The luck of the Irish

I've often wondered where that saying came from. One of these days, I'm going to look it up. One of these days. Being of Irish extraction (my ancestors emigrated to the US in the mid-19th century from County Down in what is these days Northern Ireland (it wasn't then). From what I can tell, some of them were originally from there, and some ended up there having been driven out of mostly likely Scotland. Neither part of the clan struck me as being particularly lucky though. In fact, were I to choose a family motto for a crest we'll never have, I'd choose "If it weren't for bad luck, we'd have no luck at all." Yes, luck plays an enormous role in all our lives, whether we want to admit it or not.

You think I'm exaggerating. Everyone always thinks I'm exaggerating. I'm not. I don't need to. I've told them a thousand times, "I'm not exaggerating" and they still don't believe me. So, how's this? True story:

I don't play the lottery. OK, no big deal, a lot of people don't. I mean, what are your chances of winning the big jackpot. For all of you who aren't real strong on statistics and probability, your chances of picking the six correct numbers out of 49 are less that one in 13,000,000. No, your chance is not non-existant, and some people get lucky, but a lot more than 13,000,000 who play don't. For that reason, I would only play when the jackpot was "worthwhile"; that is, if there was more than 13,000,000 of whatever was being paid out, I'd take my shot. As fate would have it, though, there was series of non-hits as there is from time to time and the jackpot by this time had doubled to almost €26,000,000. I did a couple of quick in-the-head, rule-of-thumb calculations and figured that if I won, I could probably quit my job. I'd have to move, of course, but I wouldn't have to go job-hunting when I did. But that's not the point.

When the results were published, I knew my lottery-playing days were over. I had managed to miss every single number drawn by +/-1 for all six numbers. A 3 was drawn, I had picked a 4; a 15 was drawn, I had a 14, and so it goes, through all six numbers and to make the delight even more complete, the German lottery pulls an extra Super Number to get you the total jackpot and, yes, I missed that by 1 place as well: a 8 was drawn, I had a 9. And so it goes. I'm not a big fan of omens, but to me that was without a doubt the clearest Cosmic When-Are-You-Going-To-Get-It that I had ever seen. There's no such thing as a near-miss. What I had was a near-hit. What are the chances?

Not being a probability guru, I didn't bother trying to figure out what the chances are that you can get seven +/-1 near-hits in two drawings in one session, but I'm guessing it's at least 1 in 13,000,000 or less.

That's my luck, I've got Irish ancestry. Maybe I don't need to look up what the luck of the Irish means. I think I know.