My last name typically brings the same reaction on St. Patrick’s Day:

"O’Callaghan? Why, let me guess. You must be … POLISH! Heh heh heh!"

Well, actually, yes — on my mother’s side. But as the "O," the apostrophe and the pesky silent "g" before the "h" bear witness, on my dad’s side, I am Irish through and through.

In the homogenous town in New Jersey where I spent my formative years, the brazen Irishness of my last name meant that every March 17, my classmates looked to me, expecting me to deliver a cornucopia of Irish culture, much the same way the explanation of Judaism fell squarely on the shoulders of Robyn Weisberg and Rebecca Kurzweil each time Hanukkah rolled around. (No pressure, or anything. Just make sure you adequately capture the essence of an entire culture for your classmates, dear.)

Of course, I couldn’t deliver. My family celebrated St. Patrick’s Day with dry soda bread from the local bakery and the almost non-stop playing of my dad’s Irish Rovers album. My sisters and I were not step-dancing dynamos. We weren’t jamming on fiddles into the wee hours or quoting W.B. Yeats.

Although I have recently begun taking Irish dance class from the McGonagle School, I am probably never going to be able to challenge Michael Flatley to a dance-off. (Although I do think I have hope of rocking the headband someday the way he does:)

I am still not a very good representative of Irish culture. By necessity, for one of my first jobs out of college, I learned many Irish legends, my favorite of which was the one about Queen Maeve, a warrior queen who is said to have fashioned knives to the wheels of her cart so she could ride into battle and slice her enemies to ribbons without even getting out of her seat. Even at 13, that story would have been cool.

But once I hit adolescence, I rolled my eyes at my dad’s Rovers’ album. It wasn’t cool. (Neither was I, but, much like practically every 13-year-old on the planet, I desperately wanted to be.) I tried to pretend that I had never sung gleefully along to "Goodbye Mrs. Durkin, I’m sick and tired of workin’." I pretended to know "The Unicorn," the Rovers’ breakout hit, only as its origin as a Shel Silverstein poem. I couldn’t admit to liking the Irish Rovers. That was almost as bad as admitting I looked forward to Family Game Night. The only acknowledgement of St. Patrick’s Day I allowed was to take the traditional "Erin Go Bragh" and use it to torture my older sister, calling her "Erin go bra-less."

Thankfully, I outgrew my aversion to celebrating St. Patrick’s Day. But even so, it’s been years since I heard the Rovers sing on the holiday. I have no idea what became of my father’s dusty old album, and even if I did, don’t have a turntable on which to play it.

Last night, though, I got the urge to hear that old album again. Although my dad’s record was only available in vinyl and long out of print, most of the familiar songs were available on iTunes, released on other CDs. I bought up every one I could find, then burned a CD and drove to work to the familiar accordion, fiddle and guitar.

And you know what? I was wrong. The Rovers are pretty cool. Much cooler than I will ever be.

I couldn’t find my all-time favorite, "Patsy Fagan," but thank goodness for the wonders of YouTube. Check it out, my belated St. Patrick’s Day gift to you.

You’re welcome. And, I am sure, you are also very, very cool.