By Rhetta Akamatsu

Cats were very highly regarded among the early Irish and even appear among the illustrations in the Book of Kells. They were both loved and feared, for they were believed to be clever, sly and able to see into the future.

Irish superstition held that if a cat stared fixedly at a  person without blinking it foretold sickness or even death but if the person was single, it foretold marriage. I don't know if that is a comment on the Irish attitude toward marriage at the time.

The cat was associated with the Goddess among the Druids and a cat was the companion of the Irosh goddess Brighid.

Unlike in American, even today in Ireland having a black cat cross your path is good luck, and a white cat is bad luck.

In Irish folklore, often cats are evil, but that is because cats were not tamed at the time, and you wou;dn't want to cross a wild Celtic cat!

At any rate, the Irish and cats go way back and it's fitting that Marc and his cats saw fit to provide cats of every nationality with their own Irish drinking songs, Have you bought your cats their copies of Whiskers in the Jar and Irish Drinking Songs for Cat Lovers yet?