoor,
To be welcomed back to Paddy's land with the hat my father wore.

And when I do return again the boys and girls to see,
I hopes with dear old Erin-style you'll kindly welcome me;
The sweet old songs of Paddy's land will cheer me more and more,
And make my Irish heart feel glad with the hat my father wore.

Johnny Burke, St. John's, Newfoundland (1851-1930)

And the OTHER is by that good Irishman, Jean Schwartz, written in 1909 (like most of the songsmiths responsible for the grand old Irish-American tunes of the early 20C, the closest he got to Ireland was sailing by on his way from Vilna to Ellis Island...but that didn't stop the REAL Irishmen--or their descendants--from taking these songs to their hearts, and expressing their love of the Old Country by singing them):

THE HAT ME DEAR AULD FATHER WORE UPON ST. PATRICK'S DAY
"Where did you get that hat?" folks ask me every day.
"Isn't it a nifty one?" I've often heard them say.
"Keep it on. It's funny. Can't you see the people smile?"
It keeps me busy telling them the history of the tile.

CHORUS:
It's the hat my dear old father wore upon St. Patrick's day.
Talk about respect, with his head erect, as he marched along Broadway!
"Not a man in line looked half so fine," my dear old mother used to say,
"As your father did with that old-time lid, upon St. Patrick's day."

I wouldn't trade that hat for anything on earth.
I keep it as a relic of the land of daddy's birth.
A finer skypiece never covered grey-haired silvery locks.
I wouldn't even change it for a Dunlap or a Knox.

CHORUS

Now, here's a good Irish-American--Gene Kelly--doing the song during the vintage years, 1949 to be exact:

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[Tampahound]

Gene Kelly was awesome! I think I like him more than Fred Astaire. Both great in different ways...

 

[St.Ignatz]

OK, so I look a little crazed.

Got it six years ago in Donegal. "Dry clean only"?

 

[Goose.]

...
This hat was my father's. It is an honor to wear it now that he's gone.

Pduck...

Missed that last sentence under your pic.
I am sincerely touched and humbled by that and by Skeet's post. Truly warmed my heart.

Your father did a good job.

Blessings your way Pduck...