Vintage Irish St. Patrick's Day Greeting Card with Children, 1900s

What kind of holiday celebration involves children with glassy stares clutching a green flag like tiny nationalist foot soldiers? These unsettlingly chubby-cheeked recruits—the boy in his white jacket and green knickerbockers, the girl draped head to toe in green with a mob cap the size of a small parachute—have the expression of someone who has been told to smile or else. The banner's winged golden harp figure makes clear that enforcing nationalist fervor is precisely what a jolly St. Patrick's Day requires. Signed by artist Ellen Clapsaddle, which is the most aggressively Victorian name imaginable, and captioned with a poem assuring us that 'immortal Green' is the only acceptable color, presumably under penalty of eternal shame. These children are not celebrating a holiday; they are *enforcing* one.