March 17, 2021 – There will be plenty of hoops and hoopla as college basketball players play for the pot o’ gold at the end of the March Madness rainbow. It’s the NCAA Men’s and Women’s Basketball championships. Some games are settled by “buzzer beaters” in the last second, and even fractions of a second, of the game. Teams playing today will be hoping for a little luck of the Irish.

Ireland and Northern Ireland

Ireland is a country and an island in Europe. It’s actually two separate countries. Ireland is an independent country. Its capital is Dublin. Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom (UK), which includes England, Scotland and Wales. Its capital is Belfast. The formal name of the United Kingdom is “The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.” Ireland’s history is complicated with hiundreds of years of conflict between two religious entities – the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant Church. But regardless of differences, Ireland is a beautiful country of emerald green fields. 

In the mid 1800s, Ireland suffered from a severe potato famine. Thousands of Irish citizens emigrated and came to the United States. Ireland lost about 25 peccent of its populaton. Those who came to the United State settled in cities along the east coast, including Boston, New York City and Philadelphia. These cities have a high number of residents with Irish roots. According to the 2016 U.S. Census, 32.3 million Americans claim Irish ancestry. And 125,840 foreign-born U.S. residents reported Ireland as their birthplace in the 2016 survey.

Having the luck of the Irish is highly probable in Boston because Boston has the highest percentage of residents claiming Irish ancestry among the 50 most populous metro areas, according to 2015 Census data. Boston is home to the Celtics of the National Basketball Association (NBA).

Ireland
Ireland had a population of 5,011,102, according to a July 2017 estimate by the CIA World Factbook. As an island, Ireland is surrounded by water with the North Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Irish Sea to the east, the Celtic Sea to the south, and the northern part of the English Channel to the north.

According to a 2021 CIA World Factbook estimate, the population of the United Kingdom was about 66 million with Northern Ireland representing 3 percent of the total.

A popular tourist destination in Belfast, Northern Ireland is the Titanic Musem. The RMS Titanic was constructed in Belfast. On its maiden voyage in 1912, it struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean and sank in a matter of minutes. The ship was advertised to be unsinkable but a flaw in the deisgn allowed water to flood multiple compartments below water. The luxury passenger ship was on its way to New York City. Some passengers were rescued by the Carpathia that came to the rescue. More than 2,000 pasengers were on board and about 1,500 of them perished in the tragedy. Many maritme rules were changed because of the Titanic disaster.

Finding a pot ‘o gold
For a very small percentage of college basketball players, they will go on to become professional basketball players earning many pots of gold!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!