FROM THE ARCHIVES:St Patrick's Day was celebrated in Paris in the 1870s by the anciens Irlandais, the descendants of Irish exiles, as described by The Irish Times's ever energetic Paris correspondent. - JOE JOYCE
For the last fourteen years there has always been a St Patrick’s dinner at Velour’s, where the diners are Frenchmen of Irish descent – ancien Irlandais. This came off as usual on Saturday. Generally the company is more numerous than it was on the present occasion, for the simple reason that the regiments to which the officers who pride in being “ancien Irlandais” belong happen to be away from Paris just at this moment. There were present quite a number of notabilities whom most of you might have vainly addressed in English – Colonel O’Brien, Colonel McDermott, the composer O’Kelly, Count Nugent, Viscount O’Neill de Tyrone and his sons, Dr. O’Loughlin, Mr. John O’Leary, Professor J. P. Leonard and his son – in all twenty-seven. I needn’t say a word about the eatables. Velour’s cuisine is known from San Francisco to Astrakan. But something about the adjuncts of the fete may not be out of place. Various works of art were scattered about in the admirable way that French people can disperse pretty or beautiful things – so that you can’t have the idea that you are in a museum. O’Connell looked down on the company from an elegant encadrement of gold and greenery. The bust of Marshall MacMahon held the place of honour, for of all the anciens Irlandais certainly he is the man who makes the greatest figure in the Europe of the day. Then there were portraits of other distinguished Irishmen – orators and men of the sword and pen, whose names I needn’t take the trouble of setting forth – for every Irishman knows them. When will the names of Curran or Grattan pass away from our memory, or the glory of our great soldiers be forgotten! But the most curious feature of the whole festival consisted in the personality of the anciens Irlandais. French in speech, in manners, in habits of thought – in the very cut of their beards – they showed their Irish origin in their faces as clearly as Marshall MacMahon does or as Marshall O’Donnell did. They have the twinkle of the funny Irish eye, and the trembling muscle of the Irish face that trills so easily when a note of emotion is sounded. The two most un-Irish-looking men in the place were, perhaps, Mr. John O’Leary and Professor Leonard. The first, with his deep brown eye, thoughtful visage, and great beak of a nose, would scarcely pass for a Frenchman, but he might pass for a Greek. But who on earth would ever take Professor Leonard for anything but a Frenchman! He has all that curious frequency of graceful gesture that you find in the Gaul, all the purity of that most delightful of accents which is spoken by educated Parisians, and the head and face which you would expect to see on the shoulders of some devoted Legitimist or of some frantic Republican of the Extreme Left – in short, the head of a sincere, enthusiastic man, such as his native city on the banks of the Lee has produced most plentifully.