LEWISTON – Montello Elementary School teacher Mike Parker is locally famous for celebrating St. Patrick’s Day.

He didn’t disappoint this year.

Wearing a green jacket, a green cummerbund and a green bow tie with shamrocks, Parker on Thursday was an unofficial ambassador for Ireland. He decorated his room with maps of Ireland, Irish books and lots of green. Names hanging in front of desks were printed in Celtic letters. Desks were covered with shamrock stickers.

Some students were celebrating the holiday for the first time.

Shaima Naji wore her head scarf as always, but on this day it was green. It was green for St. Patrick’s, she said with a smile. Benjamin Doyle sat nearby at his desk wearing oversized green sunglasses with shamrocks and a big, green floppy hat.

Guest fiddler Greg Boardman played Irish jigs and ballads: “Bile Them Cabbage Down,” “The Lark and the Clear Air,” “The Road to Lisdoonvarna” and “The Pig’s Lament.”

Before the last song, Boardman told the class about how his ancestors came to America “after a terrible thing happened in Ireland.”

About 150 years ago, the potato crop failed and potatoes crumbled in the ground. With not enough food, many people became sick and starved. As his great-great-great-grandmother (Boardman was unsure of the exact number of generations) was dying, she told her husband to take their children and sail to America.

During the trip to Boston he died. “My great-great-grandfather was 10½ when his father died on the boat. They were orphans,” Boardman said. An uncle took the children to Rhode Island, where they grew up and prospered.

The story was similar for thousands of people who fled Ireland because they were poor. “This is one of the tunes about that,” Boardman said. “It’s called, ‘Farewell to Ireland.'”

After the song, he explained how music is important to Irish people. The country’s national symbol is a harp, representing music.

Many suffered because they were poor, but the suffering “made them want to play and sing all the more. No matter how poor they were, they always had music.”

Parker has come to own the holiday at Montello. He decorates not only his classroom but halls and stairways. It’s become a tradition, he said.

He does it because he’s Irish, it’s fun and he wants to celebrate the end of winter.

“Green is a symbol of spring coming,” he said. “I hate winter. It’s a lift to everybody at the end of a long, dreary winter to see all the green.”