The package that came in the mail to the Rev. Tom O’Neill in January was a long time coming.
He already had the sod.
The Rev. Tom O’Neill held Mass recently at San Damiano Chapel at Viterbo University. Dick Riniker photo
Taken from his ancestors’ land in County Mayo near the west coast of Ireland, the chunk of land hangs framed in his home.
And he had the kilt, which he might wear during an international dinner or a soccer match.
So O’Neill, vice president for ministry and mission at Viterbo University, was already Irish.
“Whenever I hear Irish music, the Celtic music, I feel an affinity to it as if there’s a little bit of me that has that in me,” O’Neill said. “It’s hard to explain, but if I hear the minuet or the waltz, I don’t feel my foot tapping or I don’t feel I’m connected to that music. But when I hear Irish music, I feel connected to it, kind of like it’s in my bloodstream.”
Which it is. Fifty percent of his blood is Irish, and 25 percent is Scottish, making him 75 percent Celtic, with 25 percent of French blood rounding him off.
He’s so Irish, he hardly celebrates St. Patrick’s Day. O’Neill, 60, said his cousins in Ireland say the holiday isn’t celebrated there like it is here, where Irish immigrants popularized the holiday like other immigrants have done with their cultural festivals.
“When you have a name like O’Neill, or Thomas Michael Patrick O’Neill,” he said, “you don’t need to be demonstrative about it. You don’t need to wear green or buttons.”
Once in a while, he noted, he does wear socks with shamrocks on them.
He also has taken bagpipe lessons in the past, has a collection of Irish films, has Celtic crosses and a book of Irish blessings in his office, and his birthday is 3/7, which is only a wee bit different from 3/17, St. Patrick’s Day.

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